Brave Laval Cop Resigns After Sharing His Doubts About the Lockdown & Then His Business is Firebombed
Laval police officer resigns after posting the pandemic doesn’t exist
Maxime Ouimet, a 12-year veteran of the force, saw his Terrebonne business firebombed hours after one of his Facebook posts.Author of the article:Paul Cherry • Montreal GazettePublishing date:Oct 10, 2020 • Last Updated 5 days ago • 2 minute read
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A Laval police officer has resigned from the force after posting comments on social media denying the existence of the pandemic and calling Premier François Legault a dictator.
Maxime Ouimet, a 12-year veteran, resigned on Friday, Laval police confirmed to the Montreal Gazette on Saturday.
Laval police officer resigns after posting the pandemic doesn’t exist
<Earlier in the week, the Journal de Montréal revealed Ouimet had been assigned to desk duty following his controversial posts.
In one, he wrote he would never “destroy” a person’s life by issuing a ticket for not respecting public health regulations aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“I took him off the road in an urgent way,” Laval police Chief Pierre Brochet told the Journal de Montréal, adding Ouimet had been assigned to desk duty and was the subject of an internal investigation.
Among other things, Ouimet wrote he had been working “since the beginning of the crisis and there is no pandemic.”
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He claimed wearing masks was pointless, and that “emergency rooms are empty.”
“I have been a police officer for 12 years to help, serve and protect the people. I will no longer be a tool of the government to satisfy and establish its dictator,” he posted in French on Tuesday.
“I say no to Premier François Legault. What you are doing is illegal and unconstitutional.”
The Facebook page — titled Policier du peuple pour le peuple (A police officer of the people for the people) — includes a photo of Ouimet wearing his police uniform.
On Thursday, he wrote that his badge “will leave me tomorrow.”
“I can swear to you that 75 per cent of police officers in Quebec have a heart of gold like me. They are formidable colleagues who really put their lives and mental health in peril for citizens every day.”
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Hours after Ouimet posted that message, a business he owns in Terrebonne — Académie Beauté Maudite on Des Entreprises Blvd. — was firebombed.
When firefighters arrived, they noticed the salon’s window had been broken. The building’s sprinkler system had been set off and the fire was extinguished.
No one has been arrested in connection with the firebombing that took place sometime after 11 p.m. on Thursday.
Ouimet later confirmed, on a different Facebook page, that someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail inside his salon. He reported his business was heavily damaged by water, and he expressed dismay that his 12 employees would be out of work for weeks.
Ouimet did not reply to a request for an interview.