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| Brosseau and Yvorchuk, 1972 |
Holdup squad duo Det.-Sgt. Eugene Yvorchuk and Det-Sgt. Maurice "Bill" Brosseau boasted of shooting 18 suspects, killing five, over 18 months from 1970.
They and two other squad members purportedly apprehended 101 holdup and murder suspects at the scenes of crimes during a similar time span, many of whom were transported directly to hospitals or morgues.
"I've got no choice but to shoot the guy if he ignores our command to give up," Brosseau told Montreal Star reporter Albert Noel prior to his 1972 retirement.
"But sometimes the next day pity sets in and I get the urge to cry. I've never wasted a bullet and I've never hurt an innocent bystander. I've never shot unless I had to." Brosseau said that he killed seven criminals in total.
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| Bullet-riddled getaway van from Dec. 1970 |
On 29 December 1970, Brosseau and Yvorchuk rushed to a Bank of Montreal near the Cote des Neiges Plaza only to have their police cruiser riddled with bullets, many narrowly missing them after piercing their windshield. The fearless duo leaped from the car and shot three of the four bandits, killing Claude Lefebvre, 24, who was disguised as a woman. The cop duo also shot and injured bandits Lorenzo Hubert and Ral Favron. Around 300 bullets were fired in the exchange.
"The bastards came out of the bank firing. One of the bullets hit the car only inches away from me. It would have hit me but I moved just a fraction of a second before it hit," said Yvorchuk.
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| Yvorchuk at left |
The duo killed two bandits outside the IGA grocery store robbery at 1425 Dorchester E. on 7 January 1971. They also left a third one badly injured.
Six months later Bill and Chuk staked out the Frenette Pharmacy at 2480 Beaubien E., watching out for a pair of thieves suspected in over two dozen recent robberies. The duo emerged with $100 and the pair ordered them to surrender. Bandit Serge Leboeuf, 21, - whose father was a cop - took aim but they shot him dead.On 23 July 1972 the team shot Brian Beamont dead at the scene of a robbery at Household Finance at 6830 Cote des Neiges. A pair of his accomplices were injured.
Then on 7 September Bill and Chuk gunned down Richard Favron, 27, dead outside the CIBC bank at 550 Sherbrooke W. as 10 other armed cops stood outside waiting for the pair to emerge after stealing $6,000 from the bank. They also shot his accomplice Paul Beaupre, 32, three times in the legs.
In March 1973 Longpré led a room-to-room search at the apartment tower at 3475 St. Urbain after André Desbiens, 30, fired shots at a passing police cruiser from the building. They arrested the armed shooter.
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| Longpré |
Longpré''s press clippings - which he curated loving in a scrapbook at home - was jammed with articles about his feats. One described his arrest of Jacques Diamond, 19, at his home on Jeanne D'arc Street on a November morning in 1964. Diamond, still lying in bed, aimed his gun at the officers but Longpré and two others leaped on him from all directions and cuffed him.
Longpré was at the center of a massive shootout on 2 March 1974 after Martin Beaulieu, 43, was found shot dead at a rooming house at 2102 St. André. Police came to question his neigbhbour Maurice Rheault, 28, who opened fire through the door with his .22 semi automatic. Longpré and other cops shot back with their .38s. In all about 100 shots were fired but nobody was hit and the police got their man.
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| Longpré |
Longpré and the Montreal holdup guys weren't limited to the island, as they were often called to other municipalities to help out. On 3 September 1971 Longpré and other cops shot and killed Gilles Labelle, 23, and Gilles Louis-Seize, 24, both of Montreal, as they robbed a bank in St. Basile Le Grand, the town's first-ever bank holdup.
Longpré partook in about 100 shootouts over 31 years.*
The squad's violent pushback helped lower Montreal's bank holdup total from 224 in 1970 to 163 in 1971, as criminals turned to less lethal crimes.Possibly the most intense shootout pitting police against bandits took place on 15 November 1974 when around 200 shots were fired near the Pie IX boulevard Shopping Center as a group of prison escapees from the St. Vincent de Paul Prison took aim at a Royal Bank. Their battle with cops left bandit Jean-Paul Mercier, 28, dead. Bandit Robert Frappier came across a police officer who had tripped on the ground. He shot twice at the officer but his gun was empty. An officer then hobbled Frappier by shooting him in the leg.
The squad's halo lost its shine with time, as a 1977 La Presse article referred to the once-celebrated team as as a "death squad," a term later employed by criminologist Jean-Claude Bernheim in a book that criticized the shoot-first practices of that era.
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| Frappier |
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| More victims |
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| Longpré, 2nd from left, cuffs St. Urbain sniper |
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| Longpré examines enemy weapon from rooming house shootout |
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| Bandit Auguste Paradis, dead Aug. 1971 |
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| Bob "Shotgun" Menard |
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| Joseph Bedard |
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| Favron and his gang |
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| Brosseau and Yvorchuk |
Yes, Montreal was North America’s hold up capital….bank holdups several days a week, particularly on Friday’s during rush hour….I wasn’t aware of this over zealousness by the hold up squads back in the day….good story…thank you!
ReplyDeleteBanks were easier to rob back in the day. Tellers had larger sums of cash in their drawers as compared to subsequent policy that requires a limited amount be on hand for walk-in clients. Furthermore, deterrents like silent alarms and video cameras were not as pervasive as they eventually became.
ReplyDeleteTellers must now routinely insert significant quantities of currency into a timer lock-box that cannot be opened at the point of a gun.
Smart retailers likewise use a lock-box.
Of course, all of these preventive measures don't stop determined criminals from attempting to smash into or haul away ATMs.