YOU are saying that the threat had passed... The cops were saying otherwise.
So I'll ask again: Seeing how you believe that the threat had passed - why didn't the bus driver or passenger go in and deal with it?.. There was no more threat, right?
Is it necessary for cops to use lethal force against a guy with a knife?
- Thread starter JLM
- Start date
YOU are saying that the threat had passed... The cops were saying otherwise.
So I'll ask again: Seeing how you believe that the threat had passed - why didn't the bus driver or passenger go in and deal with it?.. There was no more threat, right?
You hit the nail right on the head, Karrie, but I doubt if your learned adversary here can understand such simple reasoning. -
Exactly my initial point, no one is above having their actions questioned in this scenario. At least so far, with what information is known.
I think it's sad that a life was cut so short, 18 is too young to die. But I'm not going to say that he wasn't culpable in his own death.
And as far as shooting out knee caps (or whatever) I know jack squat about guns or how to shoot, but even I know that's not a feasible option.
No it doesn't negate it, not at all. Which again, goes back to my original point. That it is possible that this kid was not an innocent party and yet the use of lethal force in this instance may still have been excessive. What I'm seeing a lot of, in mostly commentary on the various news websites, is that people are 'taking sides'. Which frankly baffles me, as there usually is not one right and one wrong side in most situations, but definitely not with this one.
It also doesn't change the fact that there are rules for when the police are allowed to shoot people, and when they're not, and it looks like they screwed it up on this one. And those rules are there for reasons.
I think from the incident in 2007 at Vancouver airport we already know what the mentality of many cops is. Bus drivers and passengers aren't equipped to deal with situations like that, Einstein!
From link in topic header:
A family is in shock after a police shooting left a young man dead on a Toronto streetcar this weekend.
Sammy Yatim was shot just after midnight on Friday, following an alleged altercation with police.
Initial reports indicated that police had been responding to a call about a man with a knife on the streetcar near Dundas Street West and Bathurst Street, at the time of the shooting.
Family have confirmed that Sammy Yatim was the man shot by police on a TTC streetcar. (Facebook)Yatim was taken to a downtown hospital with a gunshot wound. He was soon pronounced dead.
The victim's sister, Sarah, confirmed that Yatim was the young man killed on the streetcar and said that her family was in shock over what happened.
Sammy Yatim was 18 years old at the time of his death. His family moved to Toronto from Syria about five years ago.
The knife was described as two inches or three inches. Doesn't sound like a terrible weapon but dangerous just the same.
A family is in shock after a police shooting left a young man dead on a Toronto streetcar this weekend.
Sammy Yatim was shot just after midnight on Friday, following an alleged altercation with police.
Initial reports indicated that police had been responding to a call about a man with a knife on the streetcar near Dundas Street West and Bathurst Street, at the time of the shooting.
The victim's sister, Sarah, confirmed that Yatim was the young man killed on the streetcar and said that her family was in shock over what happened.
Sammy Yatim was 18 years old at the time of his death. His family moved to Toronto from Syria about five years ago.
The knife was described as two inches or three inches. Doesn't sound like a terrible weapon but dangerous just the same.
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An unarmed person in proximity to a knife is under threat, but you know that, it's pretty simple.
Multiple people with guns, standing far away from said person with a knife, are not under direct threat.
Once the people were cleared off the bus, the cops showed up with guns, they had him contained, he was no longer a direct threat from what is visible on the video.
I think you are absolutely right if the subject was wielding a gun, but given he was wielding a knife I think shooting out a knee cap could be a viable option, depending on the marksmanship of the shooter.
Surely it didn't take you until now to see that fact! -
If a person isn't a threat to anyone else's life at the moment, you are not to shoot them, period. Cops aren't supposed to go around practicing their marksmanship to make people comply. If the person is a threat to their life of someone else's, centre mass, put them down. If they're not, they're supposed to wait the situation out.
I was only advocating it in the situation where they pose some degree of threat. Of course if there is no threat at the time you don't shoot them, but I think there is only one poster now who would argue with that.
(I would suggest that degree of marksmanship would be something attained on the rifle range, not on random citizens) -
Herein is one of the bigger problems that I see... Many people are quick to come up with untenable solutions after the fact.
It's fair to say that lethal force is excessive in all but the most extreme cases. That said, the police don't get to pick and choose what events that they respond to nor do they have a complete understanding of the person involved.
The person that had the greatest amount of control here is the guy with the knife - he chose not relinquish it and (apparently) made a threatening move that catalyzed the over-kill.
Make no mistake, I am not justifying the severity of the police response - but again, this guy is ground-zero for everything that happened... He had the choice to deflate the situation or pour gas on this fire... He chose the gas
How close does a cop have to get to slap on the cuffs?... Can they do this from 25 feet away?
So if the guy refuses to drop the knife - I guess that he is a threat to the police that would have to come and arrest him; unless of course you feel that he should be able to walk away into the night
Thanks for the assessment Dr Freud... We may call on you to appear in Court.
PS - This event didn't occur in YVR... Thought you might want to know
How was he going to walk away into the night? Was there some appointment these cops had that I'm unaware of? 15 minutes per call, time's up, you die?
From what the video shows, they did not have to shoot when they did. That is all.
What it boils down to for me is that the question of whether he was an imminent threat at the time of the shooting. He may have been deemed to be so, possibly, if it appeared that he was perhaps accessing a secondary weapon. Again, he is not blameless in this scenario, not by a long shot. However, seeing as how it seems to be a consensus that the shooting officer's actions were excessive, I think that also calls into question his ability to assess the threat level too. This doesn't deny that had the kid not pulled a knife on a public streetcar in the first place, none of it would have happened. But just because he did pull out a knife, and since he was the only one left on the streetcar, then the shooting is highly questionable, in my opinion.
If the cops had been Mounties, they would have apprehended him with a manly right cross to the jaw.
JLM raises a very good point. By all accounts- this was 'a pretty good youth'- neighbours' are both shocked and surprised.
two possibilities:
1 party drugs. I've known cases where estacy, etc, was slipped into peoples' alcohol
2. Repressed experiences. "Cure the Celts, sedate the Slavs' as we used to see in my youth, still applies. Immigrants face a lot of repressed stress, and don't always have the avenues to aid them.
I think we need to be careful of trying to assess their history. Cops don't have access to your history when you're standing there with a knife. They can't see your facebook page, judge you by your friends. Cops are supposed to apply standards, rules, to the situation. That's what needs to be applied in assessing if they should have shot, not neighbours' opinions of him.
Gosh - aren't you the one that is saying he wasn't a threat?... 2 or 3 times now I've asked you why the driver didn't go and talk him down seeing how he was a docile little lamb.
I'd wager that the cops will say that he would be an imminent danger until he was securely restrained
Kudos!
And I bet that the cracker-jack marksmen in the RC's coulda easily done an old-school, Western movie style quick draw and shot his knee caps out.
You're intentionally stretching my meaning to the absurd.
He couldn't have killed anyone from where he stood, yet they shot him dead. Unless there is something that happened hidden from the camera, they're in the wrong.
Nine shots were fired. It is looking like there was only one shooter. A question that pops into my mind is "How many of those nine shots hit the intended target?". Surely one wouldn't shoot in that situation without being positive of hitting the target. I expect to read about a body with nine holes in it.