{"id":106730,"date":"2017-07-03T00:38:59","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T04:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=106730"},"modified":"2017-07-03T00:38:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-03T04:38:59","slug":"black-activists-hold-protest-in-response-to-fatal-police-shooting-in-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/07\/03\/black-activists-hold-protest-in-response-to-fatal-police-shooting-in-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Black activists hold protest in response to fatal police shooting in Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FblacklivesmatterTO%2Fvideos%2F682916171903876%2F&amp;show_text=1&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"606\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>MONTREAL\u2014Police should have no role in responding to mental health crises, activist groups said in response to last week last week&#8217;s police shooting of a Montreal man.<\/p>\n<p>About 200 people, including representatives from the Montreal and Toronto chapters of the group Black Lives Matter, attended a protest Sunday in front of the apartment where Pierre Coriolan was shot.<\/p>\n<p>They then marched through downtown, where photos posted on social media showed them climbing onto a stage at Montreal&#8217;s International Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n<p>Quebec&#8217;s police watchdog says they believe Coriolan, 58, was distressed and holding a screwdriver in each hand when police arrived at his apartment last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>According to the watchdog&#8217;s account, police first used a Taser and rubber bullets on Coriolan but eventually drew their service weapons when those methods failed to subdue him.<\/p>\n<p>Coriolan died in hospital after he was struck by several bullets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolice should not be the first to intervene in mental health crises,\u201d spokeswoman Venetta Gordon told the cheering group at the vigil.<\/p>\n<p>Following the vigil, the black-clad protesters marched downtown while chanting \u201cBlack lives matter!\u201d The also carried signs bearing the name of people who died following police interventions.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal police said there were no arrests.<\/p>\n<p>Janaya Khan, who attended the march on behalf of Black Lives Matter&#8217;s Toronto chapter, said Coriolan&#8217;s death is part of a pattern of police violence against people who are black or mentally ill.<\/p>\n<p>She pointed out similarities between Coriolan&#8217;s case and that of Andrew Loku, a black Toronto father of five who was holding a hammer when he was shot by police in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolice were called on (Loku) for a noise complaint. He was in crisis. They killed him,\u201d she said in a speech. \u201cPierre&#8217;s story follows along the same lines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last week, an inquest jury ruled Loku&#8217;s case a homicide, a verdict which does not carry any criminal or civil liability. The jury also made 39 recommendations, including several aimed at better training for officers.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the organizers of the Montreal protest released a list of demands that includes government funding for black-specific mental health services.<\/p>\n<p>They also called for the development of a national black mental health strategy, data collection on black people&#8217;s mental health and on their interactions with police, and that the names of the officers who shot Coriolan be released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONTREAL\u2014Police should have no role in responding to mental health crises, activist groups said in response to last week last &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":106731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-morgan-lowrie","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}