Koray Kevin Celik’s parents say Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette is ignoring court rulings and a coroner’s report.
The parents of a man who died during a Montreal police intervention are renewing their calls for the case to be reviewed, arguing the province’s justice department is ignoring their pleas.
For more than seven years now, Cesur Celik and June Tyler have decried the police call that led to their son’s death at their home in Île-Bizard.
They have yet to receive a response.
“The justice minister doesn’t seem to care about the two court decisions and the public (coroner) hearings report,” Celik said at a news conference on Monday. “We call on him to do the right thing. He still has a chance.”
Koray Kevin Celik, 28, died during a police call at the family’s home in March 2017.
His mother called 911 because he was agitated after drinking wine and taking pain medication prescribed by his dentist and was threatening to drive off. Four officers arrived at the home and wrestled him to the ground. Once he was handcuffed, police realized he was not breathing.
An investigation by Quebec’s police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), cleared the officers of all wrongdoing. Based on the BEI’s findings, prosecutors elected not to lay charges.
The family has argued the BEI carried out a biased investigation, in part by publishing a news release the Celiks say retained only the version of police officers — despite the parents witnessing the officers take down their son.
A Quebec court judge agreed with them in a 2021 ruling, noting the BEI was wrong to issue the one-sided news release.
A later decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld that decision and went further, stating the BEI had in a sense prevented Quebec’s Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) from properly carrying out its role.
Malouin found the officers acted hastily and, given the injuries Celik suffered, probably struck the youth several times during the intervention , a claim his parents have maintained but which the officers denied during the inquiry.
Taken together, the family says, it all points to the clear need for an independent committee to review the DPCP’s decision not to lay charges.
“It is undeniable that Koray Kevin Celik was the victim of police brutality and that the BEI’s investigative process and the DPCP’s decision-making process were not impartial,” said Lynda Khelil of the Ligue des droits et libertés, which is supporting the family.
“This should greatly worry Minister Jolin-Barrette,” Khelil added.
The DPCP has already rejected the family’s request, which they first made last summer.
Contacted for this article, a press attaché for Jolin-Barrette said it is up to the DPCP, not the justice department, to decide whether or not to create an independent committee. The minister’s position has previously been shared with the family, they added.
The family’s lawyers strongly disagree.
“The minister’s argument … is incorrect in law,” lawyer François Mainguy said Monday.
Mainguy pointed to how a similar independent inquiry was ordered by the justice minister in the case of five-year-old Nicholas Thorne-Belance, who was killed when the car he was riding in was struck by a Sûreté du Québec officer in 2014.
The prosecutor’s office initially elected not to lay charges but later reversed course after a special committee composed of a retired judge and two lawyers re-examined the facts. The officer was later found guilty of dangerous driving causing death.
It was then-justice minister Stéphanie Vallée who ordered the committee after additional witness information came to light in the media. The minister’s power to do so was also confirmed in a court decision.
As for the Celiks, Mainguy said they have done all they can to push authorities to act.
“The next step is that we need the government to feel the pressure, or the outrage, that we’re feeling,” he said.
Cesur Celik, for his part, said the family has no intention of resting until some sense of justice is achieved.
He described his son as one of the “most valuable people” he has ever known and repeated what he has said since 2017: The family called police to help their son, not for him to die.
“It’s been more than seven years we’ve been pursuing this and we will not go away,” Celik said. “I promise you that.”