A Montreal man, Brice Dossa, is suing the city’s police force and two of its officers for $125,000 after he was wrongfully arrested and handcuffed last November while getting into his own car by two undercover officers who didn’t identify themselves, then couldn’t find the keys to uncuff Dossa after they realized their mistake.
Part of the incident was captured on cellphone video and shared widely online.
The video shows a clearly frustrated Dossa berating the officers as they finally uncuff him, after he was forced to wait 15 minutes while they located the keys.
“Two police officers with no uniform, no badge, just roughed him, cuffed him and then arrested him because they said it was a stolen car,” Fernando Belton, Dossa’s lawyer, said in an interview with CBC Wednesday.
WATCH | Brice Dossa asks police officers if they handcuffed him because he is Black:
Brice Dossa was detained by Montreal police for the theft of a car that ended up being his own. He then waited in handcuffs for 15 minutes because the officers didn’t have the key to release him.
“It was a really humiliating experience for him,” said Belton.
Montreal police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The allegations have yet to be tested in court.
In a tweet following the incident, Montreal police said the officers believed the car was stolen because they saw damage near the locks typical of stolen cars.
Le SPVM a pris connaissance d’une vidéo diffusée sur les médias sociaux en lien avec une intervention faite par des policiers de Montréal. Immédiatement, nous avons fait des vérifications afin de connaître les circonstances détaillées entourant l’événement. (1/4)
—@SPVM
Police said the officers were in the process of verifying if the car was stolen when they saw Dossa approaching the vehicle, and so they detained him temporarily while they finished their verifications.
CBC was able to independently verify after the incident that Dossa’s car was new and there was no visible damage around the locks.
“We think racial profiling played a role in that arrest, in how fast the arrest went down and how little verification was done before he was arrested,” said Belton.
Dossa diagnosed with PTSD after incident
The lawsuit filed Tuesday names the City of Montreal, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) and two officers, Simon Thibault-Pelletier and Simon Bolduc, as…
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