New police chief Fady Dagher was able to feel the pulse of Montreal Tuesday night by patrolling for the first time since taking office less than a week ago.
• Also read: Fady Dagher officially Chief of Police of Montreal
As Fady Dagher boarded the squad car from Neighborhood Station 9 on Tuesday night, she was responding to a very special request made by comedian Maude Landry on the set of Everybody Talks About It two days earlier.
The one invited to discuss her new show called Mr. Dagher to tell him about his brother, who is a Montreal police officer.
“My brother wanted to know … he can’t come to my premiere on Tuesday because he’s working …” she said.
This comment caused hilarity on set. Everyone smiles, the chef replied spontaneously that he would replace him.
Thing promised, ding due: Fady Dagher patrolled the streets of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Côte-Saint-Luc and Montreal West on Tuesday night.
“At the time I thought it was a joke. We talked about it during the break and she told me it was true. I promised him,” Fady Dagher said Tuesday night when she ran into him while he was on patrol.
In patrol uniform
During this unusual shift, he teamed up with Agent Bellavance. It was he who took the wheel.
To this end, he shed his Montreal police number 1 uniform and donned the traditional blue stripe shirt.
“When I got to the station, many couldn’t believe I was actually there,” said Mr. Dagher.
The duo responded to various phone calls, and the chef even had to drive in “emergency” mode.
“I preferred that,” he says, laughing. But it was necessary and certainly done. »
“I found the mermaid pretty quickly,” he added.
Still, Mr. Dagher and his work partner didn’t take anything lightly for the evening. At the end of the shift, they also had to respond to a call about attempted murder at a flat on Sherbrooke Street West in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Few details about the events had been leaked as of press time.
Despite having served on the executive board for several years, Fady Dagher has often said he likes to get back to basics and walk the streets with the police.
But that patrol was the first since he was officially chief of police for the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
A return to Montreal
Appointed at the end of 2022, Fady Dagher was officially sworn in last Thursday.
It is a return to the metropolis as it has been developing there for 25 years.
As deputy director, he left the SPVM in 2016 to become chief of the Police Service of the Longueuil Agglomeration (SPAL).
He sees recruiting, improving relationships with certain Montreal communities and curbing armed violence as challenges to his mandate.
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