The SPVM has entrusted one of its largest occupational health and safety files to an officer qualified as “harassment” by the city of Montreal’s human resources department, La Presse learned.
Posted at 9:00 am
Chief Inspector Costa Labos, a former head of internal affairs at the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), was the subject of a devastating report in 2020.
The defender [Costa Labos] has failed in its most basic duties and responsibilities related to health and safety at work and more broadly to respect for people. Not only did he not protect the police officers who were attacked, as a supervisor, worse, he is a stalker.
City of Montreal Human Resources Report
The report looked at Mr Labos’ behavior towards other police officers during and after the squad investigation and the media leaks to the SPVM. As part of these investigations, the police had obtained a search warrant against columnist Patrick Lagacé.
“The allegations of bullying against the defendant are factual and legal,” concludes the confidential document, a copy of which we have received.
However, the same Costa Labos is today launching a court case against the SPVM in an important case, accusing the Commission on Standards, Justice, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) and the Fraternité police to secure dozens of neighborhood police stations opposes parking. Police officers fear being attacked before or after their shift begins.
The SPVM declined La Presse’s request for an interview. Police “will not make any public comment on a confidential document obtained from the city’s Human Resources Department for Respect for the Person,” their bulletin service said.
The police fraternity denounces this apparent contradiction. “This is absurd,” said President Yves Francœur in a telephone interview. We would never allow a police officer to act like this in the same situation. It’s double weights, two bars. »
An affidavit
Costa Labos was suspended from duty for almost five years, from 2017 to 2022, in the wake of the Escouade file. He was reinstated into the organization’s corporate affairs department last year.
Within that department, he leads the issue of securing parking lots at police stations, a longstanding demand of the Police Officers’ Fraternity. Chief Inspector Labos notably signed a court case filed in the Quebec Supreme Court last week in the case.
The SPVM is trying to challenge a court decision that gives it just six months to assess the risks its police officers face by leaving their private cars in vulnerable parking lots. The city said the delay was “clearly unreasonable and inadequate.”
It was Mr. Labos who made the affidavit in support of the proceedings. “I have read this application and, to the best of my knowledge, all the facts alleged in it are true,” Mr. Labos wrote. As part of my duties, I am aware of all the steps that have been completed by the [Ville] to conform. »
Suspensions and Reinstatements
The investigative report from the City of Montreal Human Resources Department was signed on November 6, 2020 by Raynald Lamontagne, Specialist Advisor for the Department of Respect for Individuals.
His work followed a union complaint filed on behalf of five police officers who were suspended in the 2016 escouade investigation. They resumed in 2021.
Police claimed that “SPVM management, with the concerted complicity of internal affairs, has decided to use the justice system for disciplinary and organizational purposes, if not for purely and simply vindictive purposes.” By turning their disciplinary investigations from media leaks into criminal investigations, Costa Labos and his men made it possible to obtain search warrants or electronic surveillance.
The way Costa Labos and some of these men behaved during and after the Escouade investigation is reprehensible, according to that report.
“We are also of the opinion that the defendant [Labos] has failed in its duty of loyalty to the employer by damaging the image and reputation of the SPVM and the city in general,” the letter reads. “He has placed himself in a situation of ethical conflict in violation of the code of conduct and other police standards provided for in the matter. »
“It should be noted that we were not allowed to have access to the statements made by the Head of Home Affairs at the time of the alleged facts, namely the Respondent [Labos]the latter having refused to cooperate with the investigation,” the letter said.
With the collaboration of Daniel Renaud, La Presse