A PUGNACIOUS PRIDE

As part of this Pride week, which celebrates differences and — precisely — pride in all its forms, I felt like talking to you about pride. Not only the one we celebrate in the streets this weekend, even if it fully deserves it, and I think of it with a great deal of tenderness.

Another pride: that of a fight that led to a victory.

I was pugnacious in this story, and I think it's worth telling you how.

Huh? What? PugWhat? Whazzat…?

There are words we know. And there are others we only come to understand because we lived them, because we embody them…

“Pugnacious”: that's the word of my pride, this year.

What follows is how we got there… including the latest developments, which I'm sure you'll be glad to hear about, because they concern YOU.

The subject of my pride? OUR SAFETY!

How?

Well…

The first signs of anger

To start at the beginning: a month ago I told you about the “Maillage” — that invisible web that holds a nightlife community upright without it ever needing to explain itself to itself — in my piece titled « 1461 Days », marking my 4 years of bonus life after the assault I suffered in 2022.

So, for context: a few days ago I received news that filled me with a joy that was hard to contain — the kind of news you want to shout from the rooftops, but that you tell calmly instead, so the message carries further than the shout.

As I had published within my unfortunate life chapter « Survive & Recover », which covers everything to do with the terrible assault I suffered in 2022 — amply documented and shared with you — that includes the judicial proceedings, the enormous consequences of the physical and psychological injuries that followed, the healing, and the relapses that came with it…

You know, ever since the guy caved in my skull with gestures and actions meant to kill, and against which I had to fight for my survival, I was left with severe psychological after-effects. But 4 years of therapy and hard reconditioning work allowed me to rebuild myself and find a more or less normal life again, under normal conditions.

The further I go, the fewer blackouts, nightmares, flashbacks and urges to die I have. Because yes, that's what happens when you've suffered a major head trauma and multiple fractures and cervical lesions.

So things weren't going too badly. But at the beginning of June, a friend told me that my attacker had gotten out of prison, and had reappeared in town — in MY church, MY sacred temple, the Stereo. Esti!

Just learning that set off a first episode of blackouts and flashbacks in me. It shook me, but up to that point I could handle it.

Except that…

On June 14th, he showed up in front of me and confronted me — physically, directly — despite the Court's order forbidding him from being in my presence.

Although he had been informed of my presence and of his obligation to leave the premises, the offender literally defied the law, showed a total lack of decency, and waited for me for more than three hours on the sidewalk. With no respect whatsoever, neither for his legal probation conditions nor for the slightest social decency.

Four years of therapy working to dismantle fear, the physiological reactions of paralysis, flashbacks, nightmares — and to relearn how to defuse triggers (like just walking in the dark at first, then meeting strangers on the sidewalk, passing next to a car with tinted windows… I'm telling you, esti, I'm starting from way back) and to regain confidence in life and in my own emotions…

As my therapist put it: « There can be no stronger trigger for a crisis than your attacker himself, who represents all the violence and the threat to your life that you had to fight against. »

Indeed. So what do you think happened?

When I saw him, THERE, a few metres from me, all of it collapsed in an instant.

BLAAAAAAM!

In the hours that followed I fell straight back into full-blown anxiety attacks and everything that comes with it. And it's not because I'm weak or because I WANT that!

That's just how it is!

My case is no worse and no different from anyone else's: when a woman, or anyone who has been raped or assaulted, sees their abuser again, the brain reacts on its own, firing signals — DANGER DANGER DANGER! GET THE HELL OUT!

And when the brain sends you what are called “physiological” signals, that is not “somatic”.

To draw a parallel with a clear image: imagine you're in your car or on a snowmobile and the throttle jams and sticks, lever or pedal to the floor.

You can do whatever you want to stop the machine. The throttle is stuck. It isn't you pressing on it, but the throttle is stuck, so the engine races.

If you don't have a kill switch, an emergency cut-off or a master breaker — forget it, you're going to wrap yourself around a tree, unable to stop. I knew a woman it happened to on an ATV. Unable to stop or control the machine, she hit a tree at high speed, and her whole body was torn open, from the pelvis to the abdomen to the thorax, a double jaw fracture, a skull fracture… her survival is a medical miracle, and her consciousness a miracle of the universe.

Flashbacks are consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and are common among victims of brain injury. Assault, car accident, explosion, rape, domestic violence, workplace accident, violent death… So yes, there are all kinds of situations that can trigger flashbacks, disruptive or not, in anyone who has lived through trauma. That's just how it is.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) defines it this way:

« The term “trauma” refers to the distressing emotional consequences that living through a difficult event can bring about.

When the memory of a traumatic event and the thoughts that accompany it persist or become more intrusive, they can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which seriously compromises a person's ability to regulate their emotions and maintain healthy relationships with others. »

CAMH

Somatic signals are YOUR will pressing with your foot (or your thumb, depending on the example) on the throttle.

Physiological signals are the fuel running through the line.

When it's YOU controlling the throttle, everything's fine. But if the engine races, and you can't cut the fuel line, then good luck.

THAT is what happens in post-traumatic shock, and what produces flashbacks.

It isn't you deciding. Your brain goes haywire. Good luck.

First responders

His failure to respect his obligation not to disturb my peace — him as a convicted offender, toward me the victim — produced a perfect example of sheer effrontery, and pushed me to make numerous calls asking that my safety, and my community's safety, be ensured, and my peace of mind guaranteed.

I called everyone “named” in the guilty verdict and the release order: the various boards, the probation officers, the crime victims assistance centre, and all those pseudo-authorities supposedly ensuring the application of the law, of justice… yeah, right.

I even went in person to the police station to write out, by hand, a six-page report, in order to have my complaint officially registered and to request action.

Alright! Let's be honest! I don't know if you're aware, but writing six pages by hand is a hell of a job, and nobody ever does that anymore. Serious work! In other words, it's an investment, believe me!

But hey… despite all my anger, and my time, and my commitment poured into it — hey, unfortunately, there was no acknowledgment of receipt and no follow-up whatsoever, despite three in-person visits to the station (because my station, number 23, NEVER answers. NEV-ER. No matter the hour, no matter how long you let it ring, they NEV-ER answer.

I even called ANOTHER station to ask for support, but nothing doing), I had to go in person. « One moment, sir… Ahhhh yes, I see your complaint was received by the inspector fooooour days ago, but she's veeeery busy… »

You know why I went to the police station to write a six-page report denouncing outrageous intimidation and a breach of legal conditions?

Well, because every professional I had spoken to since his reappearance told me it had to be done.

Every office, every officer I spoke to, every commissioner I spoke to, every caseworker — whether crime victims assistance centres, the parole board, the probation board, the supervision officers, the community officers, the probation officers, blah blah blah.

All of that, goddamn it.

All those people said: « But sir, did you call the police? Did you file a complaint with the police? Did you submit a report to the police? »

The system is good, sir. The system works this way, sir. The system rehabilitates, sir. Oh, really.

Oh, so that's what it takes?

Well then, alright, Taaabarnak!!

“I'm going for it!” I'm going to do everything I can to protect my community from this attacker.

Well — nothing.

There was nothing. There was absolutely nothing.

No follow-up, not even an acknowledgment of receipt.

What frustration, what disappointment, what worry…

A friend who knows the system a little told me: « Chris, the police will never take action if an ordinary citizen reports an offender breaching his conditions. Even when it's justified, even with witnesses, they'll never act. Unless they witness it themselves — and even then… »

Come on! TAAAAB! @$%#!

Oh yeah?

Well, just watch me, esti!

So, faced with the powerlessness of « a justice system » that seemed unable to do anything, I worked my way back up the line…

Working back up the law…

Thanks to old emails I dug up, to searches through my reports and my old files — because I'm an administrative animal — I traced my way back to people who had been involved in the court case.

You know how it is: the further up a line you go, the thinner it gets, and the fewer people are involved… That's the nature of the beast.

Nothing about any of this was “obvious” or “solid”, and none of it might ever have happened. But it was when I pushed like an animal and managed to track down the Crown prosecutor from the original case in Trois-Rivières — when I no longer believed in it and was so discouraged — that things started to move.

We were now at the end of June. All that time my brain was scrambled, with flashbacks and blackouts blowing my head apart in the middle of an activity… Asti, that is unpleasant.

Well, it's that prosecutor whom I bless from my heart for her integrity, her listening and her sensitivity, who FINALLY changed everything. It's thanks to that woman — who has nothing to do with me anymore, but who carried my case from 2022 to 2024 — that I was FINALLY able to feel heard, to feel I had a minimum of power over my own destiny, and my « empowerment », meaning the recovery of a sense of control over my own fate.

It's only thanks to that, and to the fact that I found this person despite all the people I had bothered, called and written to, and who said: « sorry sir, that's not my file! » — whereas this woman, counsel for the prosecution (representing the Crown), realized: « Yeah, well, the guy isn't going to let go. »

No. He isn't going to let go.

So, okay, let's go.

It's this woman who said: « Sir, what worries me is the fact that he waited for you for three hours outside your club, after being ordered to leave the premises. What are his intentions? Why did he stay there to intimidate you, right in front of you, despite his legal ban on being in your presence? In the eyes of the law, HE is the one with conditions to respect, HE is the one who must leave any place where you are — that is exactly what victim protection clauses are for. »

FINALLY! Someone seemed to understand my worry! I can't presume the attacker's intentions, but if he carried out acts of combat meant to kill me, how am I supposed to know whether he holds it against me that he did prison time? What tells me he doesn't mean me harm? I know perfectly well that if I don't mean someone harm, I wouldn't stand there waiting for them like a madman on a sidewalk for 3 hours…

The prosecutor continued: « There is only one clause in the Criminal Code, section 732, under which only the judge who handed down the sentence may modify the offender's legal release conditions. I'm going to follow your reasoning and request a ban on him coming within 100 metres of you. And you seem to be telling me that the Stereo is a place you go to regularly, so I'll also request a 100-metre ban from that location. Our chances are extremely slim — but tomorrow, I'll try to get it on the docket. »

Getting it on the docket means slipping my file into the pile of all the day's cases to be presented to the judge. Chances close to zero. But a slim chance — maybe 1%.

She asked me: « Do you think you could put together a legal document for me by tomorrow morning? »

Excuse me?

It was around three in the afternoon, on a Thursday.

« By tomorrow morning? »

…

« Okay, I'll try. »

It had been a few weeks since the start of my shock, my upheaval, the reappearance of this guy in my life — which had completely disorganized me, and created a great deal of anguish, frustration and anger. I couldn't let it go.

So I got to it, and I didn't let go.

I sat down there and, like a machine, I pulled out all my files, all my documents. All the texts, everything I had written from 2022 to 2024, all the crap I had lived through.

I went back over and chewed through every piece of it. I studied in depth every clause of section 732 of the Criminal Code, the rulings, the case law, the probation regime: I pulled out every text I had received from the law and from the justice system over all those years. Everything I had never reread, everything I wanted nothing more to do with — I pulled it all out. I devoured all of it. I analyzed all of it. And I was pugnacious — extremely persistent.

Few people will understand, because situations with this kind of obligation are fairly rare, apart from major university exams — but I sat there, and I studied and wrote for sixteen hours straight.

I'll say it again: I sat there and I devoured all of it, close to 200 pages of documents, for sixteen hours, in order to succeed, by morning, in having drafted a ten-page legal document, with appendices, legal articles, case law. I did all of that. Like a robot.

And I sent my brief in for eight o'clock in the morning.

Sixteen hours straight. My body ached, my backside, my eyes, my back. I was exhausted, wrecked, toast — but driven by anger, by rage, by indignation, and by the absolute determination not to give him, above all, above ALL, a chance to get away with it unpunished; and to do everything, absolutely everything I could, to fight, and to help the only person who had said she might be able to act.

If I had ONE PERCENT of a chance, well, I was going to seize it.

Persistence

We were now near the end of June.

But unfortunately, on the Friday I sent my brief, the prosecutor couldn't get before the judge. She told me it would go to the following Monday. And the following Monday? Well, something else came up again and she couldn't get it through.

Then she left on vacation for a month. But she told me: « Don't worry, Mr. Côté. I'm handing your file to another prosecutor, and he'll do his best. »

Of course that worried me. I told myself: that's it, it's lost.

But no. The other lawyer was kind, and he answered my emails. He reassured me: « Yes, we'll try, sir. »

He tried a first time, then a second time. « Mr. Côté, » he wrote to me, « I haven't been able to reach the accused — he has moved, he's unreachable. »

I answered that this was exactly his game. The guy moves, he changes address, so he keeps getting the case postponed. I remember he did that to me during the trial. It took almost two years after the assault before we could get to court. He delays justice as much as possible, and in the meantime the victim is dying inside.

Damn, the anger I felt toward that guy — despite all my kindness, despite my desire to forgive, despite, TRULY, TRULY, the fact that I wished I could manage to let go and just give up, accept it and leave it all behind; despite having genuinely tried to hand it over to the universe, to a higher power…

You have no idea how hard that is.

But believe me, before writing all this, I tried EVERYTHING, including meditation and prayer, deep reflection, and even the study of customs and traditions across time, and of moral codes, regarding repeat offenders. I did my homework so as not to let impulse speak in my place — I promise.

One can well want to “hold no grudge” and forgive someone at fault; there are limits to the indecency one accepts, quite legitimately, according to nearly every custom and belief. And beyond what he did to me, during that time, every time I went out, people — friends or not — would come and tell me: « Hey Chris, is it possible your guy is back in town? I think I ran into him! »

Wooooow!

Man!! The filth I heard about that guy. Without my having to say a single word, the community did what must be done: one group after another, the organism ejected the toxin…

Well, the whole month of July went by, and I had almost given up hope that it would happen. But there, on the very last day of the month, I received an email.

The substitute prosecutor hadn't let go either. He had kept his word, and he had pulled it off, damn it!!

WHAT?? WHAT'RE YOU SAYING??

And THAT is where I regain confidence:

A few days ago, then, a judge modified his probation order, and two new conditions were added to it:

Well, Taaa!

Reading the email, I couldn't believe it! I read it twice.

« Prohibited from being within 100 m of 858 Ste-Catherine East »

Damn, I slapped my thighs thanking the heavens, and that big-hearted prosecutor who HEARD my distress and my lingering fear for my safety — when NOT ONE of the bodies supposed to enforce the law had played its role as guardian.

Conclusion

This text is about you — and about a discovery I only made afterwards, retracing the thread of this summer.

Because when every institution explained to me why it couldn't act, it was the humans around me who did.

Friends. Loved ones. Witnesses. The management and staff of our temple. The people who love you. The people who show up. The people who keep watch. The people who protect. The people who refuse to look away.

That's the Maillage. Not a theory. A very real mechanism, which activated all on its own.

And in writing these lines, I realize something rather wonderful. With SOUL, from the very beginning, we've been repeating two very simple things: “No. 09 — Respect the tribe” and “No. 10 — Look out for one another”.

Well, there it is. That's exactly what happened. The words became gestures.

Collective strength. Collective vigilance. Collective solidarity.

We won. Together — not just me.

A pugnacious pride

My own pride, this week, is a pugnacious pride. The pride of never having let go — even crushed, even exhausted, even a hair's breadth from handing it all over to the universe. It's the pride of having fought, sixteen hours straight if that's what it took, in the name of those who don't always have the strength or the means to fight for themselves.

On my side, yes, I went and obtained a legal court decision preventing the attacker from coming near our temple of night and of life — but YOU, you also acted, you spoke, and you protected our collective.

A community never becomes dangerous to those who attack it because of one single person. It becomes dangerous when no one, collectively, agrees to look away anymore.

Me, in all this, I'm only a bearer of words.

But a bearer of words, sometimes, is enough to hold a sword.

Not to wound — to protect what deserves protecting.

Thank you for doing your part. You've done far more than you imagine.

Section 732 of the Criminal Code. Remember that number.