Streetcar shooting: Toronto police officer suspended

[chemgear]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...questions.html

Witnesses say Sammy Yatim was alone on the 505 Dundas streetcar near Trinity Bellwoods Park when he was shot just after midnight ET Saturday morning. He had pulled a knife and ordered everybody off the streetcar, witnesses say.

The video shows the stopped streetcar at a distance, with multiple police officers nearby, at least one with his hands raised to shoulder height.
Nine gunshots are heard within 13 seconds.

[Reaper]

Tasering the guy after putting nine rounds into him?

That's some fine police work there, Lou.

[dissentowner]

This will not end well for that officer.

[Rapidfire999]

wow isn't one shot enough?

At least stop after the first round of shots

[blankall]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

This will not end well for that officer.

officers? Did multiple officers shoot him?

Either way, this is ridiculous. I'm normally pretty quick to defend officers, even in police brutality cases, as they risk their lives to defend our own. However, the bus was totally clear.

They could have tazered him, used tear gas. Surely, they could have put on some kind of armour to protect themselves from a knife. They could also have just waited for him to get off the street car.

It would have been a different matter had the assailant been holding people hostage. Glad this was caught on tape.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Rapidfire999

wow isn't one shot enough?

At least stop after the first round of shots

Police officers are not trained to fire single shots. It is always a double tap.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by blankall

officers? Did multiple officers shoot him?

Either way, this is ridiculous. I'm normally pretty quick to defend officers, even in police brutality cases, as they risk their lives to defend our own. However, the bus was totally clear.

They could have tazered him, used tear gas. Surely, they could have put on some kind of armour to protect themselves from a knife. They could also have just waited for him to get off the street car.

It would have been a different matter had the assailant been holding people hostage. Glad this was caught on tape.

One officer shot him. The only person the victim could have been a threat to was the officers and we can clearly see in the video that he was not. This was serious police misconduct and that officer is a disgrace to police officers everywhere. It is morons like this guy that give the public the wrong idea about what most officers are like.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Reaper

Police officers are not trained to fire single shots. It is always a double tap.

This is true however at the OPC they practice 3. Two main body, one head.

[Nage Waza]

That looked pretty bad, I could not see anything that could justify shooting that guy. The officer will have the chance to explain his/her point of view. Besides reaching for something, a potential bomb or running at the officer, what could someone do to warrant getting shot standing so far away?

If the kid walked towards the officers with the knife then I am not sure what the protocol is. The kid did after all take over a busload of passengers and was proven dangerous.

In the end, you just gotta do what the officers say.

[Tyler]

When police tell you to put down the knife, you listen. Simple as that.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Tyler

When police tell you to put down the knife, you listen. Simple as that.

It's actually not, which is why he's suspended.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Tyler

When police tell you to put down the knife, you listen. Simple as that.

It's not quite that simple, actually.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by flameswin

It's not quite that simple, actually.

It is that simple just not from a legal point of view but from an I don't want to get myself shot point of view.

As always I will withold judgement until the inquiry is done though this one seems like a very poor decision by the officer.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by GGG

It is that simple just not from a legal point of view but from an I don't want to get myself shot point of view.

As always I will withold judgement until the inquiry is done though this one seems like a very poor decision by the officer.

Yeah, I was speaking legally. I assumed Tyler was, too. I think it's pretty obvious that from an "I don't want to get shot point of view" that you would do what a cop says.

[Tyler]

He's suspended because they have to do an investigation. Standard protocol.

I'm almost certain there will be no repercussions because the deceased neglected an officers direct order multiple times while holding a lethal weapon. What you can't see from that video is his position. Did he advance forward? Most likely.

[Northendzone]

It is a puzzling situation. The streetcar appears empty, so at first blush it appears as if the police could have waited the kid out a bit.the kid do not comply with the officers request to put the knife down. And the there are more shots fired than one would expect.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Regulator75]

Was English his first language?

[Travis Munroe]

This officer didnt do it right if they are trained to shoot two bullets at a time (9 shots)

On a serious note, I guess it goes both ways....
- drop the knife when asked and guns are pointed at you
- were bullets, let alone 9 of them the only way to control the situation

Any word on how many actually hit the guy?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

Was English his first language?

No.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/why-d...ll-sammy-yatim

As reports from Sammy’s friends and family are starting to trickle out through the media—which seem to unanimously describe him as a quiet, friendly teenager who “collected knives” and was in the process of learning English—it seems that something had deeply shaken Sammy on the night of his death. If his loved ones are to be believed, Sammy acted wildly out of character that night, and was a threat to those around him, just as he was a threat to himself. The sensitivities of this situation were certainly not addressed, and instead, the dimwitted decision to load Sammy Yatim up with bullets ended his life too early. As Martin said to me in an email: “The police must protect the public, and of course protect themselves, but one of the responsibilities of the police on Saturday morning was to protect Sammy from himself, and they seemed to have forgotten that.”

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Tyler

He's suspended because they have to do an investigation. Standard protocol.

I'm almost certain there will be no repercussions because the deceased neglected an officers direct order multiple times while holding a lethal weapon. What you can't see from that video is his position. Did he advance forward? Most likely.

If that's the case there needs to be some major overhauls of police procedure. Not advancing, dropping weapons, etc.. all sound like great criteria when dealing with rational people in sound state of mind. However, most people who would actually do something like this are suffering from some kind of mental illness.

In this case, the guy was nowhere near Yatim. There were no bystandards on the streetcar, and Yatim was contained within the streetcar. Quite frankly, following police protocol should not have been good enough. If it was, police protocol needs to change.