Let's Talk about the Calgary Police Service

[GGG]

Not sure if you are referring to me or not but I think I have been idealogicaly consistent in that one of the main issues is the polices choice to escalate. My issue is what happens in this event is the exact same series of events that leads to dead people for non-violent interactions.

Many of the excessive force videos start with encounters like this one, an officer then becomes fearful of their life, then escalates. The difference between drawing the taser and using it in this instance is very small.

The statement of “If you resist force will be applied” is a huge part of the problem currently with Police. Mentally ill people get shot on wellness visits as a result of that logic.

What if police simply contained the situation until verbal compliance was achieved and only use force to prevent escape. It might take several hours but eventually the kid would allow himself to be cuffed or he would try to escape at which point you could escalate the level of force.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This is 2020. Clearly the answer is that it depends on how sympathetic we are to the person the police are confronting.

One of the trends the pandemic has accelerated is the abandonment of the universal application of principles. It’s emotion and tribalism all the way down.

You've lost the plot here a bit as he was speaking specifically to the training and procedure of police officers and nothing to do with what people think of any given situation based on the person being confronted by police.



And to be honest as much as you feel like a social commentator above the divisiveness and chaotic nature of social media, I feel your constant comments on often end up inflaming discussion rather than soothing it.



A social commentator may calmly explain why discussion goes a certain way, where as you tend to make quite emotional posts that scream "fire" when everyone is just discussing politely for the most part. And let's be real here, we can see the pattern of when you make these posts depending on the situation, yet you speak as if you're simply commentating on human nature without bias.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

^I'm honestly curious at this point what it is about this type of deep-dive post policing that you find so irresistible. I'm not even trying to pick a fight, it's just strange to me.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GGG

Not sure if you are referring to me or not but I think I have been idealogicaly consistent in that one of the main issues is the polices choice to escalate. My issue is what happens in this event is the exact same series of events that leads to dead people for non-violent interactions.

Many of the excessive force videos start with encounters like this one, an officer then becomes fearful of their life, then escalates. The difference between drawing the taser and using it in this instance is very small.

The statement of “If you resist force will be applied” is a huge part of the problem currently with Police. Mentally ill people get shot on wellness visits as a result of that logic.

What if police simply contained the situation until verbal compliance was achieved and only use force to prevent escape. It might take several hours but eventually the kid would allow himself to be cuffed or he would try to escape at which point you could escalate the level of force.

No, wasn't referring to you.

With everything, it's situational. I don't really agree that "if you resist force will be applied" is part of the problem, it's the fact that reasonable force is unclear. Pulling the taser was over the line, but that was mitigated by the fact that the taser wasn't fired. Yes, this situation could have gone much worse, but almost every situation can go worse. And the situations that end in death or injury could probably have gone better. It's hard to theorize on hypotheticals. We should look at where excessive force wasn't applied and acknowledge it as a positive, and look to where it was and acknowledge it as a negative.

Using force appropriately and successfully is part of the job when it comes to someone who is physically resisting or trying to escape. What makes force excessive is based on the situation. It would have been excessive to taser Ocean, just as it's been excessive every time we've seen lethal force used on someone who was not an immediate lethal threat, but it didn't happen.

It's also why I believe that people who are better equipped to handle certain situations regarding mental health or domestic issues should be present, and budgeting should make that possible. It helps to avoid things like a mentally ill person being shot at a wellness visit. But a 20-something man of sound mind willingly breaking the law and refusing any directions from bylaw? That's a job for the police. And when police try to arrest you and you struggle or look to escape? That's where appropriate levels of force are needed.

[Captain Otto]

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.

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.

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by GGG

Not sure if you are referring to me or not but I think I have been idealogicaly consistent in that one of the main issues is the polices choice to escalate. My issue is what happens in this event is the exact same series of events that leads to dead people for non-violent interactions.

Many of the excessive force videos start with encounters like this one, an officer then becomes fearful of their life, then escalates. The difference between drawing the taser and using it in this instance is very small.

The statement of “If you resist force will be applied” is a huge part of the problem currently with Police. Mentally ill people get shot on wellness visits as a result of that logic.

What if police simply contained the situation until verbal compliance was achieved and only use force to prevent escape. It might take several hours but eventually the kid would allow himself to be cuffed or he would try to escape at which point you could escalate the level of force.

I think you're pretty caught up in the media circus surrounding police and how they deal with "wellness" checks. While mentally ill people have been shot, it is by far, not the usual outcome. Police respond to literally thousands of welfare checks or suicide complaints or general mental illness calls every week ranging from 8 year olds all the way on up. I would say that the police deal with the vast majority (like 99.99%) in a professional fashion with little to no force. I am not saying it doesn't happen, I am simply stating that your words have meaning.

Police contain situations like this all the time. You just don't hear about it because it's not newsworthy. What is newsworthy is that .01% of the time when someone with a mental illness gets shot.

Going forward, I think that's the danger of having discussions or opinions without all the facts and/or relying on a newsfeed for your facts.

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

No, wasn't referring to you.

With everything, it's situational. I don't really agree that "if you resist force will be applied" is part of the problem, it's the fact that reasonable force is unclear. Pulling the taser was over the line, but that was mitigated by the fact that the taser wasn't fired. Yes, this situation could have gone much worse, but almost every situation can go worse. And the situations that end in death or injury could probably have gone better. It's hard to theorize on hypotheticals. We should look at where excessive force wasn't applied and acknowledge it as a positive, and look to where it was and acknowledge it as a negative.

Using force appropriately and successfully is part of the job when it comes to someone who is physically resisting or trying to escape. What makes force excessive is based on the situation. It would have been excessive to taser Ocean, just as it's been excessive every time we've seen lethal force used on someone who was not an immediate lethal threat, but it didn't happen.

It's also why I believe that people who are better equipped to handle certain situations regarding mental health or domestic issues should be present, and budgeting should make that possible. It helps to avoid things like a mentally ill person being shot at a wellness visit. But a 20-something man of sound mind willingly breaking the law and refusing any directions from bylaw? That's a job for the police. And when police try to arrest you and you struggle or look to escape? That's where appropriate levels of force are needed.

I am not sure there's an alternative to resistance - if you are getting arrested and you resist, force is applied to effect that arrest.

But I think you bring up a good point - physical force of any kind, isn't really an exact science. Apply the least amount of force to effect an arrest. There are so many factors to consider not even including how it may "look" in a 10 second video clip.

Fact is, if you are being arrested and your are resisting, physical force will be applied - that's how it goes. Once that starts, it may result in injury to both the offender and the cop. Is there another way? Maybe a change in what an arrestable offense is. But even that doesn't seem like a good idea.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Captain Otto

Police respond to literally thousands of welfare checks...

I looked into this back during the summer, and checked back at various times throughout the year. CPS respond pretty consistently to just over 100 "Check on the welfare" end-coded calls a day.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Captain Otto

I think you're pretty caught up in the media circus surrounding police and how they deal with "wellness" checks. While mentally ill people have been shot, it is by far, not the usual outcome. Police respond to literally thousands of welfare checks or suicide complaints or general mental illness calls every week ranging from 8 year olds all the way on up. I would say that the police deal with the vast majority (like 99.99%) in a professional fashion with little to no force. I am not saying it doesn't happen, I am simply stating that your words have meaning.

Police contain situations like this all the time. You just don't hear about it because it's not newsworthy. What is newsworthy is that .01% of the time when someone with a mental illness gets shot.

Going forward, I think that's the danger of having discussions or opinions without all the facts and/or relying on a newsfeed for your facts.

What facts am I missing here I’m interested in being educated.

Is 99.99% an acceptable rate of failure? A 1/10,000 chance of killing someone in my opinion is too high of risk and should be considered unacceptable.

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by GGG

What facts am I missing here I’m interested in being educated.

Is 99.99% an acceptable rate of failure? A 1/10,000 chance of killing someone in my opinion is too high of risk and should be considered unacceptable.

The 99.99% number was just used as a number to say that it is extremely rare. I would actually suggest the number is significantly lower. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

My point still stands that it so rare as to not be news worthy. Unfortunately proportionality in the news is causing this false idea that it is a common event when in actuality, it is not.



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[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GGG

What facts am I missing here I’m interested in being educated.

Is 99.99% an acceptable rate of failure? A 1/10,000 chance of killing someone in my opinion is too high of risk and should be considered unacceptable.

I agree that it's unacceptable, and I think most would agree with that. But we've had this conversation before, and it's been pointed out that failure will happen. So given that failure will happen and it will be unacceptable, the more important question is how you would make clear that it's unacceptable.

You could remove the risk almost entirely, by disarming most officers of lethal weapons, taking wellness checks off the list of duties the police are primarily responsible for and making it the responsibility of another department, etc. You could minimize the risk by increasing the education requirements of the job (formal education, training, etc) or by making the punishments for crossing whatever line you see out so severe that it would reduce any careless action that contributes to the risk.

But just saying "it should be unacceptable" isn't enough to go on. I agree with that, but you have to have a plan to reflect it. What does "unacceptable" look like to you?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I agree that it's unacceptable, and I think most would agree with that. But we've had this conversation before, and it's been pointed out that failure will happen. So given that failure will happen and it will be unacceptable, the more important question is how you would make clear that it's unacceptable.

You could remove the risk almost entirely, by disarming most officers of lethal weapons, taking wellness checks off the list of duties the police are primarily responsible for and making it the responsibility of another department, etc. You could minimize the risk by increasing the education requirements of the job (formal education, training, etc) or by making the punishments for crossing whatever line you see out so severe that it would reduce any careless action that contributes to the risk.

But just saying "it should be unacceptable" isn't enough to go on. I agree with that, but you have to have a plan to reflect it. What does "unacceptable" look like to you?

Looking at it from a risk management basis you add layers of protection and mitigation until it results in an acceptable level of injuries. The acceptable level is determined by the benefit of the action and the control of the stakeholder in accepting risk. So you will accept a higher risk for something like space flight then you would for an automobile.

So I think you need to handle it like any well functioning OHS system where you track Near-Misses and Non-conformance and evaluate them with a similar intensity to fatalities. If this occurs already this type of analysis should be made public. I would categorize this past event as a near miss and look at what actions could have prevented or delayed the Tazer from being drawn. By managing near misses you prevent incidents.

So I fully agree there needs to be a plan to address use of force AND that plan needs to be made public. Too often in the reports around use of force the question answered is was the officer justified in the use of force instead of could the use of force been avoided. I think in the hockey player situation the answer to both questions is yes.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by GGG

So I fully agree there needs to be a plan to address use of force AND that plan needs to be made public.

Here's the plan they are currently using, from 2018:

https://www.calgary.ca/cps/use-of-force-review.html

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I agree that it's unacceptable, and I think most would agree with that. But we've had this conversation before, and it's been pointed out that failure will happen. So given that failure will happen and it will be unacceptable, the more important question is how you would make clear that it's unacceptable.



You could remove the risk almost entirely, by disarming most officers of lethal weapons, taking wellness checks off the list of duties the police are primarily responsible for and making it the responsibility of another department, etc. You could minimize the risk by increasing the education requirements of the job (formal education, training, etc) or by making the punishments for crossing whatever line you see out so severe that it would reduce any careless action that contributes to the risk.



But just saying "it should be unacceptable" isn't enough to go on. I agree with that, but you have to have a plan to reflect it. What does "unacceptable" look like to you?

I've always been interested in what people think 'wellness' checks are. I think to have an honest discussion of downloading that on another agency, we need to know what exactly that is.

What is your (in a general sense) perception of that?



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[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Captain Otto

I've always been interested in what people think 'wellness' checks are. I think to have an honest discussion of downloading that on another agency, we need to know what exactly that is.

What is your (in a general sense) perception of that?



Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

I'm probably being pretty loose with the term, or maybe too specific, but I'm referring to mental health checks. Someone who is or might be experiencing some sort of mental health crisis which could include being a danger to themselves or others. I realise it's different in different jurisdictions and is handled differently in different areas as well.

Because they obviously can turn dangerous or violent, I like the areas where both police officers and mental health professionals attend, but at 100 or so per day (as WhiteTiger pointed out) and 1000s per year, you definitely need more mental health professionals to make that happen.

I know Sweden tried something where they sent out units without any police, and found that about 50% of situations ended up requiring the police. So obviously having a police officer in addition to someone trained to deal with mental health crisis is ideal. That, or significantly improving the training of officers for that kind of thing.

Just to be clear, when I'm mentioning what you could do to remove or reduce the risk of poor outcomes even further, I'm not suggesting that's definitely what should be done.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I'm probably being pretty loose with the term, or maybe too specific, but I'm referring to mental health checks. Someone who is or might be experiencing some sort of mental health crisis which could include being a danger to themselves or others. I realise it's different in different jurisdictions and is handled differently in different areas as well.

Because they obviously can turn dangerous or violent, I like the areas where both police officers and mental health professionals attend, but at 100 or so per day (as WhiteTiger pointed out) and 1000s per year, you definitely need more mental health professionals to make that happen.

I know Sweden tried something where they sent out units without any police, and found that about 50% of situations ended up requiring the police. So obviously having a police officer in addition to someone trained to deal with mental health crisis is ideal. That, or significantly improving the training of officers for that kind of thing.

Just to be clear, when I'm mentioning what you could do to remove or reduce the risk of poor outcomes even further, I'm not suggesting that's definitely what should be done.

This is one of the major problems with the 'De-Fund' the Police movement.

Yeah, you want Health Care and Social workers and people more in tune with Mental Health issues dealing with these cases but....thats after they've been de-escalated.

You're often still going to need some well-trained Cops with you just to get to the point where these people can receive proper help.

Its almost like the Mentally Ill arent exactly notoriously Mentally stable. Who woulda thunk?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Locke

This is one of the major problems with the 'De-Fund' the Police movement.

Yeah, you want Health Care and Social workers and people more in tune with Mental Health issues dealing with these cases but....thats after they've been de-escalated.

You're often still going to need some well-trained Cops with you just to get to the point where these people can receive proper help.

Its almost like the Mentally Ill arent exactly notoriously Mentally stable. Who woulda thunk?

True, but it's worth pointing out that health care and social workers are also trained in de-escalating these issues, sometimes much better than a police officer in terms of a mental health crisis. It's not just having them there for the time when it's all fine and dandy again, it's relying on their specific skills to get it to that state.

That's why I think a balanced approach is ideal. There are times where the police won't be necessary, even in an escalated situation, and times where someone trained in mental health will be in a level of danger beyond their ability. So having both is important.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

True, but it's worth pointing out that health care and social workers are also trained in de-escalating these issues, sometimes much better than a police officer in terms of a mental health crisis. It's not just having them there for the time when it's all fine and dandy again, it's relying on their specific skills to get it to that state.

They're trained to handle those situations in a clinical setting or other safe location. Going out into an alley at 2 am, or an apartment where people are screaming and threatening one another, is a whole different story. Especially when you consider that the overwhelming majority of social workers today are women who never signed up for that sort of danger. Handing off those responsibilities from police to social workers would require a major recruitment and retraining drive.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

They're trained to handle those situations in a clinical setting or other safe location. Going out into an alley at 2 am, or an apartment where people are screaming and threatening one another, is a whole different story. Especially when you consider that the overwhelming majority of social workers today are women who never signed up for that sort of danger. Handing off those responsibilities from police to social workers would require a major recruitment and retraining drive.

I mean they literally do that:
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...ce.aspx?Id=432

And not in a hypothetical "well this exists on the internet so I assume it happens all the time" kind of thing. Knowing two actual social workers (yes, one is even a woman!), they do in fact respond to crisis at the point of crisis.

This idea that all health care workers and social workers just sit in an office or a clinic is out of touch with reality. They regularly do crisis intervention, apprehensions, etc. They do home visits, safety checks, inspections, etc. They do not all do this, all of the time, of course. But they are trained to do so, and they do so, and it would be unusual for a social worker, for example, to go their entire career without being directly involved in one or many of these situations.

And they are accompanied by a police officer in many more serious instances. But yes, to have a dedicated team that would handle 100 wellness checks a day in conjunction with a police officer would require hiring and a probably more focused training. But acting like they are sitting around safe and sound all the time is pretty silly.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by flamesfan1297

I find Facebook is very anti authority, and leans conservative. (Which I should say I do too) and then Reddit is very pro authority, and leans extremely liberal. Funny how 2 social media platforms can be so opposite

This is an easy one...... Without getting anyone all insulted and stuff this is just observation.....

Ultra and medium conservatives typically are a lower educated group of people (just look at the good ol' USA). Facebook is accessible, it is curated, so you just have to go in, read and post and its all taken care of.

Liberal minded people are typically more educated, more analytical. Reddit takes effort, it looks like a messy hodgepodge of info if you don't know how to set it up to your tastes, so that effort drives lots of the simpler individuals away, they prefer the simplicity of facebook.

day after edit: And just caught up. This thread just went full idiot.

To touch on a few points, drawing a taser is considered a use of force, but remember the point of trying to gain compliance when "negotiating", and I use that loosely here, with someone who is resistive is to introduce consequence. During this discussion if he keeps up, he needs to know there is an escalation, so drawing down on him with a taser *should* in his mind say, jeez they're serious maybe I should just comply. Why this is frowned upon is extremely strange. I'm posting the use of force wheel which I know has been done before, but this one has nice little vignettes on the side to help understand.



Now onto welfare checks, hey we (EMS) do those too! Plenty of them, with CPS as well as we do a combined response. Here's the thing, EMS doesn't like us getting into situations where we could be in danger or injured, so many of those times we can't even initiate contact without CPS there. This stance is unlikely to change from the EMS side as we have had members injured in the line of duty by patients, and guess what we have no means to protect ourselves. People wishing for police presence to be out of wellness checks are going to be SOL. But that's a distraction topic, this had nothing to do with this situation at hand.

Lastly, someone mentioned "implement severe punishment" for instances where force gets used? Are you on crack? The last thing you want to do is dissuade someone from protecting themselves or someone else because of the risk of action against their job. They are charged with the duty to protect up to and including regretfully taking someone's life. That is stressful enough itself, so get off your high horse and stop armchair quarterbacking something you have no experience in whatsoever. Its too easy to look at a situation and think "I'd never do that" or "I'd do that so differently". I'll tell you from being IN those situations, the perspective is different, the stakes are different, and you would react different than from the position of a bystander. That is just a fact.