Who Gets The Montreal Police Contract To Provide The Donuts?

Montreal Police Defend Food Contract -- The Montreal Gazette

Won by sole bidder; Firm pays no royalties or rent to run cafeteria.

When Montreal police put out a call to find a food and catering provider to run the cafeteria at their headquarters this summer, only one company served up an offer.

While the cash-strapped force cut dozens of temporary officers, left 60 permanent positions unfilled and scaled back on overtime to chop $13.85 million out of its budget this year, Servibec Inc. will conduct business rent-free and pay nothing to the police as it sells food and drinks at a cafeteria snack counter and operates vending machines at the department's St. Urbain St. headquarters.

The city will pay for maintenance and electricity.

Read more ....

My Comment: Sole bidder .... no overhead costs from the space that is being used .... good contract if you can get it.

Montreal Police Chief Accused Of Partisan Politics

From The CBC:

Montreal's opposition leader is accusing the city's police chief of playing partisan politics in the midst of a municipal campaign, after a letter praising the current administration was sent out to the force's ranks.

Benoît Labonté said it was "totally inappropriate" for police Chief Yvan Delorme to laud Mayor Gérald Tremblay's administration in a letter he sent out to Montreal's 7,000 officers and supervisors last week.

Read more ....

My Comment: The Police Chief is over stepping his boundaries.

Montreal Police Officer Arraigned

Montreal Detective Mario Lambert Arraigned -- Montreal Gazette

Accused of accessing police computers to sell data to criminals.

MONTREAL – Montreal homicide detective Mario Lambert will be back in court Dec. 15, after being arraigned Tuesday on three counts of fraudulently using the force’s computer to glean personal information and pass it on to criminals.

Lambert, 42, didn’t appear in court, apparently because of health problems, but was represented by his lawyer, Richard Masson.

Read more ....

Update: Detective accused of feeding info to criminals -- CTV

Montreal Police Trading Cards A Hit With Kids

Montreal police Constable André Leclerc hands out trading cards to 7-year-old Austin (left) and 9-year-old Gregory Baron during visit to Sun Youth Day Camp on July 13, 2009. Photograph by: Allen McInnis, The Gazette

From The Montreal Gazette:

MONTREAL - "I like police officers because they like bears," Logan White-Francis, 10, said Monday, as he pocketed a Montreal police trading card with a photo of Flik, the goofy, bear-like police mascot, on it.

“And also because they like doughnuts.”

The cop cards, which depict various aspects of police work, are meant to be collected like iconic athlete trading cards, and leave kids with tangible proof right in their palms that cops are cool.

Read more ....

Andros, Robot: Bomb-Sniffing Machine That Has Saved Many Lives Faces The Scrap Heap

Senior Constable Bruno Beaudin steers the bomb-detecting robot, Andros, out of the police transport truck. Photograph by: Dave Sidaway, The Gazette

From The Montreal Gazette:

With its three battle scarred "eyes," Montreal's sole police bomb-detecting robot has seen up close some of the city's most malevolent and anxiety-producing events.

Nicknamed Andros, the washing machine-sized robot has been on hundreds of calls about suspicious packages since 1995. That's when it replaced a police robot that blew up while handling explosives that were a product of Quebec's biker gang wars.

The $160,000, 270-kilogram Andros, made mostly of aluminum, has a preying mantis-like arm that can stretch more than three metres and drag a lightweight body. Police control it remotely to X-ray packages and safely dismantle them, often ripping them apart with water cannons without detonating explosives that might be inside.

Read more ....

Urban Brigade To Police Festivals

From The Montreal Gazette:

With a host of summer festival's about to begin, Montreal police have created an urban brigade dedicated to ensuring the events are safe and secure.

The police department launched the brigade yesterday at a ceremony in front of Place des Arts that featured its mounted corps, police on bicycles and electric three-wheelers, and 82 police cadets.

All have volunteered to serve on the brigade, a pilot project headed this year by Commander Roxane Pitre.

Read more ....

Traffic Tickets Rise As Montreal Police Up Quota

From CTV:

People have suspected for many years that police officers do indeed have quotas for issuing traffic tickets. Cynics say that the practice is nothing more than a cash grab for local governments.

And now, the Montreal Police union is saying it's true: police in Montreal have a minimum amount of tickets to issue everyday.

In fact, the Montreal Police Brotherhood says officers were recently told by their superiors to start issuing 28 tickets a day -- up from their last daily quota of 18.

Read more ....

Montreal Police Force Facing Staffing Issues

From CTV News:

Faced with budget cuts of $14 million, the Montreal police force is making staffing adjustments to ensure there are enough officers patrolling the city this summer.

The police department will not be hiring any new staff this spring, which means a number of officers who have been taking care of administrative tasks in offices will be reassigned to patrolling the streets in the coming months.

Read more ....

Montreal Police Put Away Pajamas, Camouflage Pants After Deal Struck

Photo: Police took to wearing camo pants on the job in the summer of 2008. (CBC)

From The CBC:

Montreal police are hanging up their camouflage pants after reaching a deal to settle their contract dispute through arbitration.

Officers have been wearing red caps, camo pants, jeans and sometimes pyjamas since last summer as a pressure tactic in their ongoing labour dispute with the City of Montreal.

The union representing officers — the Police Brotherhood — has agreed to settle the dispute with binding retroactive arbitration covering the time period elapsed since the force's contract expired in January 2007.

Read more ....

Quebec Experiments With Photo Radar

This low-tech-looking photo radar is the star in a pilot project by the Quebec government to get drivers to slow down.(Feb. 23, 2009)

From The CBC:

Cameras will be located in Montreal, Montérégie and Chaudière-Appalaches

The Quebec government is trying out photo radar and red light cameras at 15 locations across the province in an effort to break the bad habits of some drivers.

As part of an 18-month pilot project, the cameras will be operating at some of the most dangerous trouble spots on urban and rural roads in Montreal and the Montérégie and Chaudière-Appalaches regions.

Six red light cameras, six fixed photo radar units, and three mobile photo radar units will be used.

Transport Minister Julie Boulet said it's time Quebec joined other provinces such as Alberta in using technology as a tool to fight poor driving.

"Road safety is a priority for this government. We will spare no effort. We are convinced that this project has the potential to become a major way to reach our objective of improving road safety and saving lives," Boulet said Tuesday.

Read more ....

Update: New photo radar pilot project in Quebec -- CTV

Villanueva Family Takes Part In Montreal North Protest

Lilian, Fredy Villanauva's mother, led a group of protesters through
the streets of Montreal North on Saturday, Feb. 7.

From CTV:

A group of protesters gathered Saturday afternoon at the park in Montreal North where Fredy Villanueva was killed last summer.

Led by Villanueva's family members, the group walked peacefully through the neighbourhood's streets, chanting for "truth" and "justice".

The demonstrators marched all the way to the riding office of their local MNA, Line Beauchamp.

They called for the Quebec government to cover the legal fees of the witnesses who have been called to testify at the public inquiry into the 18-year-old's death.

Read more ...

Montreal Police Working Under Protest

Montreal police continuing to take part in a uniform protest Sept. 27, 2008 as a pressure tactic on the city for better pay and working conditions.

Wearing Their Protest In Public -- Toronto Star

With no right to strike, Montreal police attire themselves in anything but regulation uniforms

MONTREAL–To the unknowing eye, like that of a tourist, the reaction is basically, "Huh?"

"We saw them, all in a group, all wearing something different. One had white pants on, with handcuffs painted across his butt," said Elizabeth Reeb, 62, a tourist from Alberta. "I was shocked, but also a bit amused. You don't see police look like that everyday."

"We thought it was weird," echoed her friend Pearl Forsyth, 57, as they prepared to visit Notre Dame Cathedral in old Montreal, "because our police would never do that."

To see a police officer in Montreal these days is to see a strange sight. Officers are wearing just about anything below the belt, except uniform pants, that is. Jeans, track pants, pyjamas, parachute pants, and lots of camouflage, in grey, green, purple, even hot pink.

Read more ....

Update: Race-relations expert worried about image of Mtl cops wearing military-style pants -- Canadian Press

Montreal Officers Can Keep Pants On, Ruling Says

From The Globe And Mail:

MONTREAL -- A labour conflict between Montreal and its police officers has boiled down to pants - specifically, guerrilla-style combat pants.

The city's restive police officers this week resorted to commando chic in their contract dispute with the city. Because the police don't have a legal right to strike, they opted for sartorial pressure tactics.

The move sparked a dispute over whether trousers carry their own innate message. To Montreal and its police chief, the pants are a fashion statement that says "too aggressive."

The city turned to Quebec's essential services council in a bid to get the officers to take the pants off, in their current incarnation.

Read more ....

Camouflage A Bad Look For Montreal Police: Chief

From CBC:

The city of Montreal has called on the Essential Services Council to intervene in its contract dispute with police officers who started wearing camouflage pants this week as a pressure tactic.

Unionized Montreal police officers have been wearing blue jeans and red baseball hats since July as a symbol of their frustration with contract negotiations.

On Monday many officers showed up to work in camouflage pants, a tactic that affects their ability to carry out their jobs, according to police Chief Yvan Delorme.

Wearing camo gear sends the wrong message, given the fragile relations between police and certain communities in the wake of a riot in August, Delorme said.

Officers should not be walking around in camouflage in neighbourhoods with substantial immigrant populations who often “come from totalitarian regimes and military dictators,” he said.

“Authority and respect is reflected in what they wear, and how they look when they show up,” Delorme said in French.

The gesture is provocative and risky because “it puts police officers’ security in peril,” he said.

Montreal police officers have been without a contract for two years.

71 Arrested In Wake Of Mtl. North Riots

From Montreal Gazette:

MONTREAL - A total of 71 persons - 24 of them minors - were arrested in the wake of looting and rioting in north-end Montreal that followed the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by Montreal police, the Montreal Police Department has announced.

And more than half those arrests were carried out thanks to photos of the suspects taken by surveillance cameras during the rioting and then published on the Montreal police website and by local media.

A total of 37 men and 10 women were arrested, while only two of the 24 teenagers tracked down by police were female.

The rioting and pillage occurred overnight Aug. 10-11 in Montreal North and on the evening of Aug. 12 in Rivière des Prairies. The violence broke out after Montreal police shot and killed Fredy Villanueva, 18, while he and friends were in a Montreal North park.

The shooting remains under investigation by the Sûreté du Québec.

Montreal Cops Involved In Teen's Shooting Moved To Desk Duty

From The Montreal Gazette:

MONTREAL - Montreal police have assigned the two officers involved in the shooting death of 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva to administrative duties, pending the results of an inquiry into the incident by the Surete du Quebec.

Montreal police said the reassignment could be prolonged after the inquiry if it's deemed necessary, but wouldn't offer any other details.

A Montreal police spokesman referred all other questions to the SQ, because the provincial police force is handling the inquiry into the fatal shooting in Montreal North on Aug. 9.

Villanueva's death sparked rioting the following night.

The SQ, however, referred the Montreal Gazette back to the Montreal police for answers.

"(The Montreal police brotherhood) is satisfied with the situation," the group's spokesman, Marin Viau, said. "Our point of view is that police officers, like all other workers or citizens, have the right to the presumption of innocence."

Viau said he doesn't think the reassignment makes the officers look guilty.

"We don't know yet what exactly their tasks will be in the coming weeks. At the moment, (the Montreal police) are doing it like this, and eventually, we'll see what happens."

The SQ couldn't say when the inquiry will finish.

Montreal Police Raking It In From Reserved Lane Scofflaws

From CJAD:

When you're sitting in traffic, don't those reserved bus lanes look so tempting?

Don't even think about it.

In the first half of this year, Montreal police handed out nearly 14,000 tickets to people driving along one of the city's forty kilometres of reserved lanes, and a police spokesman says they were never cracking down on that particular infraction; it's just what they got.

It's an average of 57 tickets a day, at $144 a pop.

Inquire Into The Riot Last Month In Montreal's Northend

Villanueva Probe An Improvement: Dauphin
-- Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL - The civilian responsible for Montreal's police department says he's been given no details on the progress of a provincial investigation into a police shooting that sparked a riot in Montreal North last month.

But Claude Dauphin, chairperson of the city executive committee, added that when he finds out what happened in Montreal North on Aug. 9, the day Fredy Villanueva was shot killed by Montreal police, so will the rest of us.

"One thing we're proud of is that the (Quebec public security) minister said the conclusion (of the investigation) would be public," Dauphin told reporters. "This is an improvement when you consider what happened in the past, when you talk about the Bennis affair in 2005 (when Montreal police shot a 25-year-old man who allegedly attacked an officer with a knife) or when you talk about the Registre affair (when a man pulled over for a traffic violation died after being tasered six times by police).

Read more ....

Family Seeks Inquiry Into Death Of Que. Man Tasered 6 Times

From Canada.com:

MONTREAL - Ask Marie-Jesula Registre whether she feels any anger over the fact a police Taser that fires a 50,000-volt charge was used six times on her son Quilem and may have played a role in his death last October and she replies softly, her eyes rimmed with tears.

"I'm a Christian. I don't keep anger in my heart. But this has been devastating blow for myself and our family. He was our only son."

Maria-Jesula, her husband Augustin-Francois and their daughters Francine and Chantal met with reporters Friday after a Quebec coroner added more questions to those the Registre family have had since Quilem's death on Oct. 18.

Read more ....

Montreal Police Seek To Block Inquiry

From Canwest News Service:

Two Montreal police officers involved in the death of Mohamed Anas-Bennis in December 2005 are seeking to block a public inquiry into his shooting. A petition filed in Quebec Superior Court yesterday said the inquiry, ordered by Quebec chief coroner Louise Nolet, was "useless" coming two year's after a coroner's report, and therefore illegal. Const. Yannick Bernier shot Mr. Bennis, who was returning home from a mosque, after they bumped into each other and Mr. Bennis allegedly attacked him with a kitchen knife.

Updates:
Bennis's family Asks, What Do They Have to Hide? -- the Gazette
Montreal police try to block Bennis inquiry -- CBC