The City of Montreal has been ordered to pay a 75-year-old $35,000 in damages following a violent police intervention nearly four years ago.
On May 22, 2015, police were called to intervene in a dispute over a garden between James Chi Ngafor and his neighbour. The woman called 9-1-1 claiming Ngafor had hit her with a plastic shovel, a claim the man denied.
Officer David Bouffard arrived at the scene alone. He spoke with the neighbour and found Ngafor in the yard with his wife. Bouffard, who had only been on the job for six months at the time, later told the Quebec Police Ethics Committee he attempted to speak with Ngafor before using force. However the man, who was 72-years-old at the time, is partially deaf and has cataracts. Ngafor maintained nothing was ever said.
In an attempt to control the elderly man, the young officer grabbed Ngafor by the left arm but couldn't move him. A second officer then arrived and grabbed Ngafor's right arm.
Ngafor was then thrown to the ground and handcuffed, suffering injuries to his arm and eye in the process.
In a court ruling Friday, Judge Jean-Yves Lalonde ruled the police involved in the arrest violated Ngafor's dignity, adding the 75-year-old, who is a former member of the Congo army, had been living peacefully with his family since arriving in Quebec.
Lalonde said the basic standards of a reasonable police officer were disregarded in the case, adding that Ngafor was illegally detained for nearly six hours and the police brutality he suffered caused him to lose faith in the justice system.
The judge ordered the City pay Ngafor $35,000 in damages, plus interest, for physical suffering and mental anguish.
The ruling didn't end there, as the City was also ordered to pay Ngafor's wife Véronique Gueliacha $5,000 in damages for the trauma she suffered while watching the officers' "brutal behaviour" towards her husband.
The couple's neighbour was also found to be at fault for an unfounded complaint to police and using racist language when referring to Ngafor and his wife. Nadia Bahadda was ordered to pay the couple $5,000.