Violence rocks Nunavik’s Hudson Bay communities

(updated 11:10 a.m.)

Only days after the Kativik Regional Police Force reported that crime rates have dropped in Nunavik, several violent incidents, including a homicide, occurred in two Hudson Bay coast communities.

Each of these required on-site investigations from the major crimes unit of the Surête du Québec provincial police force.

On Sept. 20, the SQ were called in to investigate the death of of Joannie Koperqualuk, who died Sept. 20 in Puvirnituq.

Police said three men were involved in a dispute that day during the late afternoon.

A 24-year-old man was inside the house when two other men started to argue with him, Sgt. Benoît Richard, a SQ public affairs spokesperson, said Sept. 23.

That argument led to the “use of a knife,” Richard said. A man died “shortly after,” he said.

Richard said the altercation resulted in a murder charge against one of the men.

Ali Qumaluk, 20, faces a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of Koperqualuk. He will appear again in court Oct. 17 in Puvirnituq.

Two earlier incidents in Inukjuak involved confrontations between armed individuals and members of the police force.

The two incidents occurred Sept. 18, within 15 minutes of each other.

At 6:55 p.m., an officer received a call about a disturbance at a house.

When police arrived on the scene a man came out of the house carrying “a blunt weapon, like a knife.”

“He came at the officers running. That’s when one of the officers shot,” Richard said. “The man was hit, [and] he was injured. He was sent to the hospital, where he’s expected to be okay.”

The second incident took place 15 minutes later that same evening in Inukjuak, at 7:10 p.m..

After a woman had gone to a house, for a reason Richard did not say much about except that she may have been “angry” or “looking for something,” the police were called in.

“When they arrived, the woman had a firearm in her hands. She pointed the firearm at the officers — that’s when the officers had to shoot,” Richard said. “The woman was hurt. She was not wounded lethally. She had more or less minor injuries.”

The woman was due to appear in court in Amos this week, Richard said.

In addition to determining the nature of the crimes committed, the SQ also looked at the circumstances around the discharge of firearms by the KRPF officers.

That’s because whenever a police force, like the KRPF, is involved in a shooting, the opinion of an outside force is required by law.

In some cases, investigators may recommend that charges of murder or attempted murder be laid against the police or that no charges be laid.

Last May, the SQ also investigated an incident in which a Salluit man was injured in gun fight with police.

According to statistics by the KRPF tabled last June at the Kativik Regional Government meeting in Kangirsuk, 76 assaults against its members occurred between January and March of this year.

(more to come)