Montreal Constable Mario Delvecchio's owes his life to his smoking habit.The officer was out on Ontario St. E near Joly when a sniper started shooting out of the window of his rooming house at 336 Ontario E.
Delvecchio - who was behind the wheel of a police ambulance - was hit by a 22-calibre slug which hit his Bic lighter and a pack of Dumauriers stuffed into his shirt pocket.
The father of a then-five-year-old boy survived, as the bullet harmlessly plopped to the ground on August 13, 1978 at 7:55 a.m.
The 13-year-veteran usually wore a bulletproof vest but it was too hot that day.
"The 22-calibre bullet went into his pocket and bounced off the metal part of a Bic lighter," Sgt. Andre Larudeau later told a Gazette reporter.
"It then went through his cigarette package and went right back out an inch from where it went in."
But the shooting spree wasn't all fun and games.
Pierre Thibodeau, 27, who owned the apartment block across the street, looked out the window and was shot in the head and killed.
Police constable Pierre Lacoste, one of about 100 heavily-armed officers who quickly assembled outside, was hit somewhere around the eye with the .22 calibre but survived.
The gunman, Real Gilbert, 37, fired 15 shots in total.
He was eventually persuaded to surrender without force and his crazed shooting spree was deemed to be the result of drugs or insanity.
He was brought to the Pinel Institute for the Criminally Insane for evaluation, but his later fate remains unclear.
The Gazette article mentions "The Montreal Urban Community". This is a phrase I have not heard before.
ReplyDeleteIt also mentions that the shooting was the 45th homicide of the year and they were barely half way through August (and that it had been 65 by that date the previous year). I'm thankful I didn't live here in the Bad Old Days.
Montreal Urban Community = MUC. It was launched in like 1972 and still exists under a different name. It's the one-island-one-city administration for stuff like police. They call it an agglomeration board or something now. The transit corp was known as the MUCTC, which is why some call it the MTC to this date.
ReplyDeleteWhat got me in the article was that it referred to the corner of Ontario and Joly. Couldn't find a street named Joly.
Ave Joly is between Sanguinet and St denis.
ReplyDeletehttp://cartographic.info/ca_street/map.php?p=qc&id=76147
I wouldn't think a lighter and pack of smokes would be enough to stop a bullet.
ReplyDeleteThere are many war-time tales of bullets ricocheting off of badges, pocket bibles, and other items.
ReplyDeletePierre Thibodeau was my uncle. I remember the day vividly even though it was almost 40 years ago. Andre was a fun loving man who purchased the building and opened up La Chaccone, which continued to be run by his sister but ultimately closed after Pierre's death. He heard a commmotion, stuck his head out the window and his life ended instantly.
ReplyDelete