You can be an expert who is quoted as such from Coast to Coast. Outdated or next to nil qualifications- What the heck, does not really matter.
Yes you can.
Christie Blatchford: How media turned a man who briefly worked as a cop 27 years ago into an expert in Sammy Yatim case | National Post
It was when I saw the lovely and talented Ian Hanomansing, filling in for Peter Mansbridge on The National last Monday night, introduce Ross McLean that I truly knew the sky was falling
The broadcast began with an excellent report on the latest twist in what has been one of the biggest stories in the country for the past month: A Toronto Police officer, Constable James Forcillo, was now charged with second-degree murder in the July 27 shooting death of teenager Sammy Yatim.
The 18-year-old, armed with a knife, died in a hail of nine bullets fired by Const. Forcillo during a brief standoff on a downtown streetcar.
Throughout, Mr. McLean, a mild-mannered 52-year-old Torontonian, was in the eye of the media storm.
It was he, with his pleasant face and studied gravitas (“Good to be here on this important, tragic and passionate topic” is Mr. McLean’s standard opening gambit), who became the go-to guy.
Formerly a regular in the tabloid Toronto Sun and on Sun TV, he was suddenly omnipresent — on CTV, Global and CBC local and national shows, private talk-radio stations in Toronto and as far west as Edmonton and quoted in the pages of The Globe and Mail.
His experience after leaving the police force is not unrelated.
Mr. McLean says he worked in private security for a leading firm at the time, then for the Bank of Canada as a technical security specialist, then for blue-chip private firms and in “close protection” for wealthy Torontonians.
But it’s his police experience that his interviewers have largely relied upon.
The problem is, Mr. McLean hasn’t been a cop for 27 years, and he was one only for six or seven years, four or five of those, as Mr. McLean himself confirmed in a phone interview this week, spent in traffic services.
When he last would have had formal police use-of-force training, Toronto cops were still using the tonfa baton (an L-shaped one) and no one was carrying Tasers.
Yes you can.
Christie Blatchford: How media turned a man who briefly worked as a cop 27 years ago into an expert in Sammy Yatim case | National Post
It was when I saw the lovely and talented Ian Hanomansing, filling in for Peter Mansbridge on The National last Monday night, introduce Ross McLean that I truly knew the sky was falling
The broadcast began with an excellent report on the latest twist in what has been one of the biggest stories in the country for the past month: A Toronto Police officer, Constable James Forcillo, was now charged with second-degree murder in the July 27 shooting death of teenager Sammy Yatim.
The 18-year-old, armed with a knife, died in a hail of nine bullets fired by Const. Forcillo during a brief standoff on a downtown streetcar.
Throughout, Mr. McLean, a mild-mannered 52-year-old Torontonian, was in the eye of the media storm.
It was he, with his pleasant face and studied gravitas (“Good to be here on this important, tragic and passionate topic” is Mr. McLean’s standard opening gambit), who became the go-to guy.
Formerly a regular in the tabloid Toronto Sun and on Sun TV, he was suddenly omnipresent — on CTV, Global and CBC local and national shows, private talk-radio stations in Toronto and as far west as Edmonton and quoted in the pages of The Globe and Mail.
His experience after leaving the police force is not unrelated.
Mr. McLean says he worked in private security for a leading firm at the time, then for the Bank of Canada as a technical security specialist, then for blue-chip private firms and in “close protection” for wealthy Torontonians.
But it’s his police experience that his interviewers have largely relied upon.
The problem is, Mr. McLean hasn’t been a cop for 27 years, and he was one only for six or seven years, four or five of those, as Mr. McLean himself confirmed in a phone interview this week, spent in traffic services.
When he last would have had formal police use-of-force training, Toronto cops were still using the tonfa baton (an L-shaped one) and no one was carrying Tasers.