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Sammy Yatim Shooting

The reality is a police officer can shoot and kill any of us, at any time and he will not get jail time. The powers that be will always find some way to justify it and your loss of life will be just another casualty of the system. Our justice system is not here to protect us, it's here to protect the people in power who created it. If the G8 debacle taught me anything, it's that the average Joe Blow is powerless against the system, so shut up and take whatever the cops dish out to you. There is no justice in life, so just deal with it.

I would never defend myself against a police officer, no matter what injustice they do to me, because I know in the long run, I will always end up paying the price and the officer will get a free pass. That's just the way our system was created and remains. We like to pretend we have a justice system that protects us all equally but it's just a lie.

I predict no serious jail time for this cop. Let's wait and see if I'm right.

Classic straw man argument
 
A co-worker mentioned to me that in her martial arts classes she learned ways to deal with someone waving a knife around. So shouldn't COPS know that stuff, at a fairly high level? I don't see why it was necessary to use a gun AT ALL in the situation.

All martial arts classes show this, let's just say the strategies are unreliable to say the least. I saw a video recently of 8 Brazilian officers trying to talk an agitated man into dropping his knife. He didn't, instead he began chasing them around and killed two officers before finally getting shot. Not saying that's the situation here. Obviously the kids a problem, his twitter account doesn't paint a great picture, but by age 29 he may well have matured and become a different guy, or not.

My thoughts:

I'm surprised these sort of things don't happen more often - 5,000 police & 3,000,000 people. Plenty can go wrong. Alter any part of that encounter and everyone would've walked away

Waiving a knife, threatening passengers, disobeying police is a risky behavior like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. If someone around you exercises bad judgement you're exposed

Only one officer was shooting, suggesting the others did not see this as warranted

The only excuse I can fathom is the possibility the young man was going to begin moving the vehicle. If the streetcar had demolished a passenger vehicle police would've been crucified for letting him hijack it.

Most of us work in fields where mistakes or poor judgement are inconsequential. Its possible this officer cant himself explain what happened. The rule of large numbers means from time to time 'shit happens' and two lives changed.
 
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..... and two lives changed.

Correction! One life destroyed, one life ruined ruined and many, many more forever altered. The families of both individuals are traumatized in ways that most of us probably cannot imagine. The witnesses (police and civilian) also forever changed.
 
I've been following this from Calgary, and I've have a few friends on the Calgary Police Service, they wondered why not back two police vans up to the front and back doors of the street car and wait for TAC to respond and either use rubber bullets or pepper rounds on Yatim. I agree that without being there and seeing what Cst. Forcillo saw that it seems that all avenues for de-escalation were not explored. However these situations are almost always very organic.

I will say this there is the use of force framework, and if the constable felt his life was in danger he can use lethal force, I'm going to assume that is what he will be going with. I will say I never saw that CCTV footage before and it doesn't look very good. I'm wondering if drugs were involved. Forcillo could have stopped shooting after 3 rounds. I think the second burst of 6 rounds is what may cook his goose. As I think it will be construed as excessive force and therefore he can be charged under the Criminal Code, for excessive force and manslaughter (I don't think he ment to kill the kid- initally). I want to hear what he has to say for himself before I tear him apart.
 
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All martial arts classes show this, let's just say the strategies are unreliable to say the least. I saw a video recently of 8 Brazilian officers trying to talk an agitated man into dropping his knife. He didn't, instead he began chasing them around and killed two officers before finally getting shot. Not saying that's the situation here. Obviously the kids a problem, his twitter account doesn't paint a great picture, but by age 29 he may well have matured and become a different guy, or not.

My thoughts:

I'm surprised these sort of things don't happen more often - 5,000 police & 3,000,000 people. Plenty can go wrong. Alter any part of that encounter and everyone would've walked away

Waiving a knife, threatening passengers, disobeying police is a risky behavior like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. If someone around you exercises bad judgement you're exposed

Only one officer was shooting, suggesting the others did not see this as warranted

The only excuse I can fathom is the possibility the young man was going to begin moving the vehicle. If the streetcar had demolished a passenger vehicle police would've been crucified for letting him hijack it.

Most of us work in fields where mistakes or poor judgement are inconsequential. Its possible this officer cant himself explain what happened. The rule of large numbers means from time to time 'shit happens' and two lives changed.

TWO cops died in that Brazil case? Sounds like the cops (not just the ones who died, the whole team) were not very well trained, or something. A guy with a knife can only kill one person at a time and once he started stabbing one cop, the others would have been justified in shooting him to death. Anyway, the Toronto case is quite different.
 
I have now seen the footage. I agree it doesn't look good. I would like to hear what Forcillo has to say now. I'm interested to hear if he can articulate the use of force.
 
I feel like the people defending the police are just begging for this to not be a big deal.

Having no sympathy for Sammy or reiterating the fact that he is/was the criminal in this scenario does not ipso facto mean you defend the cops. I personally am quite ambivalent when it comes to cops. What is quite obvious to me, is that there are a lot of people who are rabid cop haters, and are using this incident to further there bias against the police.

Plenty of teenagers behave like wannabe gangsters and act in a completely douchey fashion, but that's still not license to kill them

Except that is not why he was shot.

Again...straw man.

And what's with the "arm chair moralist" noise.....who are you...Judge Judy??? ha ha
 
Only one officer was shooting, suggesting the others did not see this as warranted

Most did not even draw their weapons and most seemed quite relaxed....up to the shooting starting.

The only excuse I can fathom is the possibility the young man was going to begin moving the vehicle. If the streetcar had demolished a passenger vehicle police would've been crucified for letting him hijack it.

Prior to the video with the enhanced audio coming out I had wondered if he was stating he had a bomb and was threatening to blow the thing up......now that we have heard what he said (I presume that enhanced audio is accurate) I have no idea what could have caused on officer out that many to open fire as he did.
 
Yes. Here is the salary structure for Toronto Police Service Constables as of January 01, 2013.

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/careers/uni_benefits.php

It lists OMERS under salary and benefits. Is part of their salary deducted to go into the pension plan? How much does the government contribute on top of that? I do have a problem with someone earning $100k/year in wages, with benefits and a DB pension on top of that, who only has 6 years experience. Even if they are a police officer "risking their life every minute of every day".

It doesn't mean the salary is wrong per se, it could just be that things need to change so we stop requiring officers for so many overtime activities. It's not worth the cost.
 
I've been following this from Calgary, and I've have a few friends on the Calgary Police Service, they wondered why not back two police vans up to the front and back doors of the street car and wait for TAC to respond and either use rubber bullets or pepper rounds on Yatim. I agree that without being there and seeing what Cst. Forcillo saw that it seems that all avenues for de-escalation were not explored. However these situations are almost always very organic.

I'm friends with a retried officer, (who never fired a bullet in his 30 years as a T.O cop) Is also wondering why TAC wasn't called in?

The Montreal Police seems to know how to deal with these situations without using deadly force. Toronto Police take note!

20-hour Montreal police standoff ends after SWAT team reportedly moves in, rubber bullets fired
 
freshcutgrass, your insistence towards the fact that Sammy Yatim was behaving in a criminal fashion at the time of his death, although accurate, is in fact showing an implicit support for the police in this case. It paints the reaction of that particular police officer as being somewhat justified, by providing extenuating circumstances. Unless you and I have watched entirely different videos, I saw a police officer shoot 6 rounds into an inert body. A tazer was then deployed. Was Sammy Yatim behaving like a criminal thug while he was laying on the floor bleeding, to warrant 6 more bullets?

Yes, a lot of people are cop haters. We are an un-armed, defenseless population trusting a powerful minority with our protection. In light of these latest events, what part of this statement makes you feel at ease?
 

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