One of the young men injured by a bullet fired by the Montreal police officer who killed Fredy Villanueva said yesterday he thought for sure Constable Jean-Loup Lapointe had committed murder.
“I thought, ‘How can he justify that?’ ” Denis Méas testified yesterday in a coroner’s inquest looking into the Aug. 9, 2008, shooting. “I thought, ‘It’s over for him.’ “
After hearing from the dead man’s brother, Dany, for two weeks, the inquest began listening yesterday to Méas’s version of events the day Lapointe and his partner, Stéphanie Pilotte, stopped in a parking lot near Henri Bourassa Park, where some youths were playing dice.
Méas said that as soon as he heard one of his friends say “biz,” the signal that police are in the area, he picked up the dice, put them in his pocket and backed up to let the patrol car through. He said he didn’t know playing dice was against a municipal bylaw.
But the car stopped, Méas said, and Lapointe got out and went directly for Dany without asking any questions.
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“(Lapointe) put him on the hood of the car and I was surprised,” Méas said.
“I said, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ “
Within seconds, Méas said, he heard shots, felt pain in his arm and saw Fredy fall to the ground.
“I was scared,” he said. “It was like a nightmare, surreal, it all happened so fast.”
The inquest has already heard that only 13 seconds elapsed between the time Lapointe called for backup while holding Dany Villanueva against the hood of a patrol car, and when the officer shot Fredy Villanueva, 18.
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Jeffrey Sagor Météllus was also wounded by a bullet from Lapointe’s gun.
Méas said he doesn’t remember much about the ambulance ride to the hospital. He said he was charged with assaulting a police officer, but doesn’t know if he was read his rights.
“I asked if I could call a lawyer. They asked if I knew one,” he said. “I said, ‘No, because I’ve never needed one.’ Then they left.”
He said he was operated on in the hospital and doesn’t remember giving a statement to Sûreté du Québec officers, who were called in to investigate the shooting.
Méas said he is still afraid of police officers since the experience, and has difficulty extending his arm vertically.
smontgomery@thegazette.canwest.com
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