Cellphone video taken by an eyewitness that shows the final minutes leading up to police officers shooting and killing 58-year-old Pierre Coriolan last June has the man's family and a community activist asking why police acted as they did.
Coriolan, who was black, was shot and killed in the hallway outside his apartment on June 27, 2017. Officers were responding to complaints that Coriolan was smashing things and yelling inside his apartment on Robillard Avenue near Saint-André Street in Montreal's Gay Village.
The four-minute cellphone video was turned over to Coriolan's family by one of his neighbours.
Community activist and former RCMP officer Will Prosper, who is working with Coriolan's family, showed CBC the video Thursday. The family plans to make it public at a news conference later this morning.
Community activist and former RCMP officer Will Prosper, seen here in March 2016, says there are unanswered questions about why police acted as they did, responding to a noise disturbance: 'The only thing Pierre was threatening was his own apartment. He was not a threat to anybody else.' (CBC)
Chaotic scene
CBC has viewed the video, which shows a chaotic scene in the hallway of the apartment building as officers use plastic bullets, an electronic stun gun, then their service revolvers to subdue Coriolan, who appears to be armed with either a knife or a screwdriver.
Quebec's Independent Investigations Bureau (BEI) is still looking into the shooting.
The BEI said in a statement at the time of the shooting that police first received 911 calls about Coriolan making noise in his apartment at 7 p.m. ET.
The video recording starts at 7:30 p.m. It's not clear how long officers had been on the scene before the recording began or what interactions they had already had with Coriolan.
'Take the other shot!'
For the first five seconds of the video, there's no image, only sound. You can hear what appears to be a gun firing a plastic bullet, followed by the crackling of an electronic stun gun.
You can then see five officers, weapons drawn, their backs to the camera, crowded into a narrow hallway. Other officers off-camera can be heard yelling around a corner in the hallway.
Eight seconds into the video, Coriolan comes into frame, appearing to exit his apartment and head toward the officers, who are only a few metres in front of him.
'If they had taken the time, Pierre would still be alive today.' - Former RCMP officer and community activist, Will Prosper
At that point, the neighbour filming the events ducks briefly into his apartment, so the image is obscured, but you can clearly hear two or three gunshots.
Then the camera focuses back on the hallway. An officer yells, "À terre!" ("Hit the ground!")
Coriolan can be seen on his knees, with four officers now visible, still pointing weapons at him. He can be heard yelling, in French, "Pas capable" ("I can't.")
Then one of the officersis heard asking a colleague in French, "Do you have another shot?" After an unintelligible response, the officer yells, "Take the other shot."
Two shots then ring out, although it's not clear if police discharge plastic bullets or live ammunition.
Coriolan collapses on the ground. He's lying around a corner in the hallway, so his torso is out of frame. Only his legs are visible. One of them twitches. An officer yells, "Knife."
All this takes about 45 seconds.
Pierre Coriolan's shooting death after police were called to his apartment to investigate a noise disturbance sparked this protest near his home in Montreal's Gay Village on July 2, 2017. (Radio-Canada)
Coriolan, on ground, hit with baton
One officer then approaches Coriolan and kneels beside him, appearing to search for weapons.
Another officer then approaches Coriolan and extends a telescopic baton, swinging twice, hard, toward his arm.
Coriolan grunts in pain.
The officers lower their weapons, and one of them is heard speaking into his radio, saying, "A man, possibly injured by gunshot."
The officers are now standing calmly talking to each other.
One says, "It's a screwdriver he had."
Then another officer says, "No, it was a knife."
Then officers are heard saying, "He's injured. He's hit."
The officer kneeling beside Coriolan then tosses aside a weapon taken from his hand, but it's not clear in the video whether it's a knife or a screwdriver.
Coriolan's legs can be seen convulsing as one of the officers says there's blood on his face. One officer says Coriolan is still breathing, and then another officer says, "No, he's not breathing."
The video ends with an officer telling witnesses in the hallway to get back into their apartments.
Coriolan was pronounced dead later that evening in hospital.
The sequence of events matches what the BEI first reported about the incident.
Five days after Pierre Coriolan's fatal shooting by police, Montrealers held a Black Lives Matter protest in his memory. (CBC)
'He was not a threat'
Prosper, the former RCMP officer, told CBC he was in shock and disbelief after first watching the video.
"The first question I asked myself is, 'Why don't you take the time?' There's no rush." Prosper said. "The only thing Pierre was threatening was his own apartment. He was not a threat to anybody else."
"If they had taken the time, Pierre would still be alive today."
Prosper also questioned the lack of communication between the officers and Coriolan. The only time on the video they directly speak to him is when they order him to the ground after he's been shot.
"You see there's no communication, nothing mentioned to him as he's kneeling down. He's not a threat to anybody," Prosper said.
Prosper also asked why it was necessary to hit Coriolan with the telescopic baton to apparently disarm him after he'd already been shot and was on the ground.
Former Montreal police Chief Philippe Pichet told CBC's Daybreak a couple of days after the shooting that more officers would be getting mental health crisis training. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
No comment
Montreal police said Thursday they couldn't comment on the case while it was still under investigation.
A couple of days after last June's shooting, then-police Chief Philippe Pichet told CBC's Daybreak that more officers would be receiving training to deal with situations in which someone is having a mental health crisis.
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