High-ranking Montreal police officer accuses force of racism in resignation letter

A high-ranking Montreal police officer says racism is a “cancer eating away at the organization” in a resignation letter marking the end of his 30-year career with the force. 

Cmdr. Patrice Vilcéus, a Montrealer of Haitian origin, says there are a few managers in the city’s police force who are affecting the mental health of its members and even causing some to leave. In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press and other media outlets, he wrote that he fought “all forms of unjust exclusion and unfair treatment” during his career. 

“I’ve been careful not to remain a mere observer of racism, racial profiling and social challenges,” he wrote. “My aim has been to break taboos and introduce more nuanced approaches.”

Vilcéus said the Montreal police need to “overcome the resistance of certain managers who defend the status quo with sterile visions, as they prevent the organization from … modernizing in the face of new realities.” He said the force should embrace more diverse perspectives. 

“How can we serve all populations, if some internally are not listened to or respected and are instead discredited?” he wrote. 

Asked about the letter in Quebec City on Wednesday, Public Security Minister François Bonnardel said it was “troubling” and that he had no doubt Vilcéus had lived through “difficult situations,” but he didn’t go further. “I have never believed that there’s systemic racism in the police,” he told reporters.

In a statement, the Montreal police force said it has recently taken a number of steps to better represent the population it serves, including the expansion of a program to recruit “older police officers with diverse experiences.”

“Is everything the (police force) does perfect? No,” the statement reads. “There will always be room for improvement.”

Earlier this month, a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in a class-action lawsuit that racial profiling is a systemic problem in the Montreal police force, and that the city is responsible for profiling committed by its police officers. Justice Dominique Poulin ordered the City of Montreal to pay $5,000 to people arrested without justification and racially profiled. 

The force has also released two reports since 2019 showing that racialized people are disproportionately targeted by police during random street checks. 

“The scientific research commissioned by the (Montreal police) is a flagrant example of this cancer eating away at the organization, and the Superior Court ruling … is the apotheosis,” Vilcéus wrote in his letter. 

However, Vilcéus also said he was retiring “without bitterness,” and he thanked Montreal police Chief Fady Dagher, saying he hoped he will bring about “positive change.” Dagher testified last year during the class-action lawsuit that racial profiling existed within his police force, calling it a “very insidious, very subtle, very underhanded problem.”

Vilcéus was born in Haiti and moved to Montreal at the age of four. He joined the Montreal police in 1994, eventually rising through the ranks to become commander of a unit fighting organized crime. In 2020, following the police killing of George Floyd in the United States, Vilcéus wrote an internal memo to colleagues calling on them to fight racism within the force. 

According to a City of Montreal profile, Vilcéus volunteered his time to help recruit police officers from minority backgrounds. He also introduced the force’s first Black History Month celebration in 2004, and helped organize a tribute to Montreal’s first Black police officer, Édouard Anglade, in 2006. 

This year, he was on loan to the RCMP to contribute to a mission to support police in Haiti. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.