A Montreal police officer has been charged with three offences, including public mischief and mischief causing a disturbance, after an altercation in March at École secondaire Varennes-Mégantic.
CBC News has seen video of the confrontation, which involved a group of teens throwing rocks at police officers during a morning arrest, and the officer can be heard uttering expletives.
In a statement, the Specialized Investigation Section (SIS) says the officer is charged with "public mischief and mischief causing a disturbance, both under section 181.1 of the Criminal Code, and for uttering profane or insulting words, under section 225.1 of the Criminal Code."
The charges have been laid by investigators from the SIS division of the RCMP's National Division.
The officer was previously charged with assault in connection with the incident and sentenced to 20 hours of community service. He was also granted a deferred prosecution agreement by the provincial court in May.
The officer's lawyer, Robert Nadeau, said his client has retained him to represent him and will be ready to enter a plea.
"If we knew about the charges, my client would have taken a different stance, but he's completely innocent of the charges, and I'm going to do everything to prove it," he said.
The incident happened on March 15, at the end of the school year, and involved about 30 teenagers at the time of the arrest.Social media reaction to the weekend’s deadly protests has been measured and sometimes empathetic. But it’s also been racially pointed.
Some see things through the prism of black frustration with police. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza expressed her frustration with the reaction to the violence on Sunday, calling it “over-defensiveness.”
“This reaction has been very over-defensiveness,” Garza said. “In fact, sometimes I don’t even feel like people are getting the message.”
Much of the response has been to say “we should all be allowed to protest,” as Amy Siskind, founder of the activist website AlterNet, told Buzzfeed.
“I’m not going to argue with anyone, I’m an activist and we have the right to protest,” Siskind said. “But I’m so upset with how people are saying ac619d1d87
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