Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
That doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, but that's not really the case at hand, is it?
He was being arrested for obstruction of justice and resisted arrest, so I think force, so long as it isn't excessive, is a reasonable method to gain that arrest.
I'm somewhat dumbfounded by some of the responses to this arrest (not yours, just to be clear). We've spent months seeing example after example of excess force (shootings, pulling lethal weapons for minor offenses, excessive force like slamming heads into pavement or causing serious injury or death otherwise) and for some people in at least some of these cases, it's been a scramble to justify it. Basically the idea that if you resist arrest, bad things happen.
But here we have a case where there was no excessive force despite the person resisting arrest. He was not shot, tased, or even injured. But some of those same people who were comfortable justifying force as a response to resisting arrest now take issue with it. Instead of it being about the application of force, it's more about whether people ideologically agree with the substance of the offence and the motivations of the offender. To me, that's a pretty dangerous precedent to set.
When you've committed an offence and you're being issued a ticket, you need to give your name. If you don't, you're likely to be arrested. If you resist, force will be applied. These seem like simple and acceptable things. We can disagree with police injuring or killing people, but to disagree with police doing their job and causing no harm seems like a desire to just have zero police at all.
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No, I get that. But it was the 'minor' offence (in this case, the Public Health Act) and it's connection to the Provincial Offences Procedures Act that leads to the criminal code.
It's easy to second guess what happened. I wonder if it there's some thought of using a different avenue in such a case. For example, start interviewing people and try to determine his identity. Then issue summons and or warrants. I realize that it may be too time consuming and then you have a guy evading the eventual consequences, but it's just food for thought.