BLATCHFORD: BRIDGING DIVIDE BETWEEN POLICE AND PUBLIC
Mental-health system’s failures part of problem
In the shrinking world, where violence occurring halfway across the planet feels close and one in the United States as though it’s in the backyard, it would be a useful thing if the police and citizens in Canada could manage to remember that they’re not at war.
Twice recently, I’ve been reminded of the risks of the fraudulent sort of intimacy — the sense that what is happening over there is happening right here, right now too — woven by instant communication, 24/7 news and the power of the web.
The first time was last week, when Toronto Police Const. James Forcillo, who is on trial in the streetcar shooting death of teenager Sammy Yatim, first took the stand in his own defence.
He was being taken through his evidence by his lead lawyer, Peter Brauti, who as part of the officer’s biography and background, played for the judge and jury two videos which are in wide use for training police in Ontario.
One, for instance, Forcillo said he’d seen multiple times — at the Ontario Police College, where all new recruits in the province must go, in divisional “training days” and as part of the annual use-of-force requalification process.
The video’s focus is the story of two rookie officers in Barrie, Ont., who were attacked by a mentally ill man who brought out a hidden knife and slit both men’s throats before he was shot and killed.
These officers are quiet, low-key and tremendously capable men, but the combination of heavy-handed theme music and cameo appearances by others, including other cops, lends the video a bristling sort of machismo.
And, as with the second production — it’s about the dangers of edged weapons, including, apparently, broken bottles! tools! pencils! etc. — this one is replete with scary messages (about, for instance, “the will to survive” and the need for police to fight through to win) that reinforce the notion of them and us, them being civilians and us being the police.
The second moment came this week, when a 16-minute video emerged of a Toronto “pay duty” officer trying to arrest a young black man surrounded by a crowd shrieking epithets at him.
The officer was working for the liquor store, in uniform, when he tried to arrest the young man for trespassing and the man allegedly struck him (certainly, something did; the video shows the officer wiping blood off his face at some point).
The officer was quickly crowded by an angry group objecting to the arrest.
One fellow, later identified as Andrew Burger, 42, is seen trying to pull the officer off the young man (he was on the ground, with the officer atop him) and was clearly interfering with the arrest. At one point, he even wrapped his arms around the young man as the officer had got him to his feet.
Burger and others also berated the officer repeatedly; it’s hard to tell the voices apart, but someone calls the officer, who is white, a “racist shit”; someone says, “I’m going to get you, I swear to God”; and, when a second officer appears in answer to the beleaguered cop’s radio calls and the young man is taken away to a cruiser, there are shouts of “Big with a badge, man” and “f — king pussies, bro.”
(To this, I’d reply, “Big in a crowd, pal,” which is one of the many reasons it is a very good thing I’m not a cop.)
Thursday, Burger, who has been charged with obstructing police, had a little press conference where he painted himself as a justice-loving fellow who was trying to help the officer make the arrest — oh, and yes, also “save a life.” (Thanks to James Moore and Jason Chapman of NewsTalk 1010 for the audio.)
Burger also seized the opportunity to ask anyone with video showing the initial confrontation to share it. At some point later on, some from a nearby store did emerge, and appears to show the officer punching the young man at least twice at the start of the arrest.
Meantime, the fellow who posted the original video on Facebook, Ajith Thala of Hamilton, Ont., gave an accompanying account which claims the officer hit the young man “multiple times” and at one point had his knee across his neck.
(Thala also admitted, in the same post, “This is my personal vendetta with the Toronto Police. I don’t trust any of them.” What follows is a long and tragic tale, but suffice to say, he feels wronged.)
However, that is also what Burger claimed at his presser: with the officer’s knee on the young man’s throat, Burger said, he couldn’t breathe, which is why he intervened, or as he modestly put it, “I saw a life in danger … I try to save a life … I am not trying to obstruct the law, I am with the law …”
What I’d do, were I running the Toronto force, is tone down the rhetoric in training, and get rid of any suggestion that city streets are so mean and dangerous that officers must hone the will to survive.
The force isn’t perfect, and there have been tragic shootings, but many, if not most of them, are failures of the mental-health care system first, and unlike many U.S. forces, in Ontario, there is oversight, the Special Investigations Unit, which reviews all serious incidents of police-caused injuries and deaths.
City streets can be unpleasant; the liquor store video shows that.
But Andrew Burger, pain in the ass though he may have been, isn’t the enemy, and neither are the cops.
CITY STREETS CAN BE UNPLEASANT; THE LIQUOR STORE VIDEO SHOWS THAT.