Mission Creep

In their efforts to defend officers at any cost, police associations are becoming alarmingly politicized.

- Joshua Ostroff

DAVID-HUGHES LACOUR, seventeen, had just dropped two girls off at a high school when Éric Deslauriers, a sergeant with Quebec’s provincial police force, spotted him in the parking lot. The red Mazda that Lacour was driving had been reported stolen in Sainte- Adèle, a small town outside Montreal. Deslauriers called for backup and parked his patrol car across the exit to prevent an escape. But, instead of waiting, he stepped onto the icy lot, drew his 9mm Glock, and approached the teenager from the driver’s side. Lacour revved the engine; after initially raising his hands, he accelerated.

Deslauriers fired his gun, lodging a bullet in Lacour’s left elbow. The second gunshot flew through the driver’s open window, severing his jugular vein and carotid artery. Lacour died in hospital the same day.

Three months later, Deslauriers was back to work; ten months after that, Montreal police charged him with manslaughter; and, last fall, a judge declared him guilty. (Deslauriers is appealing the conviction.) But the provincial police association — the labour organization representing the rank and file — never stopped defending the disgraced officer, calling the judge’s decision “incomprehensible and unacceptable.” Deslauriers, a statement from the association said, was an “excellent” cop.