A 23-year-old man and his mother are alleging racial profiling, abuse of power and excessive force by Montreal police after he was stopped while driving earlier this month.
The family is seeking answers from authorities after they say the aspiring professional football player was handcuffed and wrongfully ticketed in the city’s north end.
“I feel really bad. I feel humiliated because I’m not that type of person,” Jeff Guervil, who is Black, told reporters while detailing the allegations Tuesday. “I’m a good person.”
The incident occurred around 7 p.m. on Aug. 12 while Guervil, who is a linebacker, was driving to a football game.
“When I was driving, a police car saw me and when I came in front of him, he saw me and he intercepted me,” Guervil said.
Guervil alleges says he was asked for a piece of identification so he handed the police officer his insurance papers and a temporary document issued by Quebec’s automobile insurance board, known as the SAAQ.
Due to unspecified technical problems at the SAAQ, Guervil had a temporary document from the provincial office to attest to his right to drive the car.
Guervil says he waited for 30 minutes and managed to call his mother when a police officer came back and requested he get out of the car “because my licence might be false.”.
“They took me and they pushed me,” he said.
Guervil says that’s when he was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car.
“They were so tight on my hands. I wasn’t feeling my hands,” he said of the handcuffs.
Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), a civil rights advocacy group, says police placed Guervil “under arrest, without explaining why he was arrested and handcuffed.”
When Guervil’s mother, Sheila Dragon, arrived, she began filming the incident on her phone. There were about four or five police cars at the scene, she said.
After waiting for nearly an hour, Guervil was given a $1,076 ticket for driving without a licence and he faces a criminal charge of obstruction.
“To this day he still doesn’t know why because he still doesn’t know why he was arrested in the first place,” Niemi said.
The vehicle was also impounded. The SAAQ sent a letter to Guervil the following day, saying his car should not have been impounded and could be picked up.
“Since then, we have found that this seizure should not have been made and we have cancelled it. We therefore authorize you to recover your vehicle today at no cost,” the letter from Aug. 13 reads.
Meanwhile, Guervil’s mother was allegedly fined $50 for jaywalking while she was recording the incident on her phone.
The family believes police tried to contact them by phone and in person the following day, but they were too scared to answer the door or calls from an anonymous number.
Guervil dreams of playing professional football in the United States, but the fallout from the arrest could put that on ice.
“Having a criminal charge or having a criminal record could basically ruin his future,” Niemi said.
The incident has left Guervil and his mother shaken. When describing the allegations, Dragon says what happened to her son is “not normal” and left her feeling “humiliated.”
“I don’t want this situation to happen in the future with other people in Montreal North,” Guervil said.
CRAAR says it plans to challenge the charges in court, as well as report the matter to Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal and the province’s police ethics commission.
Montreal police said they can’t comment on specific interventions “in order to prevent any influence on a potential judicial, ethical or disciplinary process.”
“If a person feels wronged during a police intervention, they can file a complaint with the SPVM or an independent organization,” police said in an email Tuesday. “That being said, we will carry out verifications with the concerned units.”