The family of a West Island man who died after a physical altercation with police is calling on Quebec’s justice minister to reopen the case.
Koray Celik was 28 years old when he lost his life in 2017, right in front of his mother and father.
The parents insist that the justice system protected the officers, and they want those same officers to face criminal charges.
“Our son has already been killed viciously. We are looking for justice,” said Cesur Celik, Koray’s father.
Six years ago, Cesur Celik and his wife June Tyler watched in horror as Koray died in their Ile Bizard home at the hands of four Montreal police officers. The officers were exonerated by Quebec’s crown prosecutors office, and never faced charges.
The family’s lawyer Virginie Dufresne Lemire told a press conference the officers “beat him and handcuffed him until he lost consciousness and was no longer breathing, all under the eyes of his parents.”
Celik was under the influence of alcohol and prescribed medication, and was threatening to get behind the wheel when his parents called 911 in March 2017.
“He had calmed down and was sitting calmly on his bed by the time police arrived,” Cesur recalls. “He was dead when they escaped the crime scene.”
Following an investigation by Quebec’s independent investigations bureau (BEI), Quebec’s Crown prosecutors office (DPCP) said in a 2019 press release that the officers’ use of force was necessary and reasonable, and there would be no charges against them.
“I don’t want to live in a country where the state is biased against citizens,” said Cesur Celik.
Along with their lawyer and two civil rights groups, the family is pointing out contradictions. They spoke out alongside the Ligue des droits et libertés and the Coalition Against Police Repression and Abuse.
After a public inquiry, coroner Luc Malouin blamed the officers themselves for escalating the situation, and wrote in his final report that the police intervention played a “decisive role” in Celik’s death.
“The coroner’s conclusion are serious and contradict the reasons cited by the DPCP justifying the decision not to lay any charges against the police,” said Dufresne Lemire.
A 2020 police ethics committee decision ordered the agents to be cited for excessive force.
“All the elements, when you put them together, it makes sense to review once again the whole file,” said Alexandre Popovic of the Coalition Against Police Repression and Abuse.
They want the justice minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, to mandate an independent investigator to re-examine the evidence.
They say something similar happened in the case of a Nicolas Thorne-Belance, a five-year-old boy killed when an unmarked police car crashed into his father’s sedan in 2014.
After a review, the officer was charged and convicted.
“If not us, who will get justice in this province?” Cesur Celik wonders. “The province of Quebec deserves justice. There are way too many killings by the police which go without any criminal penalties.“
The justice minister said he can’t comment on the specifics of the case, because the government is trying to overturn a court decision the family won against the BEI for omitting their version of events in a press release.
“I will not discuss about that case publicly because arguments will be made in front of the Court of Appeal,” Jolin-Barette told Global News.
The family is refusing to stop fighting for justice in Koray’s name.