Montreal police badge number 728 back in the news

Posted By: Claude Beaulieu · 10/11/2012 9:38:00 AM

You may recall an incident earlier this year involving a Montreal police officer carrying badge number 7/28.

Her story made the rounds on the web last May, at the height of the student protests: a video posted on YouTube that showed officer 7/28, identified as Stephanie Trudeau, pepper-spraying protest onlookers who didn't appear to be a threat to her.

Last night, another video featuring Trudeau popped up on the internet. This one showed her in the midst of a violent takedown of two people after apparently seeing one of the men in public with a bottle of beer in his hands.

The attempted arrest quickly got out of hand, to a point where officer Trudeau felt compelled to issue a general call for police assistance.

About twenty police vehicles responded to the event in the Plateau area, Tuesday evening of last week.

The video of the take-down, and an audio recording of a later conversation between officer Trudeau and one of her superiors, were featured on a Radio-Canada television news story last evening. Montreal police reacted immediately by suspending Trudeau from operational duty pending an internal investigation of the latest incident.

There is now word of a public protest planned tomorrow evening against officer Trudeau at Place Emilie Gamelin, outside the UQAM Metro station.

Among the issues in last week's incident: the failure of the officer to control what should normally have been a benign incident - a man apparently drinking beer in public - as well as the arresting officer's extensive use of profanity during and immediately following the event.

Following the earlier incident involving the same officer, last spring, Trudeau was again briefly removed from operational duty, and has since been excused from working on any event involving a public protest or crowd-control situation.

Photo: Facebook

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  1. Joseph posted on 10/11/2012 01:04 PM
    There is always a bad one. The Montreal police are very well trained and nice to everyone.
    1. Mark posted on 10/12/2012 09:12 AM
      @Joseph My car failed to start after work at 11:30 pm, I was in Mirabel. Stupidly I decided to hitch hike home to Lachute. The "only" car that passed between 12 and 4:30am was a police cruiser. They stopped, questioned me, then just left me there in the rain between Mirabel and Lachute, they refused to help, they refused to place a call to my girlfriend. I do not trust Québec cops.
  2. Drew posted on 10/11/2012 01:27 PM
    Not all Police Officers are like her. Every Job has there dysfunctional workers. Some people are not cut out for there professions as we can see here.
  3. CJ posted on 10/11/2012 01:30 PM
    LOL...This will get swept under the rug like all the other police brutality issues...
  4. MarkC posted on 10/11/2012 06:50 PM
    OINK!!OINK!!
  5. sandi brown posted on 10/12/2012 09:44 AM
    I'm a 64 year old middle class law abiding woman who has never been in trouble with the police yet I'm afraid of our police force.A couple of years ago I went to a police station to report an incident near my office because I was afraid for my safety. I was going to work and gently tapped on my horn at the car in front of me. This was perhaps 20 blocks from my office. The driver in front gave me the finger and when I subsequently passed him, he followed me to my office in a very deliberate way. Seeing that I was being followed and didn't want him to see where I worked, I started to take some turns to divert him but the driver just stuck to me and I was really nervous so instead of driving into my parking lot to my small business, I continued on for a few blocks to the police station near my office and parked in front. He watched me for a few seconds and only then left. I had his license number and went into the police station. I was shaking from nervousness and tried to explain to the female officer what had happened and was totally RIDICULED!. She told me I was not in some kind of a movie and what did I expect her to do. Couldn't care less or be less helpful. I was shocked.The behavior of the driver was extremely threatening and I ended up leaving the police station feeling vulnerable and ridiculed, not the reaction I was expecting. I remember the officer but it never occured to me to get a badge number. She was very intimidating. I would actually now be afraid to lodge a complaint against any officer for fear of reprisals. Is this normal in our society. I wonder if badge no: 728 ever worked at that police station!! It was a long time ago but just curious!
  6. Deborah posted on 10/12/2012 06:03 PM
    I'm afraid that this incident involving Officer 728 just reinforces my feelings of complete fear when it comes to Quebec police. I am a law-abiding record-free English Quebec citizen and I dread and fear any contact with the Quebec police. My husband and I travel Highway 50 twice daily. It has got to be the most heavily policed piece of highway I have ever been on. We are so afraid of coming in contact with any of them, so afraid to be pulled over and acused of something - anything - because they can do whatever the hell they like.
    Authority has gone to their heads and it just isn't right that I feel this way about the law that is supposedly there to protect and help me. Quebec cops scare the hell out of me and that's it, plain and simple.
  7. Kalina posted on 10/13/2012 08:49 AM
    I was a victim of MTL police brutality. It was thirteen years ago , I was twenty two almost and had a two year old son sleeping in his bed. My spouse had physically assaulted me and I was scared so I called 911 hoping they would come and remove him from our home.They took my spouse but then one he was gone one of the (male) officers grabbed me and SLAMMED me up against a wall, he wanted to know if I had ever hit my son?! I told him NO! but he proceeded to go into my son's room , wake him up and ask him "has mommy ever hit you?" my son must have been terrified as was I because he started screaming for me. I told the cop "you are scaring him" he let my son come to me, gave me an intimidating look along with a few parting words and then they left. I'm a law abiding citizen , I've never broken the law. To this day I don't know why he did that. Every time I see a cop I think of that. I've also been unable to teach my kids (4) to turn to a cop for help if ever you need because I'm afraid. that night really traumatized me. I DON'T TRUST MTL POLICE!
  8. Rick posted on 10/16/2012 01:33 PM
    WHat bothers me even more is the fact that when 728 used the pepper spray, a dozen other copsor so just stood around watching her and never said anything. Also when she was choking the guy in the picture above, again the other cops were just standing there watching her do it. This means that the cops that she works with (or for) are no better than her and may even be worse because (a) they seem to condone her actions (b) they have no compassion at all towards the public for for whom they have sworn to protect and (c) the police administration just lets them get away with this as long as it is not made public. I beleive as many others, that had this incident not been made public, the police would not only had done nothing about it, but she would still be on the street creating more havoc. There is no doubt that there needs to be a civilian investigative team (like in Ontario) to keep the police force in line and to assure that the public can trust that the police force is not above the law as many of them seem to think theyt are.
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