Quebec City police didn't report violent July altercation to police watchdog

Quebec's police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), has launched another investigation into a violent altercation involving a Quebec City police officer — one the police force should have reported but was only brought to light by the civilian who was involved.

 "There's a legal obligation," said BEI spokesperson Guy Lapointe. "That's why, parallel to the investigation itself, the director of the bureau will ask Quebec for explanations and find out what the motives were behind the fact that we weren't notified of that incident on the date it occurred."

Lapointe says a 50-year-old man complained to the BEI in October about an altercation he had with a Quebec City police officer on July 31.      

The BEI says preliminary information provided by the Service de Police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) outlines a confrontation that followed a 9-1-1 call that night in July. The SPVQ says a caller reported a man on Cartier Avenue asked passersby to call police because he feared for his safety.

That man, Bob Welch, had been involved in a dispute in 2020 with roommates which had turned violent. He feared they were lying in wait for him.

After an employee of one of the businesses made the call to 9-1-1 and told him a police officer was waiting for him around the corner, Welch made his way in that direction.

As he was walking toward a police car parked at the intersection of Cartier and Grande Allée, Welch says an officer opened the door of his car and "charged" toward him.

"He tackled me like you do in football," he said.

"As far as I can remember, I backed up a couple steps and then I was already on the ground, my face was pressed against the ground." 

Welch says the officer had both of his knees on his back and he immediately felt a sharp pain in his side, which he says he later found out was from a rib piercing one of his lungs. He passed out.

"When I came to, there were several police officers around me," he said. "One minute I was conscious on the ground, my face pressed down, telling the officer that I was in atrocious pain and asking him to get off of my back. And the next, I was unconscious."

Welch says it was a busy Saturday evening and there were plenty of witnesses around.

"I woke up the next morning in the hospital. I'd been operated on, I had three broken ribs, a perforated lung … I spent a full week in the hospital with a pump in my lung."

The BEI says the first officer who responded to the call ended up in a "physical altercation" with the man. The man was seriously injured and taken to hospital for treatment.

"In this case it was further down the road, a couple months after that we got the information," said Lapointe. "It happens every now and then but it's fairly seldom that we get cases months after the events."

Failure to report

The BEI investigates police interventions whenever a person is seriously injured or killed, or when someone is hurt by a police officer who was using a firearm. The law states the chief of police of the police force involved in any such event must immediately notify the BEI.

Lapointe says police chiefs who have failed to report incidents in the past have received warning letters reminding them they have a duty to inform the bureau of violent arrests or detentions that meet the criteria for investigation. He says the harshest punishment that can be handed out is a fine.

Lapointe says this investigation is not at all related to four other videos of violent police interventions in Quebec City that have recently been grabbing headlines.

"It's a totally different situation. In this case it's really an investigation that meets [our] criteria, and the other two investigations that we announced yesterday were given to us by the [Public Security] Minister [Geneviève Guilbault]."

Lapointe says the BEI obtained a copy of the man's medical records and reached out to the SPVQ shortly after they received the complaint.

After verifying all of the information over the past month, the BEI decided an independent inquiry was warranted. He says four BEI officers set out to Quebec City today to start their investigation.

"We're going to get a more elaborate version of the events from civilians," he said. "We're going to read the police reports, listen to the 9-1-1 call or any other information that we can get our hands on that's going to help us figure out exactly what the sequence of events was."

Welch says he hopes the investigation will give him some closure.

"I just want justice," he said, "I just want the truth to be known."