Officer who shot Jimmy Cloutier, 38, was justified in using a firearm, Quebec's office of crown prosecutors said Thursday.
Officer who shot Jimmy Cloutier, 38, was justified in using a firearm, Quebec's office of crown prosecutors said Thursday.
Police at the scene where Jimmy Cloutier, 38, was shot and ultimately killed by an officer near the Old Brewery Mission in 2017.
No charges will be laid against the Montreal police officers involved in the shooting death of Jimmy Cloutier, a homeless man, outside the Old Brewery Mission in January 2017, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, Quebec’s office of crown prosecutors, announced on Thursday.
Based on the investigation by the province’s independent Investigation bureau (BEI), the DPCP concluded the officer who shot Cloutier, 38, was justified in using his or her firearm to protect the officers on the scene, given the chain of events leading up to the shooting.
The incident began around 2:45 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2017, when Cloutier, armed with a knife, allegedly entered the weight room at the YMCA inside the Complexe Guy Favreau, walked up to another man and stabbed him in the neck.
Police were called immediately. Having been given the name and description of the suspect, three police officers headed toward the homeless shelter on St-Laurent Blvd., where they believed they might find him.
Upon their arrival, they saw a man matching the description leaving the building. According to the DPCP, police called out to him and he turned around.
The suspect then threw down his cup of coffee and immediately reached his hands in his pockets and pulled out a knife. He started to gesticulate and insult the police, who ordered him to drop his knife.
Cloutier did not obey. While the police called for a Taser gun to be brought to the scene, the suspect headed toward an alleyway at the back of the shelter. Two of the police officers followed him on foot, while the third followed in a car.
The man walked down the alleyway toward St-Laurent, which was busy at that hour, the DPCP notes. The police on foot followed close behind, calling after him, when suddenly he turned around and ran toward them with the knife in hand pointed toward one of the officers.
The other officer then fired two shots at Cloutier, who collapsed on the ground. The Taser gun had still not arrived.
Police officers began to administer CPR, and were then replaced by ambulance technicians. Cloutier was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead at 3:22 p.m.
In its report, the DPCP notes that police are authorized to use force to protect their own or others’ safety. In this case, it was reasonable for them to use deadly force to protect themselves from serious harm or death, the DPCP concluded.
“Police often find themselves in situations where they must quickly make difficult decisions. In this context, we cannot ask them to measure the necessary degree of force with precision. The intervention was legal because it was founded on the officer’s duty to ensure public safety.”
The report does not name either the officers involved or Cloutier.
But reports at the time of the incident confirmed that it was in fact Jimmy Cloutier who was killed by police. In a statement made seven days after the shooting, the Old Brewery Mission described Cloutier as a man with a chronic mental health condition who had been a client of the shelter for 11 years. Cloutier was taking steps to improve his life, read the statement, taking computer classes and successfully completing a two-year residential program run in partnership with the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.
“Over the 11 years he used our services, there were ups and downs — but never an incident.”
Reached Thursday, the Old Brewery Mission’s CEO, Matthew Pearce, said he could not comment on the evidence or the justice of the DPCP’s decision. But his thoughts went to Cloutier, and to his family members “who reacted with such pain to the death of their son, the death of their brother.”
Why didn’t police have Taser guns in the trunk of their car? Pearce wondered, adding that Cloutier was the fourth homeless person killed by police in about five years.
But Cloutier’s death in particular has led to improvements in the way police interact with homeless people and people with mental health issues, Pearce said. The Old Brewery Mission has since trained 700 police officers and now trains all police recruits in the techniques of de-escalation.
“Had these techniques been implemented when police came to get Jimmy, he would still be alive today,” Pear.