Force used to subdue Île Bizard man during fatal police intervention was reasonable, officer tells inquiry

One of four Montreal police officers involved in a fatal altercation says the force used to subdue Koray Celik was reasonable, after the young man lunged at his partner and was unco-operative when police intervened. 

Celik, 28, died after police were called to his family home in Île Bizard in 2017. His parents, who called 911 and witnessed the event, have maintained that the four officers who responded used excessive force.

When Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal officers arrived, the Celiks say they watched as their son was kicked, choked and beaten with batons until his breathing stopped.

Alexandre Bélair, one of the first officers to arrive at the scene that night, gave his version of events during the first day of the coroner's public inquiry into Celik's death Monday afternoon. 

Bélair said he and his partner, Karine Bujold, were the first patrol to arrive on the scene. They were called to assist another car on the way to the Celik home following a 911 call saying someone inside the house was intoxicated, aggressive and wanted to get behind the wheel. 

Upon arrival, Bélair testified that he saw Celik's mother waving to them from outside the home. He said he briefly spoke with the father in his garage who, he said, told him, "my son is high, he needs to calm down, please don't enter."

That's when Bélair said he heard a loud scream from inside the house. He said he entered and saw Celik and his partner about one metre's distance from each other. 

Bélair said Celik showed signs of aggression, that his hands were balled into fists and pointed downward, that he was shifting his eyes left and right and that he did not react when Bélair announced that he was an officer. 

Bélair said at one point, Celik raised his fists in front of his face, like a boxer, then rapidly lowered them and lunged at his partner. That's when Bélair said the officers — including those whom he did not know were inside the house — tackled Celik.

Bélair testified Celik kept resisting as Bélair tried to put his arm behind his back and attempting to get up. The officer said he spoke English when he told Celik to co-operate. 

Alexandre Popovic — the lawyer representing an anti-police-brutality organization, the Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers (CRAP) — asked whether Bélair ever hit Celik and the officer responded no.

When asked if other officers hit Celik while he was on the ground, Bélair said the man was given a diversionary strike — a technique police use to divert a suspect's attention from their primary point of attack. Bélair said he couldn't say how many strikes the young man received as he was focused on getting his arm behind his back. 

Eventually, it took two pairs of handcuffs to restrain Celik as police couldn't get his hands close enough together. 

Shortly after, Bélair said he noticed the young man was having trouble breathing and he called for an ambulance. He said officers performed CPR on Celik and used a defibrillator, but the man was unresponsive and was taken away in an ambulance. 

Asked whether Bélair would do anything differently during the intervention, he characterized the police's use of force as reasonable and the minimum force necessary. 

Officers not isolated after incident

Luc Desroches, an investigator with the watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), also testified at the inquiry. Desroches supervised the investigation into the incident.

According to Desroches, BEI investigators arrived at the Celik home at 9:30 a.m., more than seven hours after Montreal police were first called to the scene, at 2:05 a.m. 

The BEI wasn't even notified until about three and a half hours after the incident, Desroches confirmed.

Popovic, the lawyer, asked Desroches what had been done to ensure the officers involved didn't discuss the incident amongst themselves before the BEI arrived.

Under questioning, Desroches said the BEI did not verify the phone records from the officers involved. The BEI also didn't access audio recordings from inside the police vehicles.

Koray's father, Cesur Celik, raised concerns about what the officers could have been doing during that time.

"This would potentially allow them the opportunity to meet and concoct a story, develop a story, for their own vindication," he said, speaking outside the courthouse on Monday.

Desroches said the BEI had been operating for just six months at the time, and police forces were still unfamiliar with the proper procedures to follow.

The BEI's investigation later concluded that officers had used reasonable force and that Celik's death was attributable to cardio-respiratory arrest caused by intoxication.

A Quebec civil court judge later found the BEI was neither impartial nor transparent in the case. The Celik family was awarded $30,000 in damages.

Parents will not testify

The Celiks were scheduled to take the stand Monday but ultimately refused to testify — despite being subpoenaed twice. Instead, deputy chief coroner Luc Malouin said their written accounts of the event were submitted to the inquiry. 

Malouin said that considering what the family has been through over the past five years, this is the "wisest and most humane" way to proceed, "under the circumstances."

"I don't want to make the parents relive this moment," said Malouin. "We have enough declarations from them ... the decision to not go further with the parents is strictly a humane one."

But Cesur Celik said he and his wife's refusal to participate in the inquiry is not based on emotions but on their loss of faith in a judicial process that, according to them, serves to protect police. 

"We — my wife and I — declared that we would not participate in a circus act of a government who is simply trying to pull wool over the eyes of the public by trying to appear we live in a just society, while denying us just treatment," he said. 

In a lengthy interview with journalists Monday, Cesur Celik denounced several stages of the investigation that he said were far from independent or were unfair, including officers not being isolated following the death of his son as well as the BEI issuing news releases "that destroyed the dignity of our son and caused us damages." 

We would not participate in a circus act of a government who is simply trying to pull wool over the eyes of the public by trying to appear we live in a just society while denying us just treatment- Cesur Celik, Koray's father

Cesur Celik also said the financial assistance offered to his family for the purpose of the coroner's inquest, compared to what officers are entitled to, is an indicator of the government's intent to "[tilt] the scales of justice in police's favour." 

He said his family will be compensated a maximum and conditional sum of $20,000 — an amount the father said won't even begin to cover the legal fees associated with an inquiry that will last three weeks. 

On the other hand, he said officers get "unlimited and unconditional support."

"We do not intend … to co-operate until we are provided with proper, fair and equal[ly] funded process," he said. 

In previous interviews with CBC News, Celik and his wife, June, said they called police because their son had consumed alcohol that night, along with pain pills prescribed to him for a recent dental procedure. They were worried he might want to drive and they wanted help. 

"Those police officers gave a life sentence to our son. They killed him. What was the crime? Ask yourselves, what was the crime? There was no crime. He needed help. He was killed," Cesur Celik said. 

In 2020, the family filed a $558,000 lawsuit against the City of Montreal and Urgences-Santé.

The inquiry is scheduled to continue through to early December.