Our former Police Commander shows his "historian" side
March 30, 2015
It was most interesting to watch the recent French-language documentary called Le Berceau des Anges le documentaire) about the Montreal Black Market baby ring of the 1940's and '50's. Montreal West resident and former Montreal Police Department photographer Harold Rosenberg brought it to my attention.
"I was sold to my parents by the same people who operated the ring," Harold explains.
I was delighted to see former Police Station 9 Commander Sylvain Bissonnette interviewed and identified as a "historian." This is something I did not know about Sylvain, a true gentleman who ran police operations out of the Kildare and Cavendish headquarters for seven years until August 2013. He is now the commander at Station 8 in Lachine.
"When I was doing my BA, I met a chief inspector who was an history buff," he explained. " I decided then to do a Master's Degree in history on the subject of the amalgation of police forces on the Island of Montreal.During my second year, he proposed that I join the force, which I did. I completed my Master`s part-time and established with him the Police Museum. He became my first boss. We are still very good friends and speak on a weekly basis, and we are both members of the museum with Harold. His name is Robert Côté. We also did a project with The Montreal History Center. Another boss told me that management studies would also be important for the future and that's what I did after. I'm also a lecturer at the dept of Criminology at the Université de Montréal in crime prevention and I participated in a number of documentairies about the police."
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