Director Yves Desgagnés still finds it hard to explain the absence of police officers behind the Metropolis on the evening of the attack in 2012. They were rather busy protecting the Liberals.
“I find it unacceptable that there were not several security crowns [autour de Pauline Marois]I am still speechless,” commented Mr. Desgagnés on Wednesday as he left the courtroom at the Montreal courthouse.
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Just before, the one who is also an actor and director testified at the civil trial of four traumatized technicians who are claiming $ 600,000 from the police, whom they accuse of having done their job badly this evening of September 4, 2012.
Because while the Parti Québécois was celebrating its electoral victory, Richard Henry Bain had presented himself armed at the entrance of the artists to the performance hall. There were no police, so he was able to kill technician Denis Blanchette, injure Dave Courage and start a fire.
When Mr. Desgagnés heard the shot, he asked bodyguards to evacuate Prime Minister Marois. And when he saw the smoke, he thought he was done for and everything was going to burn.
“It was like a movie sequence,” he said.
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The man who was then filming a documentary on the first woman to lead Quebec calmed the crowd to avoid a movement of panic, even if in his head, his life was going to end “like the fifth act of a Shakespeare play” , or with his death.
“Behind the scenes, there was no security,” he assured Ms.e Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, who leads the file for the technicians.
And even though he was a prominent witness that evening, he was never met by the authorities to take his statement, he lamented, while the City implied that he would have had to force the hand of the investigators.
Listen to Richard Martineau’s interview with Claude Villeneuve, Leader of the Official Opposition at Quebec City Hall on QUB radio:
Just after Mr. Desgagnés, it was the turn of a police officer to testify. And according to her, if the Montreal police were so little present in the Metropolis, it was because the “potential threat” was aimed above all at the Liberal rally.
Due to the “Maple Spring” protests earlier that year, the discontent was mostly aimed at incumbent Liberal Premier Jean Charest.
“It was not unanimous, for us, the threat was really related to the Liberal Party of Quebec,” she assured.
The civil trial, before Judge Philippe Bélanger, continues Thursday.
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