By André Faust (Left Eye Mar 21, 2017)
What is troubling about the Michel Vienneau shooting death is no one wants to assume responsibility for the death of an innocent Canadian because Crime stoppers did not verify the accuracy of the tip that they received from the Tipster. Of course, Crimes stoppers will argue that they have no way of verifying the accuracy or the identity of the tipster so therefore are exonerated from the responsibility of being the catalyst which led to the police shooting of Michel Vienneau.
“Vienneau was not a drug dealer or drug runner. He was a well-respected businessman in the community”
Since Crime stoppers cannot identify or refuses to identify the tipster that provided the false information which led to the unfortunate circumstances that claimed the life, Michel Vienneau, Crime stoppers has to assume responsibility for this needless death. Crime stoppers hands are now soiled with the blood of an innocent man.
What about the two police officers? Constables Patrick Bulger and Mathieu Boudreau. While the charges of manslaughter have been dropped, these two officers cannot be too happy with crime stoppers, after all, it was crime stoppers erroneous tip that placed these two officers in the position where they killed an innocent man believing he was a threat to their safety.
The two constables are not only police officers but they are also human, humans with emotions.
The shooting of an innocent man has to have some psychological impact on these officers, not to mention the damage to their reputation in the eyes of the community.
To understand what went down is you have to view it from several frames of reference. First is from the perspective of Michel Vienneau. The second from the police’s perspective and finally the reference of time.
From Michel Vienneau’s reference frame, here is businessman Mr Vienneau coming in on the train with his partner not suspecting what was waiting for him. For Vienneau, it is a normal routine day. while this has not been verified, what I learned anecdotally is that Vienneau was accosted by plainclothes officers who did not identify themselves. So the Unsuspecting Vienneau steps out the train and is from his perception is attacked by people bearing guns, believing that there is a threat to his health and life he responds by pinning the perceived threat with his car.
From the police’s perspective, they were told by crime stoppers that Vienneau was bringing in a shipment of drugs relying on that information the Bathurst police approached Vienneau, Vienneau responds by pinning one of their own with his car. Upon seeing this to protect their own and seen Vienneau as a possible threat to themselves they shot him dead.
The final reference frame; time. By all accounts this unfortunate event happened very quickly, neither Vienneau nor the police had the luxury of time to get philosophical, both responded with their basic instinct. We know the final result, Vienneau was shot dead because of the wrong information provided by crime stoppers to the Bathurst Police.
The problem is crime stoppers’ has to understand is that there are just as many vicious people trying to harm people as they are criminals. Crime stoppers can be that means to carry out that end.
While crime stoppers try to discourage people from misusing their system for malicious acts because under their anonymity guidelines there is no way for them to prosecute those who misuse the system.
If you go to the Crime stoppers NB site you find a page that tells you that “Any misuse or abuse of this system is strictly prohibited. MAKING A FALSE REPORT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT IS A SERIOUS OFFENSE AND MAY BE PUNISHABLE BY LAW”. If crime stoppers’ is not classified as law enforcement this warning is meaningless. If Crime Stoppers is classified as law enforcement, how are they going to charge the person for making a false report, if they do not know the identity of the tipster? If they do know the identity, then the whole anonymity thing is bull shit.
Conclusion, If Crime Stoppers cannot give the identity of the person who gave them the false information which led to Vienneau’s death then Crime stoppers have to assume responsibility and pay out damages to both the police officers for mental anguish and damage to their reputation and to the Vienneau family for the death of Michel Vienneau. If crimes stoppers can not accept that responsibility then revoke Crime Stopper New Brunswick charitable status!
Update !!!
Reference: Crime Stoppers website: http://www.crimenb.ca/
The Left Eye 
[…] Source: Crime Stoppers: The Social Experiment That Killed Michel Vienneau […]
The two polices and Crime Stoppers should be charge and prosecuted. No one now will trust Crime Stoppers. It is not very hard to see that their is something VERY WRONG about this case.
An error was made that claimed the life of an innocent person, but not one wants to take responsibility. In essence those who profess that they are there to protect us become no different then the common criminal who refuses to take the responsibility of their action and face the consequences.
Thanks for your excellent perspective on what happened to my uncle Michel Vienneau.
It is a very difficult case, at least apparently, for the justice system to process correctly.
Everything about this killing smells like fish to me. (Or shit if the internet still permits)
Surprisingly enough, also not much was done for crimes committed against Michel and my family after his death. His credit card was fraudulently used on iTunes, the police could not help us with it even if it would normally be a pretty easy to do. Somebody vandalized his house and stole everything in it, something that should have taken hours upon hours to do. They even took the time to paint his porch yellow and unhook fixed appliances and drag em out. They were even able to open and take what he had locked inside locked safes. The police did not find anything, but they stated that it was not a forced entry and that the only fingerprints were from people living there!!! Who could it be??? I think it is pretty easy to figure out or they were simply wearing gloves and for a long time. It would have been as easy as searching for where those things went, but we got no help. A lot of his stuff was sold on people’s personal social media pages and our family didn’t get much more more than his childhood/family picture that we found in a garbage bag on the side of the road. Police did not lift a finger, or did but set that finger right back down
A lot of people have been telling me who they think (or apparently in some cases, know) it is and the same names keep coming back. I think that people who are coming to us are not going to the police because they are scared of the people involved, especially because the killers are cops, the tipsters are most likely criminals and crime stoppers are the middlemen. An organization with the power of anonymity is certainly a SCARY thing to fight . I believe that if the truth comes out, it will break a lot of the citizen’s trust in the system, because many mistakes were made from the start and things were pushed under the carpet many times. I think these mistakes were made because they didn’t expect my family to try as hard.
As a member of Michel’s family, I did read a lot of media articles about this. If you read them carefully, it is VERY easy to find inconsistencies throughout them. The policemen saying they were in uniform is just one small lie, and it’s to wonder why they are not being more careful as a cop knowing that murder mysteries are usually solved by breaking lies. Lies that never really got them into trouble so far.
If you think the government loves his people, it’s ok. They certainly don’t like us. They later announced that January is the official Crime Stoppers month. January is when my uncle was killed. They don’t comment on that.
I understand what you are saying about crime stoppers not taking any responsibility but why would the man think he would be targeted by say bad people in the middle of the day and at such a busy spot something stinks and we will never know all the hidden facts.
The question is that you raise, “Why would the man think he would be targeted by say, bad people ….. “. Fredericton journalist/blogger Charles Leblanc was accosted by to people who to him looked like thugs, They manhandled him first before identifying themselves as members of the Edmunston Police force. What Charles seen was two big guys coming at him, he didn’t take the time to figure out if the were bad guys or not, his survival instincts kicked in. So I am making an educated guess is that Vienneau didn’t get all philosophical about whether or not the plain cloths people were friend or foe. When this all went down were talking minutes, so the luxury of time wasn’t there for either the police or Vienneau to think things through.
I am curious as to why a man would think he,was being targeted by people in the middle of the day in a,very public area. There has to be more to the story than what we are seeing. I am not saying he was doing anything illegal but something just doesn’t add up. Who ever made the call must have done the man and if it was a prank call gone wrong how they live with themselves is beyond me.
As in all these kinds of incidents, there are many questions that only the deceased can answer, from what I have learned that his business was broken into after his death the motive unknown.