MONTREAL — A coroner's inquest began Monday into the death of a man during a Montreal police intervention five years ago, but the man's parents are refusing to take part.
“We declared that we will not participate in a circus act of a government who is simply trying to pull wool over the eyes of the public," Cesur Celik said outside the courtroom where the inquest is happening, alleging that the family has been denied fair treatment.
His son, 28-year-old Koray Celik, was intoxicated and his parents wanted to prevent him from getting behind the wheel when they called 911 just after 2 a.m. on March 6, 2017, in the western Montreal neighbourhood of Île-Bizard.
Police responded to the call and attempted to subdue Celik, including with a baton, but Celik's parents said they witnessed the officers use excessive force, repeatedly beating their son with their feet and knees before he stopped breathing.
Four Montreal police officers were cleared of wrongdoing in his death after a probe by the provincial police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes.
Celik said the coroner's inquest is stacked against family members. He noted that while police officers have no cap on legal bills to defend themselves, the family is reimbursed a maximum of $20,000.
“The public hearings such as this should be held under fair and equal conditions for the results to be valid and for our family to gain trust in governmental organizations," he said.
The parents were slated to be the first witnesses and had been subpoenaed by coroner Luc Malouin. Malouin told the inquiry he wouldn't hold the couple in contempt but would enter their previous statements into the record. “I believe that given what they have been through, this is the wisest and most humane decision,” he said.
One of the four police officers who intervened testified Monday. Const. Alexandre Bélair told the inquest that it took officers time to find the home after receiving a call for someone who was intoxicated and aggressive.
Bélair recounted speaking outside the home with Cesur Celik, who told the officer that his son was inside, was high and needed to come down. The father pleaded with officers not to enter the home.
Bélair said by the time he received that information, his partner Const. Karine Bujold had already entered the home, and he heard a loud yell.
He said Koray Celik was resisting, and it took officers two sets of handcuffs together to subdue him as his parents yelled in the background. Bélair said he stopped breathing not long after and they removed the handcuffs and began resuscitation manoeuvres.
The inquiry also heard Monday from Luc Desroches, an investigator with the police watchdog, who said its investigation didn't start until more than seven hours after after the 911 call.
Celik's father raised the issue outside the hearing -- that the officers were left on their own for hours instead of being immediately split up. He also said Montreal police questioned the family when that task should have fallen to the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes.
Desroches noted the bureau hadn't been up and running very long when the Celik case occurred.
In June 2021, a Quebec court awarded the family $30,000 in damages after they sued the police watchdog. The civil case took issue with an August 2018 statement by the watchdog, which only provided the police version of events, alleging Celik acted aggressively. That version contradicts his parents' account of what happened.
The court sided with the family, ruling the watchdog's statement was not neutral or impartial. The judgment noted it's not the agency's role to justify police actions, but to conduct an independent investigation.
The Celik family is also suing the City of Montreal and the Urgences-santé ambulance service separately for wrongful death.
The inquiry is scheduled to last a total of three weeks spread over the next two months. Malouin noted he is not seeking to determine guilt but to establish facts and issue recommendations.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2022.
Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press