Montreal Coroner Cites Police Racism
Ingrained racism in Montreal’s police force was at the root of the fatal shooting last summer of an unarmed 24-year-old black man, a Quebec coroner said Thursday.
Marcellus Francois, a native of St. Lucia, was shot in the head last July 3 by a veteran white officer who mistook him for a suspect in a murder inquiry.
“If the institutional deficiencies brought to light during this inquest are not corrected, more errors and more deaths may well occur,” coroner Harvey Yarosky said.
The coroner’s report was issued only days after disturbances erupted in Toronto after police killed a suspected Jamaican drug dealer, heightening concerns among Canadians who had looked with horror on the racial violence in Los Angeles last week.
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