[Maritime Q-Scout]

I'll admit I am not a trained police officer. Therefore I cannot comment on what exactly should have happened.

That said, you don't need to be and expert ina field to point out when something is wrong.

I don't know how to fly a helicopter, but I know if I saw one in a tree that something went wrong.


Should a suspect be able to say "No I don't feel like getting arrested today" then drive away? Obviously not.

Should police be able to use their firearms without a suspect having a firearm present? I also think the answer is "no". The gun is for protection in a life or death scenario.

Officers should be trained on proper use of non-lethal force, tazer use, and de-escalation.

What was the encounter when the police arrived? Did they de-escalate the situation? Did they amp up the situation?

Above a poster mentioned they tried to taze the suspect but he overpowered them. As someone not trained in the use of tasers I have to ask 'how'? In videos of suspects being tazed that I have seen, the officer is a distance away, and fires the tazer in a similar fashion to a gun. There were two officers there and the suspect over powered both? How can an officer have the ability to fire their gun, but not a tazer?

The officer fired at the suspected back 7 times. Was that excessive? As a lay person that seems excessive. Also as a lay person 7 times from point blank with only 4 hitting the suspect also seems worrisome.

The question that keeps coming up is "what would you have done?"

The issue there is, it isn't up to the general public to answer that question.

If suspects in worse situations can be detained and arrested, why wasn't that the case here?


Yesterday, there was an active shooter in my hometown. We heard the police sirens in our living room. We canceled plans to go out, locked the doors, and stayed inside.

The police arrested the suspect. Without shooting him.

Justin Bourque the Moncton Shooter was arrested without firing in him.

Remember the van rampage in downtown Toronto? The suspect was arrested without shooting him, even while he was trying to escalate the situation with a gun drawn on him.

That doesn't mean that it always happens that way. The Parliament Hill shooter was taken out, as was the Portapique shooter. But neither of them were shot in the back, and both were actively engaged in open fire with law enforcement.

The reason I bring those up is that clearly the training level is different in Canada. It appears that Canadian law enforcement believes in using a firearm as last resort. It appears that there are multiple techniques used to subdue and detain suspects.

It appears that isn't done in the US. Not to the same extent.

To me, it appears that officers in the Jacob Blake incident weren't adequately trained.

What should they have done? It appears from a layman cursory review that they should have been better trained (which is in the police force and not the fault of the officers themselves per say).

Regardless, firing at someone's back, in particular someone who doesn't have a firearm's back, seven times, is not the correct answer.



I do think the police in the US need better training and I wonder how much they get once hired.

There needs to be a discussion about the role of the police, and how to best serve and protect the public.

Incidents like Jacob Blake, Breanna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and George Floyd are causing those conversations. We just need to be careful to ensure the conversations go in the direction of bettering society and not shift to where police go from upholding the law to actually being the law.