Leon Shand lives by himself in a tiny, one bedroom apartment in Notre-Dame-de-Grace. Confined to a wheelchair for about 20 years now, Shand gets help from an aide every day to help him eat, wash and get around. He admits, he’s had a tough life.
He doesn’t use the Internet much, and he had no idea a video of him being berated by a Montreal police officer was seen around the world.
READ MORE: Man in wheelchair allegedly harassed by Montreal police for crossing street
Posted to Facebook two weeks ago, the video has been viewed more than 660,000 times. For the first time, Shand is speaking out about what happened to him.
“I felt really bad. I didn’t like it. I felt they were doing it because I am black.”
The incident has left Shand shaken, and disillusioned with Montreal police.
Shand said he was crossing the street at the corner of McGill and Sherbrooke streets downtown when police intervened.
The area is under heavy construction, so Montreal police are helping direct traffic. Shand says he crossed the street when the light turned green, but the light turned red before he actually reached the corner on the other side.
He says police yelled at him to turn around and go back to the other side of the street. But he was already halfway across, so he kept going. That’s when he says police started yelling at him in the middle of the street.
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“I don’t like the way they treated me,” he said. “I felt really abused like I was nothing. That’s how I felt.”
He says cops only stopped him.
“I said look they are walking across too they did not even say nothing to those people, they let them walk past. I said how come you are going to give me a ticket?”
The video shows a police officer riffling through Shand’s bag. Shand says he never gave permission to the officer to look through his bag. He refused to give his name to police. The cops found a prescription pill bottle with Shand’s name on it. They ran his name through their system, and discovered he has a criminal record.
Shand admits he had a difficult youth, and spent several years in and out of prison. Twenty years ago, he was shot in a bar fight and was left partially paralyzed. He’s since turned his life around. He says police started laughing at him when they discovered his record.
“I have done some bad things, yes, but it’s over now. I haven’t done anything in more than 20 years. Once they put me through a computer they said oh he’s a criminal forget him.”
Shand alleges the cops used racial slurs, and told him he was getting three tickets.
“They looked at me and they saw a black man in a wheelchair. They said a n**** in a wheelchair is what one of them said.”
The incident left Shand so unsettled, he later fell out of his wheelchair, ending up in hospital for two days with a concussion.
Shand plans on filing a complaint with police about what happened.
“I said listen – you are white and I’m black. I said you have a badge and a gun. I did time in prison for carrying a gun. There is a big difference once you have that badge you can do anything you want. Anything.”
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