Bathurst settles lawsuits over fatal police shooting of Michel Vienneau

Settlements have been reached inlawsuits against Bathurstand its police force over the shooting death ofMichel Vienneau in 2015 after police got a false Crime Stoppers tip he was trafficking drugs.

The cases concluded in recent months in Bathurst's Court of King's Bench without going to trial.

The settlements bring to a close one of the final proceedings stemming from Vienneau's shooting death onJan. 12, 2015, while leaving the Bathurst train station with hiscommon-law spouse,Annick Basque.

Basque filed a lawsuit on behalf of her two daughters in 2015 against the city, the police force, and officersMathieu Boudreau and Patrick Bulger, claimingdamages and loss of income because of the 51-year-oldTracadie businessman's death.

A second lawsuit against the city allegedshe was arrested forcibly and without reason immediately after the shooting.

• How anonymous tips and a rush to make an arrest led to N.B. man's death

Basque's lawyer, Charles Leblanc, told Radio-Canada the financial settlement between Basque and the cityis subject to a confidentiality agreement.

In the case involving her daughters, court documents show a settlement amount totalling $70,000.Each daughter will receive $25,000, with the lawyer paid $20,000 to cover legal costs, the documents show.

The municipality wouldn't comment on the settlements, including how the municipality will cover the settlement costs or how much it has spent on legal costs over nine years.

"It is the norm for the City of Bathurst to not comment on legal matters,"Luc Foulem, a spokesperson for the city said in an email Friday. "The same approach applies to this particular situation."

Details of the shooting had emerged through a series of court and other proceedings over the years, including criminal charges against the officers, a coroner's inquest, and a hearing about whether the officers should be fired.

Those proceedings painted a picture of a rushed police operation in response to anonymous Crime Stoppers tips allegingVienneau was trafficking drugs on a passenger train that was due to arrive in Bathurst that morning.

In reality,Vienneau and Basque werereturning from a weekend trip to Montreal to watch a hockey game. An RCMP investigation after the shooting found no evidence of drug trafficking.

The tips were received that morning by a team of officers from the region's police forces tasked withsurveillance and intelligence gathering related to drugs and organized crime.

Bulger and Boudreau, Bathurst officers, were part of that team who rushed to the train station in the hopes of intercepting the couple.

They wore plain clothes and worked in unmarked vehicles with hidden police lights.

Vienneauplaced a suitcase in the trunk of his vehicle and started to drive away from the train station.Boudreau and Bulger moved to stop him, getting out of the unmarked car and drawing their pistols.

Evidence heard at a discipline hearing for the officers in 2019 indicatedthat Vienneau drove his carinto the police car and kept driving toward Bulger.

Basque later testified that they panicked, thinking about a recent terrorist attack in Paris.

Bulger testified he was hit by Vienneau's car and pinned against a snowbank.Boudreau, who testified he feared for his partner's life, then fired four times at Vienneau. He died of a gunshot wound.

The officers, in a statement of defence filed in one of the cases, said they were acting in self-defence.

Boudreau and Bulger were charged with manslaughter. The case was dropped after a preliminary inquiry, held to test the Crown's evidence before a case can move ahead to trial.

Anarbitrator ruled in 2019 thatBoudreau and Bulger did notviolate a police code of conduct and could keep their jobs.

A coroner's inquest jury in 2021 issued five recommendations to avoid similar deaths in the future, touchingon how police are equipped. One recommendation was that officers should wear something clearly labelled "police" when they try to stop someone.

In the years since the shooting, a major unanswered question has been the source and motivation for the false tips.

A coroner who presided over the 2021 inquest said they attempted to have someone from Crime Stoppers testify, butcourts haveruled the program's information should be kept confidential.

Documents obtained by CBCNews revealed the RCMP considered an investigation into the source of the tips, but police later said officers don't know the identity of the person who submitted the tips.