Montreal police find driver who allegedly hit baby stroller in Outremont and fled scene

Montreal police have located the driver who struck a baby in its stroller in a hit-and-run last month.

The Service de Police de la Ville de Montral (SPVM) says the Nov. 16 incident has been attributed to a careless 87-year-old driver and that they have asked the province's automobile insurance board (SAAQ) to suspend hislicence.

"The facts have shown that this was not a hate crime," the SPVM says in a statement.

The case will be submitted to the Crown who will determine whether to lay charges, the statement says.

The incident was captured by a nearby surveillance camera. Video and images were then widely circulated on social media.

In the surveillance video, a black vehicle is headed northbound on Bloomfield Avenue in the Outremont borough around 2:30 p.m.

As it approaches the intersection with Lajoie Avenue, the car doesn't slow down, despite stop signs and a woman crossing with a baby carriage.

The car appears to speed up while the woman is still crossing the intersection, striking the stroller directly. The baby, about a year old, was inside.

Raphal Bergeron, a spokesperson for the Montreal police, said that the stroller was dragged for several metres before it came loose from the vehicle. The baby escaped with no serious injuries.

The incident sparked concern that the incident mighthave been a hate crime as it occurred in a neighbourhood with a large Hasidic Jewish population.

Municipal and provincial politicians spoke out, promising a full investigation while the Jewish Hasidic Council of Quebec urged the public not to jump to conclusions.

Soon after the incident, about a dozen people with "Pedestrians first" posters and strollers held a demonstration sitting in the middle of Lajoie and Bloomfield avenues, demanding more be done to make the streets safer.

Mathieu Murphy-Perron, founder of Vlorution Montral, a new collective aimed at reducing cars in the city, said the video footage of the collision "shook us to our core."

Outremont Mayor Laurent Desbois called the video "very graphic and shocking." Motions to reduce the speed limit on LajoieAvenue to 20 kilometres per hour and for a pilot project creating a dead end on Bloomfield Street were recently adopted, he said.