Complaint filed against Montreal Police after K-9 unit dispatched to help Cree woman in crisis

The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM) has filed a complaint against the Montreal police over how the force handled an incident of a Cree woman who was in crisis.

The incident in question took place on Sunday in a part of the downtown core where many Indigenous people assemble.

David Chapman, an intervention worker with an Indigenous day centre called the Resilience Centre, was notified that one of his clients was having issues.

“I could see she was not well, she was holding two broken beer bottles, she was talking about ending her life,” he says.

Chapman says he spent hours talking with a Cree woman who was in crisis.

Eventually she allowed him to call an ambulance – but he wasn’t expecting what happened next.

“Police cars started arriving, one right after another, and it was at this point that the woman picked back up the broken beer bottles,” says Chapman. “She had actually put them down, and she was in a position of wanting help.

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