Montreal police trying to curb gun violence on social media amid string of shootings

Gun violence is rising in Montreal. Three different shootings erupted over six hours Wednesday evening, all while the police and city maintain Montreal is safe.

The SPVM is now turning it’s attention to prevention when it comes to youth and social media – warning them that what they post online like insults and threats can be a danger and doesn’t shelter them from justice.

“They’re younger when they start using social media, by the time they get to 11, 12, 13, they’re very commonly using it in everyday life and for every purpose and violence. You’ve become a bit numb to the violence that you see and it becomes just a daily thing that is shared between you,” explained Maya Alieh, sergeant-detective, supervisor of cyber crimes unit, Montreal police.

“So we’re seeing a lot of conflict start within there, something that simple as intimidation that can go and escalate to violence. Or just basically when you see guns going around on social media for a 13-year-old, it’s not uncommon any more.”

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“What they’re doing in terms of reminding folks that what you say online, can be held against you in a court of law, so to speak. Good thing. Police are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, which is limited police resources,” explained Alain Babineau, director of racial profiling and public safety, Red Coalition. “But again, it doesn’t mean more cops (are) going to keep the city safer. That’s not going to happen either. So what do you do now? You engage folks that are engaged, that are involved with community groups.”

On Wednesday around 6:10 p.m., in Rivière-des-Prairies, someone in a vehicle opened fire on another car on Perras Boulevard – considered a hot zone for gun violence in the city – with multiple incidents there. No victims or suspects were located.

At 10:30 p.m., shots were fired at a building and a car in downtown Montreal on Maisonneuve Est and Sanguinet, with no reported injuries.

And about an hour later, there were gunshots in Verdun, where a man was hit in the legs – but police do not fear for his life.

“We’ll see guns being sold on social media. Like it’ll be sold on Snapchat or on Instagram, which is something we did not see before,” said Alieh. “So it’s actually the first time we started getting investigations with that.

“We were like, wow, okay, people are not scared to actually post this anymore. And I talk about gun violence. So we do have files where we’ll see a kid being threatened with a gun or we’ll see a clear message of threat from one district or one area to another area where we’ll see guns on the video and we’ll see names of people that are either pointed out or that are meant to be threatened, which is another phenomenon that we did not see before.”

After presenting their 2021 annual report to Montreal’s public security commission Wednesday, the SPVM said social media has been a breeding ground for a lot of this violence and they’d like to invest more in social media investigations to be more present among the youth.

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“I don’t believe that police actually have somebody they’re monitoring 24/7. Everything being said on the Internet is just not humanly possible,” said Ritesh Kotak, cybersecurity and technology analyst.

“Now, there are ways that police do get alerted, similar ways that police get alerted when there’s a physical crime. Somebody sees something, somebody hears something and they pick up the phone and they call 911 or whatever number it is for that local jurisdiction. And police then get police are then have a do have a duty to act.”

However, Babineau – a former RCMP officer – says, “You need to have a dedicated team that was going to do that. And so, you know that the proof will be in the pudding. I mean, you know, policing resources are limited, believe it or not. They’re limited. It’s one of the tools that make sense to use.”

But the police are now also asking the population to take responsibility for their safety and flag what they see on social media.

“There are content moderators on those platforms. There is the ability for members of the public to report a tweet or report a post that might be violent in nature, that might cause harm to a particular individual or community. Those mechanisms already exist. But if you see something and you think that it needs to be reported, then report it,” said Kotak.

The police say they’re trying to curb the violence that’s going on in the streets by keeping a close eye online.

“We are working around the clock. We know about social media. We work on social media. We understand social media. We have very good investigators. And we’re here for, you know, your general citizen that is worried for everyday life,” said Alieh.

Some say the way to fix the problem among youth when it comes to armed violence is through prevention.

“Unfortunately, threatening them is not going to do anything because they’re not afraid of the police. That’s number one. So you want to focus on those at-risk youth, the ones that are on the fringe, that are trusting the community, the social workers, but they don’t trust the police,” explained Babineau. “There is no way that we will – we meaning our society – will police our way out of gun violence. That’s not going to happen. That’s never happened.”