Anti-racism advocates want to know why a Longueuil woman accused of throwing boiling water on a 10-year-old black boy earlier this month was released after her initial arrest and then back on bail this week.

Stéphanie Borel is charged with aggravated assault for allegedly pouring boiling water on the child who was passing by her home. The October 2 attack left the boy with severe burns to his head, face, torso and back.

The suspect was arrested and then released the same day on a promise to appear and conditions, including not contacting the child and his family.

She was arrested again on October 11 following the “acquisition of new investigative elements,” according to a press release issued by Longueuil police.

But on Thursday, Borel was released again — this time under several conditions, which include living with her son and staying away from the young victim’s home and school, as well as a witness. The identities of the boy and the witness are protected by a publication ban.

Borel is due back in court on January 23, 2025.

STOP | The boy’s family reacts to the judge’s decision after the bail hearing:

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Stéphanie Borel said for many months she was harassed by people who would ring her doorbell and then leave. On October 31, a Quebec judge ruled to release her, saying she did not pose a threat to public safety. The boy’s family was in the courtroom and said they were disappointed by the decision.

Joel DeBellefeuille, executive director of the Red Coalition, an anti-racism advocacy organization, said the decision to release Borel on Oct. 2 and then again this week sends a “strong, negative” message to black citizens.

“What the community has been told is that your rights are not as equal as others,” he said.

“If the roles were reversed and this was a black man who poured hot water on a 10-year-old white girl, we would essentially be in a modern-day lynching of that black person.”

DeBellefeuille said her release both hurts his group’s efforts to improve relations between the province’s police and racialized people.

“This is a real slap in the face,” he said. “This is setting everything back, years and years of work. It’s going to make our job harder.”

On October 10, DeBellefeuille sent a letter to Police Chief Marc Leduc and Longueuil Mayor Catherine Fournier to express her group’s disappointment with the police response.

He believes it was the letter, as well as the public outcry, that led to the suspect’s second arrest.

In a statement to CBC News, Longueuil police said they “treat all cases impartially, based on the information available at the time of intervention.”

“The elements in question, brought to the attention of our police officers at the time, met the criteria for release,” the release states.

Although DeBellefeuille saw “some form of relief” in Borel being arrested again, he says the victim will never be the same.

“He’s going to see every scar that he’s going to have … and it’s going to bring him back to that fateful day,” he said.

Renzel Dashington, a comedian, producer and activist with a huge social media following, addressed the boy’s case in several live recordings and posts. He also took part in a walk in support of the young man and his family in mid-October.

Dashington says the people he’s spoken to are horrified by what happened to the victim.

“We all live in a world where we thought children, all children, were protected. This was an example of that not being true at all,” he said.

Dashington condemned the police decision to release Borel on the same day she was arrested.

“For some reason these police officers were able to have sympathy for this lady,” he said. “I just know that as a black person who has young children in his life, I’m afraid of a lot of things. But now I’m also afraid of what happens once something happens.”

Why do the police release suspects?

Immigration and criminal defense lawyer Marine Cournier, with Hasa Avocats, has worked with clients involved in cases where she says there is evidence they experienced a racial double standard from the police.

“Liberty should always be the principle and the way to go, unless there is reason to believe that this person is a security threat,” Cournier said, adding that he could not say whether there was a double standard in how which Longueuil police handled the case. .

In 2021, Borel was charged with assault in a separate case and acquitted after agreeing to sign a peace bond. Cournier explained that police can use this type of information when arresting a person, but it cannot be used in court against a suspect if he or she were acquitted.

Every piece of information police have can be used to conclude that the person is a threat, Cournier explained.

When police make an arrest, Cournier said, “they only have to have reasonable grounds to believe that they may be a threat to the same victim or another and may continue to do so.”

DeBellefeuille claims Borel is a “danger to society”.

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In this case, a publication ban was issued. As a result, the CBC has blurred the faces of the boy and his mother and is withholding their names.

“I can’t even imagine the excruciating pain (the boy) went through when he was tortured by this woman. So that alone has to be taken into account in the decisions of the investigators and the Crown,” he said.

Dashington wants more accountability from the police when it comes to cases of anti-black racism and believes Borel would not have been arrested again on October 11 if he had not been “fodder to the people”.

“I can’t wait to live in a world where something like this happens and the first thing that comes out of the mouths of the people responsible is, ‘I can’t believe this happened to these parents.’ We’re sorry for the part we played in this, and here’s what we did. “We’re doing to change what happened and make sure all the other parents that if this were to happen again, this won’t happen again because we’ve fixed it,” he said.

For more stories about the experiences of black Canadians – from anti-black racism to success stories within the black community – check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.