Summer 2023: Karim, originally from Paris, discovers the complexities of Saint-Michel during his writer’s residency in this neighborhood of Montreal’s East Side. Discover his paradoxical dive into the mimicry of American gangsterism and the seemingly peaceful interactions with the police.
Trying to unlock mysteries of Saint-Michel in East Montreal may just prove more challenging than unearthing the secrets of New York’s Wu Tang Clan. At this point, I am still unsure of how things will go during my writer’s residency for the non-profit LCSM (the Saint-Michel Community Recreation Center) that invited me here. As I sit at a picnic table in JFP Park, a bullet hole in one of the public trash bins catches my attention. This public park, a mere 20-minute drive from the picturesque Mont Royal and the Plateau area formerly colonized by the French, has witnessed numerous shootings in recent years.
Unlike in Chicago or Toronto, here, young shooters step out of their cars and march straight toward their enemies (real or imaginary) before firing their weapons. Riyadh Amokrane, who sits across from me at the table as we eat lunch together, knows the drill: one night in the park, some young gangsters randomly shot at him. Riyadh, a 29-year-old with a laid-back style, is my personal guide in this part of Montreal that is practically unknown to tourists but very much so to the Montréal police force (SPVM). Riyadh helped spearhead a project called “La Station,” a music and podcast recording studio located in the heart of Saint-Michel that helps keep many of the neighborhood kids out of trouble. As we sit having lunch, Riyadh continues telling me about the project. Suddenly, a young Latina girl gets her purse swiped from an adjacent table. The thief is immediately chased down by the neighborhood peacekeepers, Younes and Chafik, who return it to her a few minutes later. “This kind of thing happens all the time around here,” she tells us in French peppered with American slang.
It’s all thanks to Riyadh that I’m here now. As a writer, when you arrive in a place like JFP Park, you just have to erase any preconceived notions you may have had about author residencies and writer’s workshops. Nothing unfolds as the people sitting in offices “theorizing” about residencies might imagine. If experience has taught me anything, it’s that a true residency officially begins the moment a 17-year-old delinquent starts telling you about his daily life in a juvenile detention center where he’s serving time for a situation that appears like an attempted murder. But around here, hoodlums don’t flaunt themselves like on gangsta rap albums. As Riyadh keeps reminding me, “You don’t even realize it, but you’ve crossed paths with and talked to guys who’ve done some crazy shit.” In Saint-Michel, people keep a low profile, and I suspect that the risks involved with criminal activity have skyrocketed.
I notice that Riyadh and the neighborhood “homeboys” are keeping a close eye on any
slow-moving vehicles. They’re all on high alert. On several occasions, gangsters have fired shots into the park after exiting a slow-moving car. In one instance, a friend of Riyad’s was robbed at random, and the young thief pulled the trigger on him, but his gun jammed.
God was watching over the streets of Saint-Michel that day.
But on that same day, tragedy struck. In the evening of November 14, 2021, a young man with a spotless record named Thomas Trudel was shot at the corner of Villeray Street and 20th Avenue. He was 16-years-old and didn’t survive the gunshot wound. News of his death came as such a shock that even the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded, stating, “This is a heartbreaking tragedy.”
Thomas Trudel is not the first nor will he be the last victim of gun violence. Many young black men have been lost to summer and wintertime shootings, adding up to a grim death toll. The Ministry of Interior’s statistics continue to be stained with fresh blood, yet no politicians are stepping forward to demand justice and improved security measures. In the case of Thomas Trudel— a white middle class kid with no gang affiliations—Canadian politicians perhaps imagined their own sons in his place.
This infernal violence is propagated in the heated lyrics (always loaded with actual bullets) of Chicago gangster rappers. Chicago, located 1,350 kilometers from Montreal, glorifies beefs between rappers that are addicted to social media, glucose, Glocks and other kinds of Desert Eagles that can do a lot of damage. The influences from the Windy City travel north to Toronto, where rappers kill fellow rappers in what seems to be, as it is in Chicago, a local sport. Jahvante Smart (aka “Smoke Dawk”), aged 21, and his 28-year-old manager, Ernest (Kos) Modekwe, were shot on Queen Street on June 30, 2018. The two men now only exist in tattoos on their homies’ arms. The “clapping” culture (shooting at rival gangs) imported from the United States has been compounded by another distinctly local phenomenon that began during the pandemic. As Riyadh explains, “Through the lockdown, kids spent their time insulting each other on Snapchat.” To make matters worse, certain youth benefitting from the CERB (Canadian Emergency Response Benefit), a monthly government payout of around $2,000 to independent workers and employees during Covid, used the money to purchase weapons. As a result, when the lockdown ended and they were back on the streets, they started shooting at each other.
Gang members in Montreal use the same vocabulary as their Chicago counterparts. The term “OPS” refers to enemies. For the act of avenging fallen comrades that fell victim to the streets—shootings that barely make the evening news—they say “scoring.” The playing field needs to be evened out, just like a soccer match. Only here, we’re talking murders, not goals. These silent wars didn’t stay silent for long: the police arrived in droves. contingents of young officers from remote places that didn’t know the faintest thing about urban sociology in a city like Montreal and its working-class neighborhoods were sent in. Much like BAC officers or other French police, these officers arrived from provinces where they never once had to associate with black or Arab people. When these kinds of cops arrive in the Paris region, they perceive the city as hostile territory, and its inhabitants become the enemy.
Pounding pavement by car and on foot, I explore the East neighborhoods. I notice the amount of graffiti paying tribute to Nahel Merzouk, a teenager killed by a police officer in Nanterre, France on June 27, 2023. “We all followed the Nahel case pretty closely,” Riyadh tells me. “Everyone knows that the French police are violent and racist.” The Montreal police, the SVPM, is certainly not perfect. Issues with racial profiling persist. Yet when I find myself in the LCSM offices, I am surprised nonetheless to see two female officers playing a game of ping pong with a group of kids. These cops work for the ECCR, which stands for the Community Consultation and Reconciliation Team. This service was formed in April 2021 in attempts to alleviate tensions between locals and the police force. These officers do not make arrests or intervene. Instead, their job is to bond with community organizations in order to improve “urban coexistence.”
Claude Aline Bellamy, former president of the LCSM, now works directly at the local station 30 on Pie IX and 40th Street, which covers Saint-Michel, Villerary and Parc Extension. Bellamy, an energetic and determined young woman, has decided to tackle the problem head-on: “The cops need to learn how to interact with the community and set a tone of respect and consideration.”
She proposes I take part in a “Cobra” mission (a ride with two patrol officers). I’m a bit skeptical about it. At this point, I’ve been hanging out in JFP Park with the homeboys for the past two weeks, and don’t want my one-day integration into the SVPM to cause any misunderstandings. Riyadh reassures me that everything will be fine, so I sign a waiver exempting the Montreal police from any responsibility in the case of my injury or death during the ride. Good vibes.
It’s a warm, lazy summer day with sunlight pouring over the dreary-looking houses in the neighborhood as I slip on a blue jacket marked “Montreal Police Observer.” In my Carhartt jeans and a baseball cap, I look like an undercover narcotics officer. The two uniformed cops, both clearly from minority groups themselves, are pretty chill. Neither one is a redneck baton-wielder. They get me settled in the backseat of the two-tone Dodge Charger with its white roof and dark blue doors. The backseat is uncomfortable and rather slippery, designed for transporting freshly apprehended suspects. Viewing the world (or at least the streets of East Montreal) through the meshed windows of a cop car is quite an experience.
I get some surprised or compassionate looks from people out on the street. The sirens wail and the driver accelerates just like in a TV series. The buildings around here all look the same; so do the apartments. Our first call is for a man that suffers from mental health issues. The man, who is also deaf, communicates in sign language through an interpreter the cops pulled in to help. The man accuses his family of mistreatment. Another call takes us to an industrial area where a young woman accuses an impound lot owner of stealing $2,000 from her.
The flaccid avenues give way to boulevards drifting on gray acid-clouds. It strikes me that young men have lost their lives here, and that only their families and a handful of friends remember that these guys shed their blood for an unnamed street that’s barely a number on a map. It leaves me wondering: what’s the name of the young man, who gave his life for a stretch of asphalt on 13th Avenue?
I enter a diner to grab a sandwich with one of the cops. My undercover look makes everyone stare. The cop knows the server; they went to school together. The employee wraps up my sandwich, which I eat when we get back to the station alongside the duo as night falls over Saint-Michel. Both of them suggest I join them on another ride. One of them has a degree in sociology. We intercept a young driver who is on his phone while driving. He gets pulled over. The professionalism and self-control of the Montreal police astounds me. In Paris and
its suburbs, cops conducting roadside checks place their hands on their holsters and aren’t shy when it comes to insults and threats, particularly if the drivers don’t have the “correct” skin color.
The computer, which is linked to the central database, spits out the young driver’s rap sheet: pimping, multiple assaults, battery. A whole shopping list of offenses, including a suspended license. But the cops still release him. They explain to me that the young driver is on the radar of detectives and investigators that are attempting to reel in some “big fish,” so arresting him could jeopardize certain ongoing investigations. When we return to the neighborhood, I stand by and observe discussions between the cops and local residents. A city wall bears the spray painted inscription: “Justice for Nahel?” The local homeboys on the street corner want to keep talking, sharing stories, and talking some more. I’m exhausted. I cross the JFP Park, noticing the playful squirrels and drivers with their too-quiet engines. It’s now been 30 days since I started roaming the Octagon and JFP Park, and I realize that the more I learn, the thicker the mystery becomes. I’ll need to come back.
Countless thanks to Riyadh Amokrane from LCSM, without whom I never would have been introduced to the inside circles of street life.
A huge thanks to James Ley Ley, Velux (Jesse), Chafik and Younes (the peacemakers of JFP Park), Obed Ego IS nO one, Claude Aline Bellamy, Sabine, Dominique and everyone else…PEACE.
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