Two people are accusing Montreal police of brutality after what they describe as a "rough arrest" in a case of mistaken identity outside a café in Montreal's Gay Village.

Khalil Abouabdelmajid and Jennifer Grout say police officers treated them with excessive force, and they plan to lodge an official complaint with Quebec's police ethics board once they discuss what happened with lawyers.

On Sunday afternoon, Abouabdelmajid was at café Zoha, a venue on Ontario Street East that's in the building where he works.

Grout, his friend who was visiting from out of town, had taken Abouabdelmajid's nine-year-old daughter to a children's concert in Longueuil.

Her three-year-old daughter also came along.

After the show, she drove to the café to meet Abouabdelmajid. The nine-year-old went into the café to meet her father, while Grout and her sleeping preschooler remained in the car.

That's when Abouabdelmajid saw police with his daughter near the front door.

Khalil Abouabdelmajid says police officers treated them with excessive force. (CBC)

"They asked me if I was her father," Abouabdelmajid said. "I said yes. They asked her the same thing. She said yes."

He said police told him they had received a call about a four-year-old girl wearing a purple jacket who had been roughed up by a man wearing a green jacket.

His daughter was wearing a purple jacket, so police approached her, Abouabdelmajid said.

Abouabdelmajid, who was wearing a brown jacket, came upstairs from his office to talk to them.

He said he was compliant when police asked to see his backpack and identification.

"I said, 'Absolutely, but you're making a mistake,'" Abouabdelmajid said.

In surveillance footage from the café, Abouabdelmajid appears to have remained calm and to have complied with officers' requests.

Then, he said, a female officer took his daughter by the arm and pulled her toward the door, as if she wanted to ask her questions alone.

"My daughter became hysterical," Abouabdelmajid said.

Jennifer Grout, Khalil Abouabdelmajid's friend, was visiting Montreal from out of town when the incident took place. (CBC)

Abouabdelmajid said he asked his daughter and officers to calm down, and that's when he was led outside and handcuffed.

Grout, who was waiting in her car across the street, left it to approach police and explain that Abouabdelmajid's daughter had just been in her care.

"I said 'Look, his daughter was with me, we literally just came from a kid's show, and there's no way that this is the person you're looking for,'" Grout said.

The officers then told Grout to back off, and things escalated further. Grout says police slammed her on the hood of their car.

"Before I knew it, I was on the ground, unable to breathe," she said.

A video shows an altercation between a woman and Montreal police outside a café in the Village on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019. 1:12

A video captured by a witness that Abouabdelmajid posted to his Facebook page shows Grout with two officers on top of her, holding her down and handcuffing her.

After a few minutes officers realize they have the wrong people, and let Grout and Abouabdelmajid go.

'Neither of us did anything wrong'

They say police left without explaining or apologizing.

"If they had at least apologized, taken me to see my daughter — we wouldn't even be talking about this," Abouabdelmajid said.

Grout said the treatment was unprofessional and inhumane.

"Neither of us did anything wrong, and we were treated like animals," she said.

Montreal police say they won't comment until they have had a chance to look at the videos and review the facts.