Assaulted in the metro, a disabled actor demands “answers”
The climate of insecurity and violence that reigns around the Berri-UQAM metro station is denounced by an actor, Alexandre Vallerand, victim of assault there in March 2023. (File photo)
Alexandre Vallerand, a disabled actor who claims to have been assaulted and robbed at the Berri-UQAM metro station on March 3, denounces the violence that reigns in downtown Montreal and calls for “answers” from the authorities.
In an interview at Tout un matin, on ICI Première, Friday, Mr. Vallerand recounted the attack he suffered around 10 p.m. 30, as he was returning from an event as part of the Rendez-vous du cinema québécois.
Shut up, move on, he asked people who remained gathered in front of the elevator he was trying to access with his wheelchair.
But after fifteen minutes, nothing! he continues.
Mr. Vallerand then tried to sneak up on the elevator and that's when he got a really big punch to the temple.
< p class="e-p">Afterwards, he stole my headphones, he claims.
But that's not what worries me, insists Alexandre Vallerand, who says he is alarmed by the climate of insecurity in the city center of the metropolis. We have a bomb in our hands, everyone is screaming for help, including me first.
This actor, who played on television in Trente lives, among others, is particularly alarmed that security guards, police, employees and even residents of the premises did not know what to do.
It's my biggest defeat in the face of this event, he says.
Mr. Vallerand says the police, whom he saw after the incident, advised him to get a bodyguard.
Everyone everyone talks to me about my wheelchair, but that's not the point, he replies.
“As a citizen, I think of the elderly person, the small family who could have experienced a similar event. »
— Alexandre Vallerand
Alexandre Vallerand is an actor who played in Thirty Lives , notably. He says he was the victim of an assault in the metro and is worried about security problems in downtown Montreal.
Through the media, Alexandre Vallerand posed the following question to Prime Minister François Legault, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and the Chief of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), Fady Dagher: what should I have done? Run into them with my wheelchair? He expects the authorities to provide him with answers.
“Do I have to walk around with cayenne pepper, when I have motor problems? »
— Alexandre Vallerand, victim of assault at Berri-UQAM metro
About the elevator at Berri-UQAM station, Mr. Vallerand says it's one of the dirtiest and dirtiest and most disgusting you can find in the entire Montreal area.
And don't tell me to take paratransit! he protests.
Insecurity issues at Place Émilie-Gamelin, near the Berri-UQAM metro station, are causing the concern of many people who gravitate to this busy sector of the metropolis. (File photo)
The comedian says that to attend the cultural events he loves so much and to carry out his career, he must travel by public transport.
He, who ran for the NDP in the riding of Pointe-de-l'Île in 2021, claims to have good relations with people in situation of homelessness in Saint-Henri, where he lives, in the Sud-Ouest borough.
It doesn't make sense, there is a divided Montreal at the level of the homeless and the gangs, he denounces. I'm not one for taking a friend from the street to defend me every time I want to come to Place des Arts.
At the beginning of February, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) reported having recorded an increase in the number of complaints in 2022, i.e. nearly 1,000, compared to just over 600 in 2020. According to the president of the Union of bus drivers, metro operators and related services, Pino Tagliaferri, the pandemic seems to have increased the psychological distress of many citizens.
