"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Lots of questions...few answers

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Stephanie's Return":

11:41... you forgot pepper spray!

Just like bleeding heart liberals say that police should aim their Glocks at legs to disable someone.... they are trained to target the largest part of the body to stop the perp... mind you, 9 shots may be a bit excessive.

Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 4 September 2013 09:07


**********************

The scene  was videotaped by a family coming home from dinner out.

The passengers who had been on the bus said  the young man looked and sounded like he was not
in touch with reality. He had ordered everyone off the bus .  They did as they were told. No-one was hurt. He had a small pen-knife.

It seems twenty police officers were present.

 One  fired his weapon.

He fired nine times. Nine bullets.

After the youth was down another officer boarded the bus and tasered his lifeless body.

How can that be explained?

Which behaviour was more bizarre?
When were the S.I.U. Called to the scene ?

Was the police officer tested  to determine what might have affected his judgement?

At  the Police Chiefs' conference a couple of weeks  later ,the Association  President  at a news conference said, the police should not be in the front line dealing with mental illness.

Why did they have to wait until an eighteen year old was riddled with nine police bullets before
Making that statement.

A year  earlier when a police officer was senselessly killed  by a snow plow being driven by a man not in his right mind, they charged him with murder.

Where does the question of judgement enter the picture?

How many more flim-flams will be thrown up to distract public attention from the horror of this event.

The President  of the Toronto Police Association warns the public not to rush to judgement. Wait for all the facts to be known.

The Police Chief appoints a retired judge to conduct a study into police use of force.

The Province decides all police officers can be armed with tasers and pistols and as mentioned above pepper spray.

The president of the Police Chief;s association. Gets into








10 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are trying to place the blame on mental illness although the kid was ready & able to go to university. Same with the 80 year old who was tasered in Mississauga. No one is going to call the cops now when Grandma or Grandad goes walk-about. Used to be they would find the individual & provide a ride home.

Anonymous said...

One bullet missed. So the taser was needed. Not.

Anonymous said...

Taser cop aside, your two examples have resulted in a similar criminal charge. Both the snowplow driver and the officer in this last case have/were charged with murder.

The courts are left to decide the fate. The snowplow driver was not ound guilty of murder, but will be institutionalized for a long time. The officer has yet to be tried and of course in this country he is innocent until proven differently.

The taser officer is the strange element here. Did he get over charged with the situation and not realize that the kid was dead? No charges against him that I have heard of - please correct me if I am wrong (no fear of no one correcting me!).

Anonymous said...

12:52
An awful thought. Maybe it doesn't count if the target is already dead?

Anonymous said...

Tasering that woman in Streetsville was bizarre. How much of a threat to civilization could she have been at 3:30 in the morning?

Anonymous said...


It would be interesting to see a shooting-range target of a human body and the locations of the nine bullets that were fired into Sammy Yatim. How many of these were lethal? From printed reports there were many police officers present on the scene. One of them had the foresight to taser the young man's corpse. Is this not a case of overkill?

The motto of the Toronto Police Force is: "To Serve and Protect." It seems to have gone out the window.

Meanwhile, in Mississauga, three officers of the Peel Regional Police were present when one of them found it necessary to taser an eighty year old woman walking alone at 3:30 a.m. She fell to the ground, fracturing a hip and sustaining some other injuries and was rushed to the hospital. Did she represent a risk to anyone, much less to three police officers?

The motto of the Peel Regional Police Force is: To Serve Community." Define service.

While these two unrelated incidents are being investigated by the SIU and/or Ontario Ombudsman and/or a former Supreme Court Justice, the public has every right to express outrage and concern. Possibly psychiatric examinations should be carried out of the officers involved in both cases.

I know that the vast majority of police officers everywhere are responsible and thoughtful in the conduct of their jobs.

But at the moment II don't feel served or protected.

Anonymous said...


While on the topic of force, Maureen Dowd has a column in today's New York Times in which she revisits Iraq with a telling sentence:

"In many ways, Syria is an eerie replay of Iraq, but with many of the players scrambled and on opposite sides."

Anonymous said...

The Police Chief in Peel Region is a woman. Interesting to see what she does with this very hot potato.

Sexist Much? said...

19:44, what does the sex of the Peel police chief have to do with it? Isn't the actual interest in the incident?

Anonymous said...

22:32
We are not allowed to even mention the sex of a major player? Of course people are interested. The exact same way that we consider Chief Blair as a representative of the Old Boys' League. Get off your hobby horse & think.