On this day 18 years ago, Fredy Villanueva was shot and killed by a police officer in Henri-Bourassa Park in Montreal North. The incident fueled years of debate over policing, racial profiling and inequality in Montreal North.
“It changed the direction of my purpose in life,” said Cassandra Exumé, general coordinator at Hoodstock, a Black-led organization based out of Montreal North.
“I was 18 years old as well as in August 2008, and when I saw the images I was really shocked,” she said. “I wasn’t naïve anymore. It changed the way I thought about not only Canada, but Montreal, police officers and racism as a whole.”
Cassandra Exumé, general coordinator at Hoodstock, a Black-led organization based out of Montreal North. (Erin Seize CityNews)
Villanueva was unarmed, playing a game of dice with his older brother and friends, when he was struck by two bullets fired by officer Jean-Loup Lapointe.
A vigil in Montreal North erupted into riots the night after Villanueva’s death.
“The death of Fredy Villanueva was basically, in retrospect, Montreal’s George Floyd moment,” said Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR).
CRARR executive director Fo Niemi. (Gareth Madoc-Jones, CityNews)
The aftermath
In December 2008, Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions (DCPP) announced that no charges would be laid against Lapointe and his partner, Stéphanie Pilotte, finding that he had acted in self-defence. Community members called for a public inquest. It took five years for the coroner’s inquest to release their report in 2013.
It was a battle for the Villanueva family to be included in the inquiry said Niemi.
“We had to mount another campaign to pressure the government to ensure that the lawyers would get proper financial support in order to be equal participants in the coroner’s inquiry,” he said.
In the end, the family’s lawyers were paid by the province, but the costs of the inquest were never made public.
The report concluded that the officer believed he was in danger of being disarmed. Lapointe testified that he fired his weapon four times, hitting Fredy Villanueva twice as well as two others.
The report’s findings also criticized the lack of efforts to de-escalate the confrontation and identified problems with the police investigation.
“[At the hospital] it took hours and hours for Lilian to actually see the physical manifestation of the departure of Fredy,” said artist Ricardo Lamour, the curator of a mural in memory of Fredy Villanueva. ”I’m talking like something happened to your son. Let me see him. Let me see him… and we see that in the coroner’s inquest.”
Ricardo Lamour, artist and curator of the mural, “The Innocence of a New Home” in honour of Fredy Villanueva. (Erin Seize CityNews)
Memorializing the events
In 2018, Montreal North created Place de l’Espoir, or Hope Place, in honour of the teen.
“There is nothing that we can see about Fredy Villanueva,” Hoodstock’s Exumé said, explaining that it’s also known by the name “La Place du Désespoir,” or Place of Despair, in English.
Place de l’Espoir on August 7 2026. (CityNews)
“When kids are playing, when they’re around here, and when they are 18 years old today, they don’t have any idea that something awful happened 18 years ago and that it could happen to them again today,” she said.
Advocates like artist Ricardo Lamour collected hundreds of signatures for a mural to honour Villanueva in Henri Bourassa Park, but the plans fell through. They didn’t stop there though, and in 2023 the mural, entitled “L’innocence de la Nouvelle Maison,” which translates to “The Innocence of a New Home,” was painted by artist Monk.E.
For Lamour and organizers of the mural, it was important for the family to be involved at every step of the way.
“We were always texting Lilian,” he said, telling her that, “we found the artist, we secured the funding, its going to happen.”
Fredy Villanueva mural, entitled “L’innocence de a Nouvelle Maison,” which translates to “The Innocence of a New Home” by artist Monk.E. (CityNews)
“When she saw it, she shed tears. She said, ‘This is Fredy when he came to Canada. This is Fredy when he arrived here,’” said Lamour. The family immigrated from Honduras in 1998, when Villanueva was 10 years old.
Far-reaching impact
As a result of the the coroner’s public inquiry, the Bureau des enquetes indépendantes (BEI), a police watchdog, was created.
“It’s not a perfect system,” said CRARR’s Niemi.
Nearly 490 investigations have been initiated to date, resulting in three charges. The BEI’s reports are not made public.
“There was an erosion of the natural things that we would know after the death of a civilian by police,” said Lamour. “We don’t know the names of the police officers that killed Nooran [Rezayi], that killed Abisay Cruz, that killed Ronny Kay.”
Now, following allegations of racist conduct involving 16 officers from the same Montreal North police station in June of this year, community leaders say many of the issues exposed in 2008 continue today.
“We’re proposing a civilian commander for Station 39,” said Roger Petit-Frère, co-founder of the Regroupement des Intervenants & Intervenantes d’Origine Haïtienne (RIIOH).
He pointed to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) as an example, where civilian Johanne Beausoleil has been at the helm of the organization since 2019.
“We must improve the living conditions of the local population,” Petit-Frère added.
With a population of over 88,000, Montreal North is still without a sports and recreational centre forcing youth to play on public courts, in school gymnasiums or rented spaces – or outside the borough.
A $103-million sports and aquatic centre is planned for Montreal-North on the former Garon arena site. There is no confirmed completion date.
“They don’t see us as human beings,” said Exumé. “You get questioned just because you exist, a young black man can be walking right here and boom, he’s doing something wrong because he’s breathing. Fredy died, but a lot of kids are dying inside because they get accused and followed by the police by the age of 8 or 9 years old until they’re 99 years old.”
Protestors hold posters at a march in memory of Fredy Villanueva on the first anniversary of his death in Montreal, Sunday, August 9, 2009. About 500 people took to the streets of Montreal Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of a fatal police shooting that sparked a night of rioting in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
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