Too many cops, not enough training and too many police movies. Look at the 19 year old shot Saturday, alone on a Toronto streetcar. There was no need for that to happen. Then in London Ont about a week ago an 87 year old man thrown to the ground and all banged up simply because he was worried about his wife who has Alzheimers. Then there was the man tazered to death at the Vancouver airport. Then there was the attitude of the cops towards innocent and peaceful people during the G20. The list can go on and on and on.
There are good cops out there but the new crop of cops have a paramilitary attitude. Crime is going down in Canada.......time to clean house of the problems in uniform.
The kid on the bus, with the 2 inch knife was yes in Canada. He was on the bus alone and outside the bus were the police who were 20 to 30 feet away. He made no movement to leave the bus or attack police. He was shot at 9 times. So was the 87 year old man who just wanted to go to his ill wife and he had no weapon. Then there was Robert Dziekański who was tasered and murdered at the Vancouver airport. Dzienkanski they said was armed with a.......stapler (but I and others have watched the tape countless times and there is nothing in his hands). When the police arrived he moved and put his back against the glass partition as instructed by the police. He put his arms out at his side and showed he was complying with the police..........but they tasered him anyhow........5 times........including while he was writhing on the ground in pain. He was murdered.
The point is, Canadian or American, the paramilitary attitude of poorly trained police, is not only causing the loss of life unnecessarily, but it's also destroying the reputation of all police forces. Calling them a Police FORCE is getting more and more appropriate, because FORCE seems to be what they look for, and for some even hope for.
If I am standing there with a cop or ANYBODY with a gun drawn on me they say JUMP and I JUMP I am not going to sit there and ask questions!!!
I've been wondering lately why police have to draw their guns increasingly at just about every situation? There was a time if a cop took his gun even out of his holster (which had a flap on the top), he had to have a good reason why. These days in the movies, on TV, or real life, it seems to be common place and when that gun is out.........anything can happen! In the UK there are 169,000 police, but only 6780 police are authorized to carry guns. Where I come from in Nfld the police were established in 1873. It wasn't until 1998 that police started carrying guns. Through over a 100 years they dealt with the hardest of men from loggers, to hunters, to rough seamen from all countries and they never needed a gun. As I have also mentioned in the past, I and many others have worked doors in bars and we have met all kinds of people, drunks, crazy/drunks, just plain nutcases, violent people with knives, chairs, tables, broken bottles and good fists and no door man has ever had the use of a gun, taser, or even a nightstick. We had to deal with the worst and talk most of them out of their anger and rage, but even the worst of the worst, you still had to handle yourself without all the toys. More cops should have to work in bars for a few years to learn about people and human nature and how to deal with every aspect, before they are given lethal force to play with. Few people know that many years ago I wanted to be a cop. My best friend's father was an inspector with the OPP. If I had become one, I wouldn't be what they are now.
The whole police situation is complicated and police have been given increased powers without consent of the citizens of Canada. We have increasingly ignored this mainly because no one feels it will happen to them until it does.
A glaring example of this is a recent event in the City of London Ont. A couple who are part of the occupy movement had a friend visiting from I think it was Ottawa. They were in downtown London and supposedly accused of painting something on a few bricks on a building. The media article specifically said a few bricks, so it wasn't like they painted a whole wall. Who actually did the painting, if it was the two from London or the person from outside of London was not stated in the article, or information given by police. Now at this point if these people did paint on a few bricks on the side of a building they would be charged with what? mischief maybe damage to property. That's fair. However what the police did was raid the house of the couple from London and seize all their computers, discs and anything else they could find. What gives the police the right to go into someone's home and take items, because of a few painted bricks? That is the act of a totalitarian fascist state, not a country based on democracy!
The kid I mentioned previously who was shot dead on the streetcar in Toronto, it need not have happened. Why did this kid do what he did, no one knows, no one took the time to find out. This easy shooting of people is becoming more and more common place with the police. This kid was in the streetcar, no one was in the streetcar, he wasn't leaving the streetcar and he was not attacking police. There was no need for him to be shot like a dog. Actually, dogs get better treatment. If anyone takes the time to watch YouTube there are many instances video taped showing how armed people can be handled without death. One was a man sitting on a chair in the street with a loaded handgun. It was shot out of his hand by a police sniper. Another was a man with a samurai sword, far larger than the 2 inch knife the kid had in TO. He was moving everywhere and very threatening. The cops talked to the man and calmed him down, then they threw a percussion bomb that stunned him and at the same time they tossed a smoke bomb so he wouldn't see the police approaching with a ladder which they use to pin him to the wall so he couldn't swing the sword. Problem solved, no loss of life. These are situations done by thinking police, not cops who seem to think they are in a Dodge City video game.
An Alberta RCMP officer fired at two men when an altercation broke out during a traffic stop Saturday evening, killing one and leaving the other in hospital.
An officer with the Wetaskiwin detachment pulled over a vehicle near Ma Me O Beach, about 45 minutes south of Edmonton, around 9:30 p.m. local time on the suspicion that the driver was impaired.
"During the course of the confrontation the RCMP officer discharged several shots. Two males inside the vehicle were shot," said Clif Purvis, director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.
This incident marked the second police shooting in Alberta in less than a week.
On Thursday, Mounties shot and wounded Curtis Hallock, who regularly appeared on the outdoor reality show Mantracker during an altercation after pulling him over for suspected impaired driving.
Hallock, a fan favourite on the show, was shot in the leg and arm Thursday night after police pulled him over in Grande Cache, about 400 km west of Edmonton.
On Saturday, his sister Priscilla Bowen said her brother was in stable condition in a hospital in Grand Prairie and was scheduled to undergo surgery.
Bowen said Hallock has not been charged.
"We are very grateful that he is doing well and that he is safe but we are really concerned about being shot at repeatedly by RCMP while unarmed," Bowen said Saturday.
The independent agency is also probing a Taser incident that left a 27-year-old man dead. RCMP in Leduc, just south of Edmonton, responded to a series of calls on Friday for auto thefts located a suspect at a PetroCan location. A taser was used and the man lost consciousness after he was taken into custody and he was transported to an Edmonton hospital. He died on Sunday.
It seems now that the U.S. wants more. According to the RCMP memo, Washington is demanding that its police agents operating in Canada be entirely exempt from Canadian criminal law.
A U.S. agent who, for instance, shot and killed a Canadian while on Canadian soil would not be subject to a Canadian court.
(June 11th 2013) The province's Special Investigations Unit confirmed late Monday afternoon that, 3½ days after the shooting, their investigators have not yet been able to interview the two police officers on scene when the distraught man was shot multiple times.
Police had responded to calls for a man walking into traffic on the Lincoln Alexander Expressway near Upper Wentworth. He was ordered off the highway, complied and climbed up the embankment towards his townhouse.
The officers followed him behind a berm where, shortly thereafter, witnesses heard between three and eight rapid-fire gunshots.
Both officers have been designated "subject officers" which means the SIU believes their conduct may have caused the man's death, and thus, they may be facing criminal charges.
And the list can go on and on..........
The old time cops have a good attitude and many are stunned by the new crop that is getting the uniform, the badge and the gun, today.
Some of the old style cops were tough, tough as nails, but they understood balance and they understood people. Many grew up amongst the people they were going to police over. They also grew up in hard times and understood why some people resort to crime and even violence. The new crop of police are from a totally different background with little or no real life experiences.
Also I believe it is a 52 week course to become a cop. In that short period of time a rookie has to learn a LOT and I doubt that the most important things such as dealing with so many various types of people are not covered sufficiently. As far as I am concerned the course should be more like 2-3 years.
So why are only 500 going to the protest?
My view is two reasons…….Canadian complacency ……and secondly the feeling by many that nothing will come of it……no police officer will be charged, taken to court, or a sufficient sentence handed out for the unnecessary murder of a young man. There will be no real accountability. But if a man was standing 20 ft away from me and video showed he did not attack me, or even attempt to, and I shot him dead, I would be viewed as using unnecessary force, taken to jail and in the courts swiftly charged with manslaughter.
I didn’t know there was going to be a get together for Yatim. If I didn’t already have two appointments booked I would seriously think about going. I hope you do. Take photos and if you need bailed out……..just let me know.
