Montreal police officer suspended for eighth time

A Montreal police officer has been suspended by the province of Quebec’s ethics committee for the eighth time in five years.

Const. Eric Locas has been suspended for a 20 day period after the committee decided Locas had been negligent to a woman’s safety during a traffic stop three years ago, according to iHeartRadio.

The incident took place on the morning of February 11, 2016 when a woman was stopped on Cremazie Blvd. According to the ethics report, Locas told the woman that it was too dark for the woman to drive without her headlights on. The woman retorted that it was light out enough to drive safely. The two had a back and forth that went on for about 10 minutes, and Locas apparently asked the woman if she was deaf.

Locas proceeded to slip the ticket under the woman’s vehicle’s windshield wiper “in order to end the intervention,” without the woman’s knowledge.

According to the report, “Locas returned to his vehicle, forcing the woman to exit her car during rush hour in the middle of winter.”

The woman then filed a complaint against Locas a couple of months later, stating that his actions during the traffic stop “made her fear for her safety.”

Later, Locas attempted to reach out to the woman by leaving a message on her phone. The woman told the committee that she did not know how the officer could have obtained her home phone number and that the message left her feeling panicked and scared.

Locas says her number was put on the statement she made to the Commissioner’s investigator.

The ethics committee then proceeded to suspend Locas for five days, on account of being careless or careless with regard to the health or safety of the woman, with a tacked-on 15 days for attempting to contact her.

Locas’ suspensions add up to 23 days of official reprimand in 2002. Locas has also been found to have breached ethics codes as recent as 2017, as he told a Muslim motorist that he “didn’t care about his prayers.”