PortandTerminal.com, June 7, 2020

At the exact hour George Floyd lay dying on May 25 in Minneapolis, an officer in Quebec pulled a man out of his car by his dreadlocks and beat him while he was on the ground.

MONTREAL, QUEBEC – A disturbing video from Canada that shows police officers in Quebec yanking a Black man out of a vehicle by his hair and then striking him on the head has gone viral.

The incident, which took place in Laval and within an hour of the killing by police of George Floyd on May 25, is split into two separate, minute-long videos, both in French. In the first, an officer leans over the passenger side window to confront the Black man, who is in his 20s.

The officer asks the passenger to exit the vehicle, so the passenger asks, “Why?”

“For obstruction and a police investigation,” the officer says.

A short back-and-forth ensues, with the passenger visibly perplexed. The officer refuses to offer details and then forcefully grabs the man’s dreadlocks and pulls him out of the car.

“The Laval police service does not have a racial profiling problem,”
Sgt. Geneviève Major, Police Spokesperson

The second video shows two police officers standing over the man—who is now contorted, face down on the ground—as they detain him, with the first officer hitting the man on the head at one point.

Screams can be heard during the video, first reported by CBC News.

Laval police did not respond to VICE requests for comment by the time of publication. But the force told CBC it does not have a “racial-profiling problem.”

Police spokesperson Sgt. Geneviève Major said the police stopped the car for erratic driving and asked the man to exit the vehicle because they suspected he had drugs inside.

“The Laval police service does not have a racial profiling problem,” said police spokesperson Sgt. Geneviève Major, pointing to the fact there were eight racial-profiling complaints against the Laval police service in 2019, and Laval police respond to about 150,000 calls per year.

Laval police do not collect race-based data on police interactions and have no immediate plans to do so, Major said.

“Any individual with that same behaviour would have gotten the same treatment by the police officers,” she said.

there's a peaceful march against police brutality scheduled for sunday because

"there's no systemic discrimination," legault said… "no system in quebec of discrimination"

so, no need to protest it

…as a white man he would know#montrealprotests https://t.co/jX2ObDDu8F
— ara sauvage (@AraSauvage) June 7, 2020