Man seeks $30,000 in damages in ‘racial profiling’ complaint

MONTREAL – The driver was a black man with a "Quebecois name."

That’s one of the reasons a Longueuil police officer gave for pulling over Joel Debellefeuille, 35, south of Montreal, in July 2009. It was even written right at the top of the police report.

The officers passed the car, ran the plates and found out the car was registered to a Joel Debellefeuille, according to the report.

This was the fourth time in a week he had been pulled over.

The incident "involved a black man who did not initially match the owner of the car," the police report states. "Debellefeuille sounds like a Quebecois name and not the name of someone of another origin."

In response to what Debellefeuille is calling "racial profiling," he – along with the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) – has filed complaints with the Quebec Human Rights Commission and the police ethics commissioner.

"It was humiliating," Debellefeuille said. "This is not just for myself but for all visible minorities out there who may experience this sort of humiliation like I did.

"It has got to stop."

Debellefeuille is seeking $30,000 in moral and punitive damages.

The Longueuil police said they will not comment on the case until the commissioner, who receives and examines complaints against the police, drafts a response.

Debellefeuille did not read the police report on the incident until June 1, 2010, when he was given a copy because he was contesting one of the tickets he had received.

Four months after being pulled over, he received two tickets by bailiff. The first was for having lapsed on his car insurance, which he says expired two days before the incident. The second was for refusing to show his identification.

It was the latter that he contested.

He didn’t receive tickets any of the other three times he was stopped that week. On those occasions, the police told him they had stopped him because he had a broken light, that they were looking for a stolen car and that he had supposedly made an illegal turn.

"I was at my limit with getting pulled over," he said. "It’s ridiculous."