POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
What we have in the killing of Sammy Yatim is simple: a
policeman shot and killed a man who was a threat to no one.
The victim had what amounted to an ordinary pocketknife, a
three-inch blade, virtually incapable of killing anyone, and especially a policeman
in his heavy armored vest.
One of the first rules of expert negotiators in
hostage-takings is to test whether the hostage-taker is ready to release some
or all of his captives. Various initial ploys are used such as asking the
release only of children or women.
When a hostage-taker complies with such a request, officials
know they are dealing with a person of some conscience and reason, willing to
show good will.
There were no passengers left on the streetcar. None. The
man was absolutely not a threat.
Indeed, the poor soul was already in a portable jail, an
empty streetcar. All police had to do was wait patiently for his giving up,
perhaps calling in someone with common sense and talking skill.
No, instead, a police officer threateningly approaches with
his gun, does not in the least engage in calming conversation, just utters a
curt order, and shoots. Even a taser was unwarranted.
Animal keepers re-capturing an escaped lion or bear show
more sense by a thousand times. Is a man's life worth so little in Toronto
today?
These military police methods are imported from the United
States whose poisonous police have been cited many times by organizations such
as Amnesty International for their brutality and lack of reason.
Chief Blair is wrong as he is almost always wrong - the most
ineffectual police chief I can recall - there is no more evidence to be had in
this matter.
The video tells the story with blinding clarity. The words
of eight or so policemen, the only live witnesses, tell us nothing. Our police
have become adept at lying even in court and always, without fail, defend a
fellow police no matter how corrupt or brutal. Our poor management of police
has allowed this to happen.
This shooting, at best, was the act of a simple coward.
Police like to blubber about putting their lives at risk for the public, but
that is not what we see here at all.
The officer faced no genuine threat. None. His acts resemble
those of someone anxious to sweep a piece of garbage off the street, not those
of a trained and thoughtful public servant.
After this and the G-20 fiasco, Toronto needs seriously to
examine its hiring policies. There are tests which can be administered to
candidates to weed out people with poor attitudes, weak intelligence, or
pathological problems. They should act as a powerful filter against this kind
of person becoming a policeman.
Training too clearly needs serious scrutiny and revision.
But most important is leadership: Toronto does not have any.
We desperately need to be able to fire incompetent officers
easily. A man with a gun and a badge and virtual immunity against prosecution
is far more dangerous than any disturbed man with a small knife.
_______________________
Police are hired muscle for the most part, and we have
pretty well adopted the American model of a police force as an army.
The police force is a well-organized group of urban
bouncers, each having great privileges, expensive equipment, and able to use lethal
force
Most of them are experts in nothing, and the training they
receive does not even deal with many of the things of greatest concern to
society.
We forget these things at our peril as a decent society.
Television shows create the fiction of thoughtful, brave and
highly-trained individuals risking their lives for us.
They also promote the illusion of resourceful policeman,
something which in reality is not all that common.
Police organizations (really, crypto-unions) promote these
same illusions and add the dangerous dimensions of always defending what cannot
be defended and encouraging insubordination (as when Toronto police once demonstrated
in uniform at City Hall against orders).
The behaviors of the RCMP officers at the Vancouver Airport,
the police at the Toronto G-20, and the police surrounding poor Sammy Yatim are
completely unacceptable in a free and decent society.
If we cannot gain some control over these new developments
in police destructive incompetence, all our lives will be diminished.
