It took less than a minute after police intervened to end a bylaw-contravening dice game for an officer to open fire, killing 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva in a Montreal North park in 2008.

From preliminary reports, it didn’t take much longer Sunday for police in Longueuil, responding to 911 calls about a “group of armed people,” to fatally shoot 15-year-old Nooran Rezayi.

The slaying of Villanueva sparked angry riots, raised troubling concerns about racism, gave rise to victim blaming, and put law enforcement practices under the microscope in the days, months and years that followed. It long remained an open wound in a city of increasing diversity and fuelled a widespread sense of injustice.

The Villanueva case did eventually — slowly, perhaps even reluctantly — yield reforms that were supposed to address some of these grievances. It certainly contributed to greater awareness, in Montreal and beyond, about how systemic problems can spiral into tragedy.

But 17 years later, the killing of Rezayi is reigniting many of the same painful questions.

Why did police open fire so quickly? Like Villanueva, Rezayi was unarmed when he was shot. One eyewitness told La Presse that Rezayi put his hands up and was trying to show police he had no weapons in his backpack when they fired.

Why did police........

© Montreal Gazette