MONTREAL — Quebec Superior Court has authorized a class action suit against the city of Montreal for the kettling and mass arrests of students on May 23, 2012, at the height of protests against university tuition hikes.

Lawyer Marc Chétrit Rieger filed the case in July 2012 on behalf of Jean-Pierre Lord, a social work student at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Lord is seeking $2,500 in damages and interest and the same amount for others who were arrested that night.

An estimated 5,000 demonstrators took part in the 30th student protest of 2012 on May 23. At about 1 a.m., police kettled a group of more than 500 on St. Denis St., arrested them and detained them in 17 city buses.

Lord was among demonstrators who were fined $634 under a municipal bylaw requiring protesters to disclose the route of their demonstration to police.

In his motion, Lord alleges the protesters were detained for seven hours with their hands tied behind their backs and no access to water or washrooms.

Rieger described the police action as “harrowing” and “appalling.”

Lord stated he joined the march heading east on Ste. Catherine St. at about 10 p.m. because the Montreal police Twitter feed suggested the force was letting the march continue even though it contravened Bill 78, a special law restricting student protests.

He alleges that at 10:31 p.m., the police tweeted that if the demonstrators entered the Viger tunnel they would be arrested, and that the marchers obeyed.

But when the crowd marched south on St. Denis St., the police riot squad blocked the marchers.

Lord said he tried to leave the march by heading west on Sherbrooke St. but was blocked by police, who began throwing tear gas and pepper-spraying demonstrators and reporters.

He said he didn’t know what was going on because police allegedly never gave an order to disperse. About 500 people were rounded up, searched, handcuffed, loaded into a city bus and taken to a police station, the motion alleges.

The motion claims that one woman, unable to wait any longer for a toilet, urinated at the back door of the bus.

Lord said that at about 5 a.m. he had to pull down his pants with his hands still cuffed in order to urinate in the bus because police refused to take him to a toilet.

The motion also alleges that protesters were illegally searched and some suffered from health problems like heart disease or hypoglycemia, and that tight handcuffs cut off their blood circulation.

In his ruling, judge Marc-André Blanchard dismissed arguments by the city of Montreal that the allegations were frivolous and unfounded.

mascot@montrealgazette.com



