Driver who killed pedestrians in Amqui selected victims at random: police
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Steeve Gagnon, 38, of Amqui, is facing two charges of dangerous driving causing death.
Author of the article:
Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette
Patrice Bergeron
Published Mar 14, 2023 • Last updated 16 minutes ago • 3 minute read
Police officers investigate the scene of a fatal accident on March 14, 2023 in Amqui Que. Two people were killed and nine others were injured. Photo by Jacques Boissinot /The Canadian Press Article content
AMQUI — The driver of a pickup truck that killed two people and injured nine others in the eastern Quebec town of Amqui acted deliberately and with premeditation, running down victims who ranged in age from a baby to a 77-year-old, police said Tuesday.
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The suspect, Steeve Gagnon, 38, of Amqui, appeared in court Tuesday afternoon to be charged with dangerous driving causing the deaths of Gérald Charest and Jean Lafrèniere.
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While Gagnon appeared in person at the courthouse in Amqui, the Quebec Court judge who presided over the hearing did so through a videoconference from a courthouse in Rimouski.
Defence lawyer Hugo Caissy asked that the charges not be read into the court record for the time being, which meant that Gagnon did not have to enter a plea to the criminal accusations he faces. Caissy also said Gagnon was willing to renounce his right to have bail hearing within three days of his arrest.
Prosecutor Simon Blanchette informed the court that the Crown objected to Gagnon’s release.
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“The investigation isn’t over. The evidence is still being gathered and there will certainly be more charges to come. It is too early to set a bail hearing,” the prosecutor told the court
The judge agreed to carry the case over to April 5. Gagnon stood throughout the brief hearing and was handcuffed behind his back as he was led out of the courtroom.
Before Gagnon appeared in court, Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Claude Doiron said the investigation suggests he swerved from one side of the road to the other over a considerable distance to hit victims who appeared to be selected at random.
“We’re talking about pedestrians who were walking all along the (road), on both sides in fact, over a certain distance,” he said.
Doiron said it’s unclear whether the suspect knew any of the victims. It’s not clear what the motive was, or his state of mind at the time, Doiron added. He turned himself into police afterward and is collaborating with investigators, Doiron said.
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Charest, 65, and Lafrenière, 73, were killed during the alleged attack.
The injured include two children — one who is less than one year old and another who is about three — who were both seriously hurt but whose lives are not in danger. On Monday night, a crumpled baby stroller could be seen off the side of the road behind police tape.
Six of the injured, including the children, were airlifted to a hospital in Quebec City, where three adults remained in critical condition as of Tuesday morning. One victim remained in hospital in Amqui, where their condition was described as stable.
David Morin who helped injured people of a fatal accident, speaks to reporters on March 14, 2023 in Amqui. Photo by Jacques Boissinot /The Canadian Press
David Morin, a resident of nearby Causapscal, said he witnessed the panicked moments that followed the tragedy. A shaken Morin told reporters on Tuesday he couldn’t get the image of one of the victims out of his head.
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“He was alive when I arrived, and when I went to see another person, I came back and he was dead,” he said.
Morin described the moments that followed, as residents ran to the aid of the victims. He recalled sitting next to a woman dressed in pink, and asking her name as others helped the two young children.
Amqui mayor Sylvie Blanchette insisted Tuesday that the incident was an isolated one, and the town’s safety is not in danger.
“It’s an individual,” she said. “It’s not everyone who does such a thing, OK? It’s an individual.”
Both Morin and Kristina Michaud, the local Bloc Québécois MP who is from Amqui, described the town of 6,000 as a peaceful place where everybody knows everyone else.
“Here in Amqui, when we hear a police, ambulance or fire truck siren, we glue ourselves to the windows, because we ask ourselves ‘Who is it? I must know the person,”’ said Michaud, who said her own mother regularly walks the road where the crash happened.
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“Yesterday, it was several people we knew (who were affected.) It’s extremely troubling,” she added.
“The whole community wishes it were just a bad dream.”
Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel suggested in an interview Tuesday that driver’s licences of people with some mental illnesses could be suspended to protect the population. But he later walked back that statement, saying he was “thinking out loud” and “my team doesn’t like when I think out loud.”
He clarified that the government is not proposing new policy.
Opposition Liberal Party leader Marc Tanguay suggested a “national conversation” on the effects of the pandemic on mental health, and said there should be a discussion about drivers’ licences. “We need to really help them, we can’t ostracize them. But if minister Bonnardel puts this idea forward, we are ready to discuss it.”
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