Blind black man says he was victim of 'barbaric' arrest in Nelson Mandela Park

What started out as a casual evening in a Côte-des-Neiges Park ended in allegations of police brutality, assaulting an officer and calls for an inquiry into the systemic harassment of black people in Nelson Mandela Park

​Vacqueth Stevenson, a 54-year-old black and blind man, was listening to music on his small speakers the night of May 23 with friends when he was approached by two police officers.

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Stevenson said they asked him to turn down the music. He says he complied.

He was about to leave the park when a male officer asked him for ID. Next thing he knew, he says they were violently arresting him.

"The officer put my hands behind me," Stevenson said.

"He was pressing on my finger, and I said 'Stop breaking my finger, stop breaking my finger,' and he keep breaking it."

Stevenson said he heard people scream, "He's blind! He's blind!" but despite their pleas, he was taken to a nearby police station.

Now, Stevenson says, he feels horrible pain in his fingers and wrist and suffered a contusion to his skull.

"To me, it's not civilized, and it's a kind of barbaric style. It is very bad what they did to me, and I hope they won't do it to anyone else," he said.

Stevenson received a $149 ticket for making noise with sound equipment and was charged with assaulting a police officer.

Stevenson hit officer in the head, police say

Cmdr. Mohamed Bouhdid, the head of Station 26, the neighbourhood police station where Stevenson was charged, said the use of force was justified because the 54-year-old hit one of the officers in the head.

"So, of course, they had to arrest him and control him," Bouhdid said.

That led to Stevenson's criminal charge.

We do have many calls for noise problems in that specific part of the park, and it's not a racial matter at all — it's a noise matter.- Cmdr. Mohamed Bouhdid, head of Police Station 26

Bouhdid said police officers initially approached Stevenson and his friends because they received a noise complaint. Later they realized that Stevenson and others were also drinking alcohol.

He said the officers didn't know Stevenson was blind because they saw him walking away with a bike.

Noise matter or race matter?

For Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, the fact that Stevenson is black stands out.

"It's so ironic," Niemi said. "The park is named after Nelson Mandela, and here you have a black man in his 50s who is blind and is being treated with such excessive force and ends up with a criminal charge."

Niemi wants the new bureau for independent investigations into police interventions (BEI) to look into the case.

He's also pushing for a wider inquiry on whether there is systematic police harassment of black people in the park.

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Bouhdid said Stevenson was free to file a complaint with the police if he felt he was treated unfairly, but he insists  the arrest wasn't racially motivated.

"We do have many calls for noise problems in that specific part of the park, and it's not a racial matter at all — it's a noise matter.

Stevenson is set to appear in court July 26.