Quebec police watchdog concludes investigation into April incident in Salluit

Quebec’s Bureau of Independent Investigations has concluded its investigation into an incident that took place in Salluit in April that left a 27-year-old man injured.

The bureau — which probes deaths and injuries when police are involved — submitted its report about the incident to Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions on July 27. It announced the end of the investigation Wednesday in a news release.

Quebec prosecutors will use the report to determine whether to bring charges against the police officers involved.

The incident took place on April 10 around 6 p.m., according to a previous news release from the bureau, when Nunavik Police Service attempted to arrest a man with a warrant.

When police arrived at the man’s address, he “reportedly suffered a serious injury” before he was taken to hospital.

Nunavik police later explained in a report to the Kativik Regional Government that the incident was an “attempted suicide during police intervention.”

“The door was locked, police knocked at the door, and when he realized that it was the police and that he was probably going to be arrested, he tried stabbing himself,” said deputy Chief Jean-Francois Morin, who is responsible for Nunavik police’s operations, during a June interview with Nunatsiaq News.

Audrey Roy Cloutier, a spokesperson for Quebec’s director of prosecutions, says no decision has been made about whether or not to file charges.

“We are currently analyzing the evidence collected during these investigations,” he said in a French email sent to Nunatsiaq News on Wednesday.

The bureau announced earlier this week that two other Nunavik incident files have been sent to the director of prosecutions.

The first file involved a man in his fifties from Kuujjuaq who died in an apparent suicide during a police intervention on Dec. 18, 2021.

The second file involved a 33-year-old Akulivik woman who died in police custody on March 4.