Laval officer suspended for using bylaw allegation to compel identification

A Laval police officer has received a two-day unpaid suspension after admitting he used an alleged municipal bylaw offence as a pretext to force a bar patron to identify himself during an encounter that began with a voluntary request.

Quebec’s Tribunal administratif de déontologie policière accepted the negotiated sanction in Le Commissaire à la déontologie policière c. L’agent Anthony Perrozzi, file C-2025-5594-2. Administrative Judge Isabelle Côté gave written reasons on October 7, 2026, following approval of the joint recommendation at the September 8 hearing.

The tribunal found one breach of article 6 of Quebec’s police code of ethics and dismissed the other 19 disciplinary counts. The order specifies two working days of eight hours each without pay. It is a disciplinary finding, not a criminal conviction.

A voluntary request became a demand

The agreed facts placed Perrozzi and other members of Laval’s Équinoxe squad at a bar on August 24, 2023. They were accompanied by Sûreté du Québec officers. The visit was part of a mandate that included gathering information, and officers asked various patrons to identify themselves voluntarily.

One patron declined. Perrozzi approached him and explained the squad’s role in licensed establishments. The patron said he had been advised that he did not have to identify himself if he had committed no offence.

According to Perrozzi’s account recorded in the agreed facts, he described the patron’s reason for refusing as foolish and explained that the patron had the right to decline. The patron responded by insulting him. Perrozzi then said the insult constituted a municipal bylaw offence and that the patron now had to identify himself.

Perrozzi warned that continued refusal would lead to an arrest for obstruction. The patron continued to refuse and was arrested. The man was placed in a police vehicle while officers worked to identify him, and the vehicle he had been using was searched. He was released after receiving an offence notice.

Perrozzi acknowledged that the patron had not been required to identify himself before their exchange. He also acknowledged that he should not have commented on the reason for the refusal and that his remarks could have made the situation worse. His admission of misconduct concerned using the alleged bylaw offence as an indirect means or pretext to compel identification.

One finding, not 20 proven allegations

The commissioner’s original citation contained 20 counts, including allegations about intimidation, arrest, force, detention, searches and phone handling. The commissioner offered no evidence on the other counts and sought their removal. At the hearing, the parties asked that those counts be dismissed, which the tribunal did following their negotiations.

That distinction matters: the decision did not make 20 findings of wrongdoing or adjudicate each of those separate allegations. Nor did it decide the outcome of the patron’s municipal offence notice.

In submissions on sanction, the commissioner treated Perrozzi’s admission as mitigating but pointed to his nine years of experience and his acting in a more senior role that evening as aggravating factors. The officer’s side raised the squad’s operational context and the educational effect of the disciplinary process. The agreed facts recorded no prior entries on his police ethics record.

Why the negotiated suspension was accepted

Côté explained that a jointly proposed sanction is assessed against the public interest and whether accepting it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. The tribunal must still consider the particular circumstances and the officer’s disciplinary record.

The judge recognized that two days might appear lenient given the original number of counts. But she explained that sanctions on the various counts would likely have run concurrently, rather than simply adding together. Many allegations also duplicated conduct under two different provisions of the code, engaging the rule against multiple findings for the same wrongdoing.

The admission addressed the principal misconduct underlying almost all the other allegations. After considering the comparable decisions submitted by the parties, the tribunal accepted the two-day sanction as meeting the public-interest test.

The result concerns this officer’s admitted use of a bylaw allegation as a pretext in a particular encounter. It does not create a general rule that people must—or need never—identify themselves whenever police ask.