Eight Days After the Sûreté du Québec Carried the Guns Out of It, Somebody Threw Molotov Cocktails at the Same House on Rue des Sous-Bois — and the Man Charged in the Raid Was in a Cell When It Burned (Originally Reported September 17, 2026)
SAINTE-CATHERINE-DE-LA-JACQUES-CARTIER — Somebody went back. In the small hours between Wednesday and Thursday, September 16 and 17, 2026, Molotov cocktails were thrown at a house on rue des Sous-Bois — the same address a Quebec anti-gun-violence squad had stripped of firearms, cocaine and hundreds of rounds of ammunition eight days earlier. Le Soleil reported it at 9:45 a.m. Thursday. An occupant was inside, was alerted quickly and was not hurt. Firefighters got it under control before the fire did serious damage. The Sûreté du Québec says it has made no arrests, and it has published nothing at all.
This site reported the search itself on September 9, including the full seizure inventory and the charges. That briefing is not restated here. What matters now is the eight days in between.
What Is New Since September 9
- A fire, and a method: Molotov cocktails thrown at the rue des Sous-Bois house overnight September 16–17. Le Soleil attributes the method to its own information, not to police.
- An occupant, unnamed: someone was in the house, was alerted in time and was not injured. The accused has been in custody since September 8, so the person in the house was somebody else. Who, the reporting does not say.
- Damage contained: firefighters mastered the fire before it did serious damage. No figure and no description of what burned.
- No arrests: the Sûreté du Québec confirms none, to the newspaper, in the newspaper’s words.
- A prior record, newly reported: Le Soleil says the accused had several prior convictions in similar matters. The September 9 communiqué said nothing of the kind.
- An investigation start date: the newspaper dates the underlying file to the beginning of summer 2026.
The House Was Already Empty of Everything Police Wanted
The sequence is the story. On September 8 roughly twenty officers and a tactical group went through the house, a garage and a trailer at this address and took away the firearms, the suppressors, the ammunition, the cocaine, the ledger, the phone and the body armour. On September 9 the Sûreté du Québec announced it. On the night of September 16 somebody threw fire at the building.
Whoever did it was not going after a stash. There was nothing left in that house that police had thought worth carrying out, and the man charged over what had been there was already in a cell. An arson eight days after a publicised raid, at an address whose contents and occupant are both now matters of public record, is a message of some kind. What kind, nobody official has said, and this briefing will not put a motive in the Sûreté du Québec’s mouth.
Two Spellings, One Man
There is a discrepancy on the record that a reader deserves to have flagged. The Sûreté du Québec communiqué of September 9 gives the accused’s surname as Péloquin. Le Soleil, on September 17, gives it as Poliquin. Both give the first name Richard and the age 65, both place him at this address, both describe the same charges and both say he was ordered detained at the Palais de justice de Québec. They are plainly the same man and one of the two spellings is wrong. This site used the police spelling on September 9 and continues to, because the communiqué is the charging authority’s own document — but the difference is noted here rather than smoothed over.
The Silence Is the Second Story
The Sûreté du Québec published a communiqué for the search. It has published nothing for the fire. A force that thought the September 8 seizure worth a press release under its armed-violence banner has not thought a firebombing at the same address worth a paragraph, and everything the public knows about the fire comes from one newspaper’s reporting and one confirmation that nobody is in custody.
That is not unusual — arsons with no injuries and no arrests frequently go unannounced — but it means the basic facts are unestablished. There is no file number. There is no time. There is no statement of whether the fire is being treated as connected to the raid at all, which is the only question anyone reading it would ask.
What Is Still Not Reported
No time for the fire beyond “overnight Wednesday to Thursday.” No civic number on rue des Sous-Bois. No file or occurrence number. No confirmation from police of the Molotov cocktails, which are the newspaper’s information and not an official finding. No identification of the occupant who was inside, and no statement of that person’s relationship to the accused. No count of how many devices were thrown, and no suspect or vehicle description. No damage estimate. No statement from the Sûreté du Québec that the fire and the September 8 search are connected, and no statement that they are not. No next court date for the man detained since September 8. And no criminal organization, street gang or outlaw motorcycle club is named by anyone — not in the September 9 communiqué, not in the September 17 reporting.
These allegations have not been tested in court.
Rue des Sous-Bois — Summer 2026 to September 17, 2026
Primary Sources
- Le Soleil, Judith Desmeules: “Une maison visée par la police incendiée”, published 17 septembre 2026 à 09h45, filed under Justice et faits divers. Source for the Molotov cocktails, the overnight Wednesday-to-Thursday timing, the rue des Sous-Bois location, the occupant being alerted and uninjured, the fire being contained by firefighters before it did serious damage, the Sûreté du Québec reporting no arrests, the roughly 60 grams of cocaine and hundreds of rounds from the earlier search, the dating of the investigation to the beginning of summer 2026, the detention of the accused after his court appearance, and the statement that he had several prior convictions in similar matters. The newspaper attributes the Molotov cocktails to its own information (“selon nos informations”), not to a police statement.
- This site’s earlier briefing on the search, published September 9, 2026: “A 3D-Printed Pistol With a 3D-Printed Silencer Screwed Onto It”, built on the Sûreté du Québec communiqué of September 9, 2026. Source for the September 8 date of the search, the roughly twenty officers and tactical group, the residence, garage and trailer, the full seizure inventory, the EILTA Québec lead and partner agencies, the charges, and the same-day detention order at the Palais de justice de Québec. This briefing is a follow-up to that one and does not restate its inventory or analysis.
- The eight-day interval between the September 8 search and the overnight September 16–17 fire, and the seven-day gap between the communiqué and the fire, are this briefing’s arithmetic from the dates as published. Neither source gives an elapsed figure.
- The observation that the accused was in custody when the fire was set, and that the occupant inside was therefore somebody else, follows from the September 9 communiqué’s detention order and Le Soleil’s reference to an occupant. Neither source draws the inference and neither identifies the occupant.
- The discrepancy in the surname — Péloquin in the Sûreté du Québec communiqué, Poliquin in Le Soleil — is reported here as it stands on the two documents. Neither source acknowledges the difference and this briefing does not resolve it; the police spelling is used.
- The statement that the Sûreté du Québec has issued no communiqué on the fire reflects the force’s communiqués page as checked on the morning of September 18, 2026, where the most recent entry was dated September 16, 2026. A later release may yet appear and would be folded in.
- No criminal organization, street gang or outlaw motorcycle club is named by police or by the newspaper in connection with either the search or the fire. None is named or inferred here, and no profile page on this site is linked, because no organization covered by one has been named in this file.
- These allegations have not been tested in court.
