The SPVM Says A Viral Photo Appearing To Show An Officer Raising The Finger Was Edited

According to the SPVM, a viral photo that appeared to show a Montreal police officer raising their middle finger out a vehicle window was edited.

"It looks like 100% sure this picture was edited," SPVM spokesperson Emmanuel Anglade told MTL Blog. "Such a thing hasn't happened."

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He said the area "around the hand is not the same colour as the background. It seems like the hand has been altered with a program such as Photoshop."

Anglade said the SPVM will be contacting its "partners in the Asian community [...] to address the facts."

The photo appeared on the Instagram page mychinatownmtl, which said it was taken at a protest against anti-Asian racism on March 21.

Xixi Li, director of the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal (SFCGM), meanwhile, tells MTL Blog that the organization still plans to file a complaint about the photo.

She said the organization is in contact with the person who took the photo and that this individual claims to have seen the gesture themselves.

"[They] said that it was [for] about two minutes [that the officer] did that position [...]. We checked it because we won't file anything that is not true," said Li.