It wasn’t the video that convinced me that Const. James Forcillo of the Toronto Police Service would eventually be arrested and charged, as he was on Monday, in the death of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim. It was the silence, and off-the-record murmurings, of his fellow officers.
Mr. Yatim, whose family claims had no history of mental illness, was shot and killed by Const. Forcillo early in the morning on July 27. Mr. Yatim had been riding a Toronto Transit Commission streetcar when he was reported to have exposed himself, brandished a knife and acted aggressively to fellow passengers. The streetcar was evacuated and surrounded by more than 20 police officers. As shown on a video of the event captured by a witness, and subsequently posted online, officers ordered Mr. Yatim to drop his knife. Then Const. Forcillo opened fire — first three shots, then six more.
In charging Const. Forcillo with second-degree murder, Ontario’s independent police review agency, the Special Investigations Unit, has set the bar high. The Crown must now prove that Const. Forcillo had the intention of killing Mr. Yatim and that he did not have any reasonable grounds to fear for his own life. And it’s important to note that he doesn’t need to establish that shooting Mr. Yatim was necessary, just that in the heat of the moment, he reasonably believed it was necessary. Proving that he didn’t have reasonable grounds to believe that, let alone proving it beyond a reasonable doubt, will prove a huge challenge.
There’s every likelihood, based on the above, that Const. Forcillo will fight these charges, win and conceivably return to duty. Mr. Yatim’s family, and those outraged on their behalf, need to be prepared for that.
But whatever the outcome, it should not be lost on them that even police officers are deeply shaken by this incident. I’ve long maintained an interest in policing, and have in recent years worried that the direction Canadian law enforcement is heading in. Most officers, the majority of us would agree, do good work on our behalf, often under difficult circumstances. But there is a regrettable habit among police officers to reflexively cover up or excuse almost any conduct committed by a fellow officer simply because they are a fellow officer. This has led an increasing number of Canadians to increasingly view the police as something separate and apart from the community it serves, which leaves everyone poorer off.
But that hasn’t been the case here. Many — I wouldn’t hesitate to say most — of the police officers I’ve spoken to or heard from since Mr. Yatim was killed have been frustrated by what they consider a rush to judgment on the part of the public and the media. They roll their eyes at suggestions that a man with a knife isn’t dangerous just because the knife is short, or that every police officer is an Olympic-calibre sharpshooter that can knock a knife out of a moving suspect’s hand with a single bullet without hurting the suspect or anyone else. And they are downright angry that it is often left to them, the frontline officers, to deal with mentally ill citizens who have fallen through the cracks of the health-care system, sometimes repeatedly.
But not one, among all the dozens of officers I’ve heard from these last three weeks, has expressed any glimmer of hope that Const. Forcillo would escape charges. One officer put it best when he told me that a situation like this is every officer’s nightmare, but no matter how many times he imagines himself in that situation, he just can’t imagine opening fire at that moment. He knew, he told me, that he would open fire if he had to. But as much as he wants to understand why Const. Forcillo pulled the trigger, he just can’t get there. Similar sentiments are strongly implied by other officers, who sigh, shake their heads and say, “I guess we’ll see what the investigation says.”
This is virtually unprecedented. Cops rush to defend other cops even against the indefensible. But when it concerns Const. Forcillo, the most commonly expressed emotion isn’t outrage or confidence, it’s heartbreak.
Const. Forcillo may yet be found not guilty in a court of law. The odds are on his side there. But this incident has deeply shaken his colleagues across the country. The thin blue line may not have cracked, but it’s flexed. And that’s hard to ignore.
National Post
