Camara looks to sue Montreal police for wrongful arrest and 6-night detainment

Mamadi III Fara Camara was "extremely scared" during the six nights he spent in detention for a crime he didn't commit, according to his defencelawyer.

"He didn't know what was going to happen," said Cdric Materne, speaking on Radio-Canada's Tout le monde en parle Sunday.

Camara has since received an apology from Sylvain Caron, Montreal's police chief,for what he went through after being arrested for the alleged disarming, assault and attempted murder of a police officer.

The 31-year-old Camara has accepted that apology, but Materne is among those who say more must be done. Camara was never offered the fundamental right of being presumed innocent until proven guilty, he said.

Materne agrees with Montreal Mayor Valrie Plante, who has called for an independent investigation into the arrest and detention of an innocent man.

However, Plante is not putting the blame on Caron. She said she still has faith in the police chief's ability to do his job.

Meanwhile, the investigation into who attacked Const. Sanjay Vigin the late afternoon ofJan. 28 is ongoing,the assailant is still at large.

Vig was attacked after he pulled Camara, aPhD student, over for using a cell phone while driving.

The traffic stop and subsequent attack were capturedby a traffic camera that overlooks Highway 40 in Montreal's Parc-Extension neighbourhood. An eyewitness has also come forward to share his own version of events. Itappears to further vindicate Camara, who was eventually cleared of all charges by DNA evidence.

Witness says he saw man flee scene

Juan Angel Flores had just left his residence and was walking on Bloomfield Avenue, not far from Crmazie Boulevard, when he saw Vig fall to the ground.

"I saw a man walking on the sidewalk, not very fast," Flores said, describing that man as young, Black and wearing a toque."He looked at me, I looked at him. We looked at each other, face to face, and then he walked down the alley."

Flores called 911. Camara also called 911 shortly after the attack, his lawyer has said.

Approaching the injured policeman, Flores saw a man parked in a grey car. The man didn't get out of his car, and stayed at the scene, Flores told Radio-Canada.

Flores said after imagesof Camara ended up in the media, he could see Camara was taller than the man he saw ducking down the alley.Floressaidhe told police everything he saw that night.

Still, Camara was arrested in his home a few hours later. Though hehas yet to speak to the media, his niece has saidthe arrest was violent and her uncle's home was ransacked by officers looking for Vig's service weapon, among other evidence. A neighbour has said investigators pressed him at length about the missing gun.

Camara, whose wife is expecting twins, was processed and charged with crimes that could well haveended his academic career.

He has a master's in telecommunications and came to Quebec to study and work. Justbeing charged earned him a temporary banfrom Polytechnique Montral's campus. The school has since said officials wish tomeet with Camara to discuss his reinstatement and the resumption of his teaching duties.

Lawsuit won't bring millions

And now Camara has retained a lawyer who specializes in civil litigation. Virginie Dufresne-Lemire's firm takes on cases of police brutality and wrongful arrest.

During a Monday interview on Radio-Canada's Tout un matin, she said the first step will beto determine if there's a case to be brought against the Service de police de la Ville de Montral (SPVM).

She said the SPVM and the City of Montreal, which funds and oversees the service, will likely be the target rather than the Crown.

To bring a case against the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pnales (DPCP), she said, would require establishingmalicious intent.

If there aregrounds for a lawsuit against the SPVM, Camara may seek substantial monetary compensation. But it will likely rangein the tens of thousands of dollars.

Lemire said lawsuits of that typein Quebec don't result inmulti-million-dollar jackpots the waythey might in the United States.

Camara may be compensated for the various injustices he suffered on an individual basis, she explained. For example, she said, he might get about $5,000 per night in detention.

• Protesters gather to denounce racial profiling, police brutality in wake of Camara arrest

But even moving forward with litigation hinges on what her law firm uncovers as it goes over the entire case, from start to finish. That will includeporingover all the evidence police presented to the Crown to see if there is evidence of negligence.

"If the police had enough information and their identification of Mr. Camara was correct, it is more difficult to seek damage, but if we are able to demonstrate that the identification and the laying of charges were not justified by the evidence, there we can go and seek damages," she said.

There is still plenty of study to do, she said, while her client struggles with what he went through

"He is still very upset," Dufresne-Lemire said. "It was an excessively traumatizing experience."

Camara isn't the only one upset. Around 200 people gathered near Montreal Police headquarters on Sunday afternoon to protest racial profiling and police brutality.

The SPVM's top brass have said Camara's arrest was a matter of evidence, not race, but many protestors also cited a recent story of a Black lawyer who was handcuffed in front of his daughter during a traffic stop.

"What happened this week just confirms that you can be a doctor or a lawyer or a professor it doesn't matter," said Marlihan Lopez, a member of Black Lives Matter Montreal and co-founder of the Defund the Police Coalition.

"Our skin is constantly weaponized."