Police officers from the Pierre-De Saurel MRC were called to the Sorel-Tracy detention center on Sunday around 3:30 p.m. after the attack. According to our information, the agent was injured in the head using a homemade weapon.
The agent reportedly received around fifteen blows. Following the attack, he was resuscitated on site and transported to a hospital for serious injuries.
At the time of writing, his condition was stable, but considered “critical,” said Camille Savoie, spokesperson for the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Sources consulted by Noovo Info confirm this situation.
Kaven Plourde, the inmate who is a suspect in this case, is a 39-year-old man. He was to be met by investigators in the final hours. He was transferred to the Bordeaux prison, the detention facility in Montreal.
Schizophrenia and drug addiction
Plourde was incarcerated while awaiting his appearance on February 12 in an assault case that occurred in Sherbrooke and which dates back to March 2023. This inmate was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 17 years old and has a long history of drug addiction. His criminal record is filled with numerous files.
“In 2002, when he was 17, he experienced a first episode of psychosis, followed by a diagnosis of schizophrenia. After a second hospitalization the same year, a difficulty in accepting his illness was mentioned, which was reflected in his behavior for a certain time,” we can read in a judgment which dates from April 2022.
At the time, Judge Julie Beauchesne imposed a detention sentence of 24 months less the preventive time of 14 months with probation of three years after his incarceration for having engaged in assault against an 82-year-old woman. in an attempted residential theft in Granby and attacked the police officer who had arrested him.
“His school career went well until his arrival in secondary school where consumption interfered with his academic involvement,” we can read in this decision.
“Between the ages of 15 and 17, he used mescaline and LSD on a daily basis until methamphetamine became his drug of choice. In his mid-twenties, he began using cocaine, including crack.”
– Extract from a decision by Judge Julie Beauchesne in 2022
According to this judgment, he was hospitalized several times over the years and was followed by teams of mental health professionals. He tried to put an end to his addiction to toxic substances and had already been to a therapy center before “quitting promptly”.
Regarding the events of March 2023, Sherbooke police indicated that Plourde was “in crisis” in a hospital when he committed violent actions. An official complaint was filed the following April 5. A provincial arrest warrant had been issued, as he had not respected his probation conditions. He has been detained ever since.
Regarding the attack on Sorel-Tracy, the time of Plourde's appearance was still to be determined at the time of writing these lines.
The investigation is in the hands of the SQ's major crimes division and teams from the police force are on site.
SEE ALSO | “Hell” behind the walls of Donnacona penitentiary
At the Ministry of Public Security, we trust the police authorities in this matter. “We obviously denounce the attacks against correctional service agents,” commented the office of Minister François Bonnardel in writing. “They play an important role in securing our establishments and we will let the police conduct their investigation so that we can accuse and punish the criminal who attacked one of our agents.”
However, the president of the Union of Peace Officers in Correctional Services of Quebec criticizes the decisions of the Ministry of Public Security regarding security in detention centers. Mathieu Lavoie calculates that “for the last three weeks, we have had four known attacks in our detention establishments, including two in the Montreal region.”
“We called on our counterparts, we called on the ministry to take action. They are thinking. There is no longer time to think, it is time to act,” commented Mr. Lavoie, lamenting that correctional officers have been asking for a long time to prioritize security before serving incarcerated people.
According to the union, the tragedy that occurred in Sorel-Tracy highlights a reality that it has been denouncing for “years”: “the blatant lack of staff in our establishments is a time bomb.”
The union states in a press release that it has warned the actors concerned that “this critical situation would lead to serious incidents”. “Unfortunately, today this happened,” laments the union, which describes this situation as “unacceptable.”
These events also occur a few days after the publication on social networks of a letter from a correctional officer who resigned from the Donnacona maximum security penitentiary – which is, it must be said, under federal and not provincial jurisdiction. In this letter, this agent recounted the “hell” he experienced there.
In the letter, the guard describes that the reality of this job is “much darker and much more violent” than he would have imagined.
“Eight overdoses (eight times, I had to, on my knees, press on the ribcage of a person lying in a cell, his skin translucent, stripped of all apparent life),” we can read in the letter.
Carl Ruel, retired correctional officer from Donnacona prison, assured in an interview with anchor Jean-Simon Bui to the Noovo Info Québec bulletin last week that the letter from the resigning guard “is entirely consistent with reality” .
With information from Olivier Demers, as well as the collaboration of Émeric Montminy and Laurie Gervais for Noovo Info.
