It does illustrate how stupid gun control is. My point has always been, if cops are all allowed to carry firearms to protect themselves, then there are civilians who are capable of having that same level of responsibility, especially considering how poorly trained most cops are with firearms. The average civilian sport shooter as a hobbyist is generally more proficient than the average cop who is supposed to be a "professional". If not, then level the playing field and make sure everyone's playing by the same rules. Police who enforce the law shouldn't be above it.
Man with knife on streetcar at Dundas and Grace, shot by police
- Thread starter Shrugged
- Start date
I hope this gives all the cops bashers out there some food for thought. If the kid had just dropped the knife he'd be alive. In my mind he did "suicide by cop". He'd been kicked out of his house for drug use and apparently was on the streets. Didn't see a way out and got himself whacked. Quit blaming the police for doing their job. And why on earth they should be asked to risk their lives further...just by putting on that uniform everyday puts them at risk.http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/sammy-yatim-shooting-6-things-police-are-taught-about-using-force
Use of force is a rare and unique permission that police are granted by society to help maintain law and order, but what are officers taught about this responsibility?
Sgt. Brad Fawcett is a trainer at the Justice Institute of B.C. where all municipal police recruits in the province are educated, and he also holds the title of provincial use-of-force coordinator. In an interview with CBC News, he walked through the training officers receive on use of force and the issues police encounter.
Use-of-force training
Fawcett estimates that use-of-force training takes up about 20 per cent of an officer's education.
"It may not sound like a lot," he notes, "but all the studies show that use of force by police accounts for less than one per cent of all the interactions that they're going to have with the public."
"The overwhelming majority of – over 99 per cent of calls – they're going to resolve just by showing up and talking to people," he said.
While at the police academy, officers are educated on a wide range of use of force issues:
- Provincial standards.
- Legal issues.
- Physiological and psychological cues to watch for.
- The national framework on use-of-force, which details the stages of police response in threatening situations.
Hands-on training also involves empty-hand tactics and how to use various weapons — from pepper spray to firearms. Municipal officers are also typically required to take refresher courses on firearms in some provinces on an annual basis depending on provincial requirements.
Fawcett says he puts a lot of emphasis on communication tactics aimed at de-escalating a situation or preventing it from becoming too volatile.
Threatening signs officers look for
An average person may not notice the signs of a person in flight-or-fight mode, but an officer is trained to be tuned into subtle physical clues of imminent danger, says Fawcett.
Among the signs are the jaw muscle balling up and the person's eyes darting around. Another clue is the clenching and unclenching of hands, because in flight-or-fight mode the extremities start to feel cold as blood rushes to major muscles.
"Police officers are seeing threat cues where other people might be looking at something and they don't see anything. And then they can't understand well, why did an officer do this?" said Fawcett.
"It's no different than a firefighter looking at the colour of smoke," he added. "It doesn't mean something to anyone else, but to the firefighter it means something important."
Increasing use of video
"We've been telling [officers] for 25 years: You can't walk a block without being captured about eight times just on store security video in downtown video. They're always going to be on film. Certainly, we want them to look good and sound better.
But at the end of the day, no use of force is going to look sterile. It's never going to look pretty. If you go into an operating theatre there's a reason the walls are stainless steel or tile up to five feet and there's a drain in the middle of the floor. After the surgery is over, they bring everything out of the room and they literally hose it down.
"Surgery isn't pretty. Use of force isn't pretty. The question is was it necessary and reasonable?"
Legal aspects of lethal force
"We teach what courts have said, when it's appropriate to use force," said Fawcett. "The courts have laid down pretty reasonable rules when it comes to the use of deadly force."
"When it comes to making a decision about the reasonableness of use of force, essentially what the courts have said is you have to be a doppelganger or a ghost in the shoes of the officer and see what they saw, not what the video camera showed, not what another witness saw.
"What was the perception of the officer and was that perception reasonable? And of course what the courts have also said [is that] you can't expect cool reflection in the face of an uplifted knife."
Public perception
"It's part of the Hollywood factor, I guess, that we have to deal with: People just think that we can Steven Seagal guns and knives out of people's hands, and that's just not the way it is," said Fawcett.
Fawcett notes that few people realize how quickly a life-or-death decision must be made.
"Time and distance is something that few people appreciate," said Fawcett. "If you're going 10 miles an hour, that's 15 feet per second. Ten miles an hour is a jog. So if somebody's 15 feet away with a knife in their hand, you have less than a second to deal with it. But most people look at the headline and go, 'Oh, the person was 20 feet away. Ohmigod, why didn't the officers do something else?'"
"The other thing to remember is we train average people [to be police officers]. We train your sister, brother husband, mother, father. They don't come with 33 years of martial arts experience.
"Some of them haven't seen a real gun until they get into policing. Some of them have never even tasted their own blood because someone punched them in the mouth."
Use of firearms by officers
"The number of shots is no barometer of whether something was reasonable or unreasonable. It sounds flippant, but if there were 10 shots fired perhaps nine weren't enough and 11 would have been too many," said Fawcett.
"Without knowing what the person was doing, you really can't say. You also have to ask why the police were there in the first place.
- Streetcar shooting probe: watchdog says police co-operation rare
- Knife-wielding Yatim told people to stay on streetcar, witness says
"People look at outcome. If you watched the whole movie and you know how the movie ends, it's very easy to see the foreshadowing. You have to remember that the officers in this movie didn't know how it was going to end ... while there may have been moments where they might have interceded differently and changed the outcome, they didn't know how the movie was going to end.
"The other thing to remember is that bullets disappear in bodies. You don't get sprays of blood like in Hollywood. You may not even know that you've hit the person because when you fire bullets into clothing you often can't see the hole. If the person's behaviour doesn't change you might not know you hit them.
"And again, you have to remember that a lot of officers never touched real guns until they were in training. It's possible that officers in these sorts of situations don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities. And the first thing they do is assume they missed."
Great article, most cops never even touched a gun until training and after becoming cops, they only touch their guns once a year. :eyebrows:http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/sammy-yatim-shooting-6-things-police-are-taught-about-using-force
Use of force is a rare and unique permission that police are granted by society to help maintain law and order, but what are officers taught about this responsibility?
Sgt. Brad Fawcett is a trainer at the Justice Institute of B.C. where all municipal police recruits in the province are educated, and he also holds the title of provincial use-of-force coordinator. In an interview with CBC News, he walked through the training officers receive on use of force and the issues police encounter.
Use-of-force training
Fawcett estimates that use-of-force training takes up about 20 per cent of an officer's education.
"It may not sound like a lot," he notes, "but all the studies show that use of force by police accounts for less than one per cent of all the interactions that they're going to have with the public."
"The overwhelming majority of – over 99 per cent of calls – they're going to resolve just by showing up and talking to people," he said.
While at the police academy, officers are educated on a wide range of use of force issues:
- Provincial standards.
- Legal issues.
- Physiological and psychological cues to watch for.
- The national framework on use-of-force, which details the stages of police response in threatening situations.
Hands-on training also involves empty-hand tactics and how to use various weapons — from pepper spray to firearms. Municipal officers are also typically required to take refresher courses on firearms in some provinces on an annual basis depending on provincial requirements.
Fawcett says he puts a lot of emphasis on communication tactics aimed at de-escalating a situation or preventing it from becoming too volatile.
Threatening signs officers look for
An average person may not notice the signs of a person in flight-or-fight mode, but an officer is trained to be tuned into subtle physical clues of imminent danger, says Fawcett.
Among the signs are the jaw muscle balling up and the person's eyes darting around. Another clue is the clenching and unclenching of hands, because in flight-or-fight mode the extremities start to feel cold as blood rushes to major muscles.
"Police officers are seeing threat cues where other people might be looking at something and they don't see anything. And then they can't understand well, why did an officer do this?" said Fawcett.
"It's no different than a firefighter looking at the colour of smoke," he added. "It doesn't mean something to anyone else, but to the firefighter it means something important."
Increasing use of video
"We've been telling [officers] for 25 years: You can't walk a block without being captured about eight times just on store security video in downtown video. They're always going to be on film. Certainly, we want them to look good and sound better.
But at the end of the day, no use of force is going to look sterile. It's never going to look pretty. If you go into an operating theatre there's a reason the walls are stainless steel or tile up to five feet and there's a drain in the middle of the floor. After the surgery is over, they bring everything out of the room and they literally hose it down.
"Surgery isn't pretty. Use of force isn't pretty. The question is was it necessary and reasonable?"
Legal aspects of lethal force
"We teach what courts have said, when it's appropriate to use force," said Fawcett. "The courts have laid down pretty reasonable rules when it comes to the use of deadly force."
"When it comes to making a decision about the reasonableness of use of force, essentially what the courts have said is you have to be a doppelganger or a ghost in the shoes of the officer and see what they saw, not what the video camera showed, not what another witness saw.
"What was the perception of the officer and was that perception reasonable? And of course what the courts have also said [is that] you can't expect cool reflection in the face of an uplifted knife."
Public perception
"It's part of the Hollywood factor, I guess, that we have to deal with: People just think that we can Steven Seagal guns and knives out of people's hands, and that's just not the way it is," said Fawcett.
Fawcett notes that few people realize how quickly a life-or-death decision must be made.
"Time and distance is something that few people appreciate," said Fawcett. "If you're going 10 miles an hour, that's 15 feet per second. Ten miles an hour is a jog. So if somebody's 15 feet away with a knife in their hand, you have less than a second to deal with it. But most people look at the headline and go, 'Oh, the person was 20 feet away. Ohmigod, why didn't the officers do something else?'"
"The other thing to remember is we train average people [to be police officers]. We train your sister, brother husband, mother, father. They don't come with 33 years of martial arts experience.
"Some of them haven't seen a real gun until they get into policing. Some of them have never even tasted their own blood because someone punched them in the mouth."
Use of firearms by officers
"The number of shots is no barometer of whether something was reasonable or unreasonable. It sounds flippant, but if there were 10 shots fired perhaps nine weren't enough and 11 would have been too many," said Fawcett.
"Without knowing what the person was doing, you really can't say. You also have to ask why the police were there in the first place.
- Streetcar shooting probe: watchdog says police co-operation rare
- Knife-wielding Yatim told people to stay on streetcar, witness says
"People look at outcome. If you watched the whole movie and you know how the movie ends, it's very easy to see the foreshadowing. You have to remember that the officers in this movie didn't know how it was going to end ... while there may have been moments where they might have interceded differently and changed the outcome, they didn't know how the movie was going to end.
"The other thing to remember is that bullets disappear in bodies. You don't get sprays of blood like in Hollywood. You may not even know that you've hit the person because when you fire bullets into clothing you often can't see the hole. If the person's behaviour doesn't change you might not know you hit them.
"And again, you have to remember that a lot of officers never touched real guns until they were in training. It's possible that officers in these sorts of situations don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities. And the first thing they do is assume they missed."
Should Toronto police wear lapel cameras? http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...pel_cameras_lets_talk_head_of_union_says.html
Some law-enforcement leaders argue that police should have lapel cameras to capture a more detailed and accurate account of violent incidents.
Some law-enforcement leaders argue that police should wear lapel cameras so investigators looking into violent clashes can assess the viewpoint from the officer’s perspective.
In the wake of the Sammy Yatim case, the head of the Toronto Police Association says he supports having that discussion. Just not yet.
“Let’s wait until the investigation is complete and let’s have that discussion then,” Mike McCormack told the Star on Wednesday. “Until then, it’s premature to have that conversation.”
If Const. James Forcillo had a video camera on his lapel, would there be a more detailed and accurate account of the shooting death of the 18-year-old Yatim from his perspective?
In the wake of the citizen video capturing Forcillo firing nine shots at Yatim, public reaction has been hostile, though the officer has not been charged with any crime, and the investigation by the Special Investigations Unit is still fresh.
McCormack said an overwhelming majority of Toronto officers are opposed to wearing video cameras, even though U.S. police forces are moving in this direction.
He said he believes resources should be directed toward “boots on the ground” instead of technology like lapel cameras.
Two months ago, he said police already had sufficient accountability.
“We don’t think it protects officers any more against complaints, or protects the officers any more in gathering evidence in what they do,” he said at the time.
McCormack was reacting to comments made by Gerry McNeilly, head of the investigative body that reviewed police conduct at the G20 summit in Toronto in 2010.
McNeilly, who leads the Office of the Independent Review Director (OIPRD), told the Star in May that lapel cameras would provide valuable evidence outside of any video shot by the public.
At the G20 summit, McNeilly’s office received video from people at the protest, “but that was one view,” he said.
He said video cameras worn by police could present a more detailed and accurate account of a violent clash with the public.
“We didn’t get a perspective from the police officers themselves,” McNeilly said of the G20 summit.
“If they had lapel cameras, we would have been able to see some of the allegations that I had to deal with later to try to verify them, like projectiles being thrown at police, police being spat (upon) and urine being thrown at them.”
McNeilly’s viewpoint has the support from the head of the Special Investigations Unit, which is investigating the Yatim case.
Ian Scott, who heads the SIU, told the Star “the more video, the better. It may not be determinative but it’s often a great fact-finding tool.”
He said lapel cameras are “a good idea in my view.”
The former head of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Stephen Tanner, also said video is the best way to capture evidence.
If police had their own cameras, investigations would be more complete so “it doesn’t become one person’s word or version of events.”
Tanner, who is chief of the Halton Region police, said a number of police chiefs have been exploring this technology, but costs could amount to $2,000 per officer.
Police departments in Albuquerque, N.M., Denver, Oakland and Iowa are either testing or using lapel cameras
this is why we should build subways and get rid of streetcars.The circumstances seem completely different to me. From what I can tell from reports, the guy in Montreal was contained in his house. Had he opened the front door and moved toward police offices while holding a gun, I expect he would have been shot. The guy in Toronto was already out in public (albeit in a streetcar). The police generally shoot people who appear crazy and are armed with knives when they encounter them on the street. Being in a streetcar might have made a difference had Yatim not been near the doors. However, at least one report I read stated that Yatim was standing or seated directly behind the driver and was exposing his penis while brandishing a knife. When the police arrived, the driver ran out of the open doors. This combination pretty much screams "armed and crazy".
The same report (either Metro or the Star) stated that Yatim responded to police demands with taunts and threats. I would think this pretty much sealed his fate. As some have already pointed out, you can cover a lot of ground and attack someone with a knife very quickly. At least two police officers had their guns drawn and aimed at Yatim with their fingers on the triggers. All it would take for Yatim to get shot would be for him to twitch forward like he was going to charge.
As for the additional shots, I now have to speculate (more) that Yatim either did not drop immediately or dropped and kept moving. I do not think it is unreasonable for a police officer (who is high on adrenaline and who has just shot at someone he had concluded was armed and crazy) to continue to fire at continued signs of movement.
As for the taser, I am at a loss. Possibly Yatim was still moving and the police were disinclined to take chances with an armed nutter. Of course, even if the taser was completely unnecessary, it is extremely unlikely that the taser did Yatim any harm.
More common than many people think.I hope this gives all the cops bashers out there some food for thought. If the kid had just dropped the knife he'd be alive. In my mind he did "suicide by cop". He'd been kicked out of his house for drug use and apparently was on the streets. Didn't see a way out and got himself whacked. Quit blaming the police for doing their job. And why on earth they should be asked to risk their lives further...just by putting on that uniform everyday puts them at risk.
Hah! Apparently, I'm so convincing, I can win arguments I did not know I was in. Woot!this is why we should build subways and get rid of streetcars.
The entire point of this discussion is not asking the cops to risk their lives - it is arbitrarily deciding to execute a suspect when their life is not at risk. Even if you can dismiss the first three shots - the coup de gras 6 shot finale when a taser gun was available was (pardon the pun) overkill. This guy put on a police officer uniform not a Judge Dredd costume.Quit blaming the police for doing their job. And why on earth they should be asked to risk their lives further....just by putting on that uniform everyday puts them at risk.
WTF! Send him an e-mail and ask. It also 'possible' he had a bad date the night before and took it out on the kid, but not bloody likely.I wonder if the subject officer was a video gamer. It is possible his response was programmed by exposure to video games....
He did drop, the store video shows that he was down with his feet pointing towards the door.for the additional shots, I now have to speculate (more) that Yatim either did not drop immediately or dropped and kept moving. I do not think it is unreasonable for a police officer (who is high on adrenaline and who has just shot at someone he had concluded was armed and crazy) to continue to fire at continued signs of movement.
Even if he still moving (writhing in pain probably) he could not possibly be a threat at that point. He may well have been waving the knife and maybe even yelling threats but he was not a threat.
While it is true that standing he could charge at an officer that is not possible lying down. He would first have to get back on his feet and from the video it really doesn't seem like he did.
What will do in the officer is the six second pause and deliberate decision to resume firing after changing his aim and shouting.
I don't really expect criminal charges but he will maybe be disciplined administratively under the police act.
Now I'm curious. Are the bases for your conclusion that police offcers were "arbitrarily deciding to execute a suspect when their life is not at risk" only that six more shots were fired and that a taser was available? If so, can you not think of any other plausible reasons why 6 additional shots were fired when a taser was "present", other than that the shooter is a psychopath who just wanted an excuse to kill someone "arbitrarily"?The entire point of this discussion is not asking the cops to risk their lives - it is arbitrarily deciding to execute a suspect when their life is not at risk. Even if you can dismiss the first three shots - the coup de gras 6 shot finale when a taser gun was available was (pardon the pun) overkill. This guy put on a police officer uniform not a Judge Dredd costume.
Is it not possible that neither of the two police officers who were closest to Yatim was armed with a taser? Not every police officer has one. If they both had guns drawn and aimed and Yatim made any motion as though he were about to charge, would you really expect both police officers to hold fire until a taser could be brought to them?
Is it not possible that the officer who pulled the trigger was alarmed by threats from an apparently crazy person armed with a knife and then shot again because Yatim was still threatening and thrashing around after he fell to the floor? Is there absolutely no way that the police officer could have been acting in good faith? Are you that certain?
How certain are you about the timing of the shots? My understanding was (simplistically) that a reporter had used software to try to match auditory recordings with different visual recordings and then made conclusions about the timing of the shots. To get anywhere near administrative discipline, won't SIU have to be convinced that the officer had plenty of time before firing the second set of rounds to determine that Yatim was thoroughly incapacitated by his first three rounds?He did drop, the store video shows that he was down with his feet pointing towards the door.
Even if he still moving (writhing in pain probably) he could not possibly be a threat at that point. He may well have been waving the knife and maybe even yelling threats but he was not a threat.
While it is true that standing he could charge at an officer that is not possible lying down. He would first have to get back on his feet and from the video it really doesn't seem like he did.
What will do in the officer is the six second pause and deliberate decision to resume firing after changing his aim and shouting.
I don't really expect criminal charges but he will maybe be disciplined administratively under the police act.
Writhing in pain is, of course, an assumption on your part. I have not seen the store video, but I don't believe it has audio. Is there no chance that Yatim was in shock (rather than in immediate pain) and was yelling threats and appeared to be trying to get back up? Is there any audio of the police demanding "stay down" or "drop the knife" or something similar?
Coup de gras? Reports have it he didn't die a the site of the shooting, but later at St Mike's. A second video clearly shows he was moving after the initial shotsThe entire point of this discussion is not asking the cops to risk their lives - it is arbitrarily deciding to execute a suspect when their life is not at risk. Even if you can dismiss the first three shots - the coup de gras 6 shot finale when a taser gun was available was (pardon the pun) overkill. This guy put on a police officer uniform not a Judge Dredd costume.
http://www.680news.com/2013/07/29/siu-probes-fatal-shooting-on-ttc-streetcar/Yatim was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, but later died, the SIU says.
The witness — who did not want his name used — said officers fired several rounds and then started performing CPR.
He also said two people were taken to hospital in separate ambulances. No passengers were on the streetcar at the time of the shooting.
An article from MSN:
Sammy Yatim shooting: 6 things police are taught about using force
The police shooting of a knife-wielding man on a Toronto streetcar has stirred a national debate over whether the amount of force — nine shots rang out in 13 seconds — was appropriate.
Amateur videos circulating of Sammy Yatim's death over the weekend have been parsed by the public and experts, but many questions remain as Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, looks into the case.
- Watch raw video of the shooting (warning: graphic content)
- Streetcar shooting probe: watchdog says police co-operation rare
Top news
Victoria's Secret models reveal new lingerie line
Use of force is a rare and unique permission that police are granted by society to help maintain law and order, but what are officers taught about this responsibility?
Sgt. Brad Fawcett is a trainer at the Justice Institute of B.C. where all municipal police recruits in the province are educated, and he also holds the title of provincial use-of-force coordinator. In an interview with CBC News, he walked through the training officers receive on use of force and the issues police encounter.
Use-of-force training
Fawcett estimates that use-of-force training takes up about 20 per cent of an officer's education.
"It may not sound like a lot," he notes, "but all the studies show that use of force by police accounts for less than one per cent of all the interactions that they're going to have with the public."
"The overwhelming majority of – over 99 per cent of calls – they're going to resolve just by showing up and talking to people," he said.
While at the police academy, officers are educated on a wide range of use of force issues:
- Provincial standards.
- Legal issues.
- Physiological and psychological cues to watch for.
- The national framework on use-of-force, which details the stages of police response in threatening situations.
Hands-on training also involves empty-hand tactics and how to use various weapons — from pepper spray to firearms. Municipal officers are also typically required to take refresher courses on firearms in some provinces on an annual basis depending on provincial requirements.
Fawcett says he puts a lot of emphasis on communication tactics aimed at de-escalating a situation or preventing it from becoming too volatile.
Threatening signs officers look for
An average person may not notice the signs of a person in flight-or-fight mode, but an officer is trained to be tuned into subtle physical clues of imminent danger, says Fawcett.
Among the signs are the jaw muscle balling up and the person's eyes darting around. Another clue is the clenching and unclenching of hands, because in flight-or-fight mode the extremities start to feel cold as blood rushes to major muscles.
"Police officers are seeing threat cues where other people might be looking at something and they don't see anything. And then they can't understand well, why did an officer do this?" said Fawcett.
"It's no different than a firefighter looking at the colour of smoke," he added. "It doesn't mean something to anyone else, but to the firefighter it means something important."
Increasing use of video
"We've been telling [officers] for 25 years: You can't walk a block without being captured about eight times just on store security video in downtown video. They're always going to be on film. Certainly, we want them to look good and sound better.
But at the end of the day, no use of force is going to look sterile. It's never going to look pretty. If you go into an operating theatre there's a reason the walls are stainless steel or tile up to five feet and there's a drain in the middle of the floor. After the surgery is over, they bring everything out of the room and they literally hose it down.
"Surgery isn't pretty. Use of force isn't pretty. The question is was it necessary and reasonable?"
Legal aspects of lethal force
"We teach what courts have said, when it's appropriate to use force," said Fawcett. "The courts have laid down pretty reasonable rules when it comes to the use of deadly force."
"When it comes to making a decision about the reasonableness of use of force, essentially what the courts have said is you have to be a doppelganger or a ghost in the shoes of the officer and see what they saw, not what the video camera showed, not what another witness saw.
"What was the perception of the officer and was that perception reasonable? And of course what the courts have also said [is that] you can't expect cool reflection in the face of an uplifted knife."
Public perception
"It's part of the Hollywood factor, I guess, that we have to deal with: People just think that we can Steven Seagal guns and knives out of people's hands, and that's just not the way it is," said Fawcett.
Fawcett notes that few people realize how quickly a life-or-death decision must be made.
"Time and distance is something that few people appreciate," said Fawcett. "If you're going 10 miles an hour, that's 15 feet per second. Ten miles an hour is a jog. So if somebody's 15 feet away with a knife in their hand, you have less than a second to deal with it. But most people look at the headline and go, 'Oh, the person was 20 feet away. Ohmigod, why didn't the officers do something else?'"
"The other thing to remember is we train average people [to be police officers]. We train your sister, brother husband, mother, father. They don't come with 33 years of martial arts experience.
"Some of them haven't seen a real gun until they get into policing. Some of them have never even tasted their own blood because someone punched them in the mouth."
Use of firearms by officers
"The number of shots is no barometer of whether something was reasonable or unreasonable. It sounds flippant, but if there were 10 shots fired perhaps nine weren't enough and 11 would have been too many," said Fawcett.
"Without knowing what the person was doing, you really can't say. You also have to ask why the police were there in the first place.
- Streetcar shooting probe: watchdog says police co-operation rare
- Knife-wielding Yatim told people to stay on streetcar, witness says
"People look at outcome. If you watched the whole movie and you know how the movie ends, it's very easy to see the foreshadowing. You have to remember that the officers in this movie didn't know how it was going to end ... while there may have been moments where they might have interceded differently and changed the outcome, they didn't know how the movie was going to end.
"The other thing to remember is that bullets disappear in bodies. You don't get sprays of blood like in Hollywood. You may not even know that you've hit the person because when you fire bullets into clothing you often can't see the hole. If the person's behaviour doesn't change you might not know you hit them.
"And again, you have to remember that a lot of officers never touched real guns until they were in training. It's possible that officers in these sorts of situations don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities. And the first thing they do is assume they missed."
Sammy Yatim shooting: 6 things police are taught about using force
The police shooting of a knife-wielding man on a Toronto streetcar has stirred a national debate over whether the amount of force — nine shots rang out in 13 seconds — was appropriate.
Amateur videos circulating of Sammy Yatim's death over the weekend have been parsed by the public and experts, but many questions remain as Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, looks into the case.
- Watch raw video of the shooting (warning: graphic content)
- Streetcar shooting probe: watchdog says police co-operation rare
Top news
Victoria's Secret models reveal new lingerie line
Use of force is a rare and unique permission that police are granted by society to help maintain law and order, but what are officers taught about this responsibility?
Sgt. Brad Fawcett is a trainer at the Justice Institute of B.C. where all municipal police recruits in the province are educated, and he also holds the title of provincial use-of-force coordinator. In an interview with CBC News, he walked through the training officers receive on use of force and the issues police encounter.
Use-of-force training
Fawcett estimates that use-of-force training takes up about 20 per cent of an officer's education.
"It may not sound like a lot," he notes, "but all the studies show that use of force by police accounts for less than one per cent of all the interactions that they're going to have with the public."
"The overwhelming majority of – over 99 per cent of calls – they're going to resolve just by showing up and talking to people," he said.
While at the police academy, officers are educated on a wide range of use of force issues:
- Provincial standards.
- Legal issues.
- Physiological and psychological cues to watch for.
- The national framework on use-of-force, which details the stages of police response in threatening situations.
Hands-on training also involves empty-hand tactics and how to use various weapons — from pepper spray to firearms. Municipal officers are also typically required to take refresher courses on firearms in some provinces on an annual basis depending on provincial requirements.
Fawcett says he puts a lot of emphasis on communication tactics aimed at de-escalating a situation or preventing it from becoming too volatile.
Threatening signs officers look for
An average person may not notice the signs of a person in flight-or-fight mode, but an officer is trained to be tuned into subtle physical clues of imminent danger, says Fawcett.
Among the signs are the jaw muscle balling up and the person's eyes darting around. Another clue is the clenching and unclenching of hands, because in flight-or-fight mode the extremities start to feel cold as blood rushes to major muscles.
"Police officers are seeing threat cues where other people might be looking at something and they don't see anything. And then they can't understand well, why did an officer do this?" said Fawcett.
"It's no different than a firefighter looking at the colour of smoke," he added. "It doesn't mean something to anyone else, but to the firefighter it means something important."
Increasing use of video
"We've been telling [officers] for 25 years: You can't walk a block without being captured about eight times just on store security video in downtown video. They're always going to be on film. Certainly, we want them to look good and sound better.
But at the end of the day, no use of force is going to look sterile. It's never going to look pretty. If you go into an operating theatre there's a reason the walls are stainless steel or tile up to five feet and there's a drain in the middle of the floor. After the surgery is over, they bring everything out of the room and they literally hose it down.
"Surgery isn't pretty. Use of force isn't pretty. The question is was it necessary and reasonable?"
Legal aspects of lethal force
"We teach what courts have said, when it's appropriate to use force," said Fawcett. "The courts have laid down pretty reasonable rules when it comes to the use of deadly force."
"When it comes to making a decision about the reasonableness of use of force, essentially what the courts have said is you have to be a doppelganger or a ghost in the shoes of the officer and see what they saw, not what the video camera showed, not what another witness saw.
"What was the perception of the officer and was that perception reasonable? And of course what the courts have also said [is that] you can't expect cool reflection in the face of an uplifted knife."
Public perception
"It's part of the Hollywood factor, I guess, that we have to deal with: People just think that we can Steven Seagal guns and knives out of people's hands, and that's just not the way it is," said Fawcett.
Fawcett notes that few people realize how quickly a life-or-death decision must be made.
"Time and distance is something that few people appreciate," said Fawcett. "If you're going 10 miles an hour, that's 15 feet per second. Ten miles an hour is a jog. So if somebody's 15 feet away with a knife in their hand, you have less than a second to deal with it. But most people look at the headline and go, 'Oh, the person was 20 feet away. Ohmigod, why didn't the officers do something else?'"
"The other thing to remember is we train average people [to be police officers]. We train your sister, brother husband, mother, father. They don't come with 33 years of martial arts experience.
"Some of them haven't seen a real gun until they get into policing. Some of them have never even tasted their own blood because someone punched them in the mouth."
Use of firearms by officers
"The number of shots is no barometer of whether something was reasonable or unreasonable. It sounds flippant, but if there were 10 shots fired perhaps nine weren't enough and 11 would have been too many," said Fawcett.
"Without knowing what the person was doing, you really can't say. You also have to ask why the police were there in the first place.
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"People look at outcome. If you watched the whole movie and you know how the movie ends, it's very easy to see the foreshadowing. You have to remember that the officers in this movie didn't know how it was going to end ... while there may have been moments where they might have interceded differently and changed the outcome, they didn't know how the movie was going to end.
"The other thing to remember is that bullets disappear in bodies. You don't get sprays of blood like in Hollywood. You may not even know that you've hit the person because when you fire bullets into clothing you often can't see the hole. If the person's behaviour doesn't change you might not know you hit them.
"And again, you have to remember that a lot of officers never touched real guns until they were in training. It's possible that officers in these sorts of situations don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities. And the first thing they do is assume they missed."
I didn't use the word 'psychopath' - I suggested that there was a clear point at which the suspect was no longer a threat to the public. The concept of continuing to shoot him until he is not moving has nothing to do with public service at that point.If so, can you not think of any other plausible reasons why 6 additional shots were fired when a taser was "present", other than that the shooter is a psychopath who just wanted an excuse to kill someone "arbitrarily"?
Is it not possible that the officer.... then shot again because Yatim was still threatening and thrashing around after he fell to the floor?
Good faith ???? I realize that this cop was put in that situation because he was paid to on our behalf but - either through poor training, fear, or possibly a callous disregard of human life - he took a step past his responsibility and ended the life of a teen that did not have to die. This guy is one terrible cop and he obviously should never be put in on the street again. Yes ... I am certain. Every video and additional witness simply reaffirms this position.Is there absolutely no way that the police officer could have been acting in good faith? Are you that certain?
The guy should not have been shot to death as he was no real threat. Especially after the first 3 shots. The cop should go to jail for the rest of his life as he clearly exceeded required force. There were way too many other options to explore before killing an innocent human being.
I used the word "psychopath". You used the words "arbitrarily executing" someone. I believe that conduct would be psychopathic, don't you?I didn't use the word 'psychopath' - I suggested that there was a clear point at which the suspect was no longer a threat to the public. The concept of continuing to shoot him until he is not moving has nothing to do with public service at that point.
Good faith ???? I realize that this cop was put in that situation because he was paid to on our behalf but - either through poor training, fear, or possibly a callous disregard of human life - he took a step past his responsibility and ended the life of a teen that did not have to die. This guy is one terrible cop and he obviously should never be put in on the street again. Yes ... I am certain. Every video and additional witness simply reaffirms this position.
Your allowance for "poor training" and "fear" as possible reasons for the number of shots fired is far different from your earlier argument that the officer just decided to "execute" someone.
The guy should not have been shot to death as he was no real threat. Especially after the first 3 shots. The cop should go to jail for the rest of his life as he clearly exceeded required force. There were way too many other options to explore before killing an innocent human being.
Innocent??? Are you retarded or did you just skip the facts?
Also, since when does it require 23 police officers to deal with a situation like this? Don't they have other more pressing issues to deal with? Only 3 of them were pointing guns at the kid from what it looks like on the video. That makes me think that 20 sane people didn't see the situation as dangerous. If they all had the same training, why did those 20 think differently? Sleep on that.
