Bodyguards weren’t told about threats against Pauline Marois before shooting, court hears
Key information may not have been given to former Quebec Premier Pauline Marois’s security team, the night of a fatal shooting and attempted assassination at the Metropolis night club nearly a decade ago.
The information came to light at a civil lawsuit tied to the 2012 Quebec election night shooting.
Former stagehands are suing the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and Montreal police for negligence and for the trauma they say they suffered.
One stagehand, Denis Blanchette, was killed when Richard Bain opened fire as he tried to make his way inside the club where Marois was on stage giving a victory speech on Sept. 4. Blanchette’s friend and colleague, Dave Courage, was seriously wounded by the same bullet.
According to testimony from Marina Dobos, an SQ civilian advisor who wrote a police report about the night of the shooting, Marois had been the target of several threats as the election results came in. Six threats were recorded between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
However, her bodyguards on the scene were never informed.
The report said there was a lack of communication between provincial and Montreal police, in part because they operated on different radio frequencies.
The court also heard that there were no police stationed at the back door of the venue, despite this being Marois’s evacuation route. Bain used the back door to access the Metropolis.
Dobos testified that she didn’t have any say in what went into the report, and was instructed to write what an SQ captain told her. Neither was at the scene of the shooting.
Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, the lawyer representing the stagehands, is claiming the police services did not have accurate security in place to guarantee the safety of those inside.
Judge Philippe Bélanger will deliberate on whether the full report will be submitted into evidence, making it publicly available.
