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Ceremony held to remember boy killed in Montreal biker wars 20 years ago

In this file photo, the mother of car bomb victim Daniel Desrochers is comforted by a family member during Daniel's funeral on Thursday Aug. 17, 1995. Robert Galbraith / The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – A ceremony commemorating the 20 year anniversary of Daniel Desrochers’ death was held in a school yard in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve Sunday morning.

Twenty years ago today, the biker wars playing out on Montreal streets made an innocent victim — Daniel Desrochers.

The 11-year-old boy had been playing with a friend in front of the Saint-Nom-de-Jésus Church in Hochlaga-Maisonneuve when a car bomb went off.

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Desrochers was hit in the head with shrapnel from the explosion and died of his injuries four days later.

The accident caused a public outcry, and a special squad dubbed Carcajou was put in place to deal with the escalating turf war between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine.

Josée-Anne Desrochers, the boy’s mother, started a crusade against criminal biker gangs. She died in 2005 from pneumonia at the age of 40.

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The car bomb killed Marc Dube and injured another passenger in the parked car, but they were not the intended targets. The perpetrators of the attack are unknown.

With Files from La Presse Canadienne

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