Confronting a Killer Cop: this Wednesday, February 3rd in Montreal

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from The Jean-Loup Lapointe Welcoming Committee:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
12:30pm-1pm
Palais de Justice de Montreal
corner of St-Laurent and St-Antoine

The Coalition Against Police Abuse and Repression is organizing a 30-minute gathering at 12:30pm sharp at the exit of Montreal's Court House (corner of St-Antoine and St-Laurent). Jean-Loup Lapointe, who shot four bullets at unarmed youth, killiing Fredy Villaneuva and severely injuring two other youths, will be testifying.

If you can, please attend the hearing in room 5,15 from 9:30am onwards. Please come with very few items in your pockets because you will be searched by the Court House security services. After the lunch break, the hearing will resume at 2pm.

The committee explains:

Jean-Loup Lapointe: Fredy’s executioner

Executioners still exist, but they’ve changed their appearance.

During the Middle Ages executioners did their dirty deeds in front of an impotent crowd. They didn’t decide who they would execute, or for what reasons, and that’s why we couldn’t hold them responsible for their death tolls. They also wore masks to hide their identities, and carried a weapon to protect them from the people. Their impunity was complete.

Today, it’s police officers that are modern-day executioners. They wear a blue uniform and carry guns – with bullets or electric shocks. They also enjoy impunity, but they don’t need a mask. They don’t need a judge either, nor a king or a Committee of Public Safety to decree the death penalty. No, these days it’s simple constables who’ve taken over. And with a bang, another death!

On August 9, 2008, Fredy Villaneuva, 18, was killed by Jean-Loup Lapointe’s bullets, but the courts prevent us from showing you the face of this killer cop. Jean-Loup doesn’t even need a mask to hide because the entire court machinery makes sure that the public won’t recognize him on the street and judge him at sight.

A cop that kills a youth and wounds two others by shooting at unarmed individuals should not escape justice. If a civilian had done the same thing, we all know that criminal charges would have been made without delay. What more needs to happen before the SQ decides to undertake a serious investigation, beginning with questioning the two officers involved? But the problem of police investigating police is a predictably incestuous investigation that always defends the interests of the executioners.

The impunity that Jean-Loup enjoys is double: there’s the decision to mask his physical identity that adds to the usual legal whitewash. It all confirms the power of the police to kill -- encouraged by the State that gives Jean-Loup all kinds of privileges. He’s given the right to carry his weapon everywhere, even off-duty. He gets expensive paid lawyers. He gets bodyguards during his public outings. The hangman Lapointe is overprotected, and at our cost.

Police officers have become street judges: they are both judges and executioners since they have the right to summarily kill a suspect. And so the death penalty, supposedly abolished, takes a new form, more arbitrary and insidious. It is hypocritical and protected by the police brotherhood and its long arm. These murders are normalized and the authorities are not ashamed to drag the reputations of the loved ones of the victims into the mud. Police violence is a reflection of social inequality and intolerance that is fed by creating fear in certain neighborhoods. It goes without saying that Jean-Loup would have been less quick to the trigger if he were intervening with young white youth near a tennis court in Outremont.

We refuse to be, once again, an impotent crowd in front of modern-day executioners who kill with impunity. On Wednesday, February 3, let’s welcome the witness Jean-Loup Lapointe who -- one year later -- will be questioned for the first time.