The provincial prosecution bureau will not file charges against police officers involved in the exchange of gunfire outside a Sûreté du Québec detachment in Vaudreuil-Dorion two summers ago that left a man who had stolen a car in Ontario badly injured.
The Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) announced the decision earlier this week after having reviewed a report submitted by the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes on June 7, 2017. The shooting occurred on July 26, 2016, after Christopher Perez, now 28, was pursued in a stolen BMW on Highway 20. He apparently pulled into the SQ’s parking lot by chance and exchanged gunfire with police.
According to the release issued by the DPCP, prosecutors determined that “the Sûreté du Québec officers implicated in this event did not commit a criminal infraction.” The bureau also stated it will release the motives behind its decision after the case brought against Perez at the Valleyfield courthouse comes to an end. Perez is charged with the attempted murders of police officers Michael Michaud-Grimard and Ghislain Pascal Morose as well discharging a firearm with reckless disregard to the lives of both men. He was also charged with the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle while trying to evade the police, possession of a loaded and prohibited firearm (a 9-mm pistol), possession of a weapon obtained through a criminal offence and possession of a stolen vehicle.
During his most recent court hearing, near the end of May, prosecutor Hélène Langis told Quebec Court Judge Magali Lepage that Perez will plead guilty to some of the charges he faces in July.
Perez suffered injuries that left him in critical condition after he was shot and it took several months before he was well enough to appear in court. No police officers were injured in the exchange of gunfire.
Perez’s case returns to court on July 16.