Fatal fire in Old Montreal: Q&A with SPVM on police investigation

A fatal fire in Old Montreal killed seven people in March and the criminal investigation is ongoing. Montreal police inspector David Shane speaks about the fire and how police have handled the case.

What can you tell us about the investigation so far?

“From day one, our investigators have treated this investigation with the utmost professionalism and they’ve been conducting the investigation from the crime scene and then moving on to different investigative techniques. And in last August, we announced that all accidental causes have been ruled out from the investigation. So it is a criminal investigation. Now every possible infraction is still on the table and the investigators are pursuing it very actively.”

Traces of accelerant were found on the scene and it was deemed criminal in nature. What more can you tell us about that and why did it take several months to figure that out and to reveal that to us?

“As a police organization, before we can confirm information, it really needs to be very thoroughly investigated. So we can’t just give out some insights. We need to prove it. And we needed to conduct analysis. We needed to have the lab, the forensics lab, analyze all the elements that were taken from the crime scene. And so when we conduct an arson investigation, we need to be very, very thorough and we rule out every possible cause one by one. For example, is it an electrical fire? Is it from a cigarette for example? Or in this case, is somebody behind this fire? And so everything that was accidental has been ruled out and now we’re really looking at an individual or individuals who’ve intentionally put the fire.”

What can you tell us about those possible suspects? There haven’t been any arrests in this case?

“No, I cannot tell you more about this because we do not want to interfere with investigation. I know that people want to know more and it’s not that we don’t want to. We’re just not allowed to. And it’s better for an investigation that we do it with the best practices possible.”

What were your initial thoughts given the scale of this crime and dealing with it on a human level?

“It was a huge tragedy, really. And I can recall from my personal account that that 10 days that we were giving interviews and press conferences every morning, personally I slept like four hours or five hours a day. Not more than that. It was very stressful, but it was also very exhilarating to be able to have an impact on the families. And to this day, the families are the reason why the investigators give their all out, all the police officers, all the civilian employees employed. And the same thing for myself. I was doing it for the families. So anytime we had to go in front of the camera, we would meet with investigators, we’d do a roundup to see where we’re at, what can we say, what cannot we say. And if we identified a victim, that was probably the worst part of it, was having to give a name out. We did that thoroughly with the coroner in charge, Géhane Kamel. And when we had to say that, you know that everybody’s listening to you. You don’t want to misspell, you don’t want to missay the name, and you know it’s very tragic. And so with the team, we came over with this idea to livestream it fully and be able to listen to it, you know, going a few days back. And that was really appreciated and the coroner and the families that confirmed that. So we’re happy to have that impact in this human tragedy.”