Good cop, bad cop

Re: What separates Forcillo from the cop who didn’t shoot?, Christie Blatchford, May 1

I’m a huge fan of Ms. Blatchford’s work, often thinking, “I wish I could say that so well.”

However I’m occasionally discomfited by her apparent affection for police, and never more so than by the most recent column about James Forcillo. Depicting him as a victim of circumstance does a grievous injustice to Sammy Yatim and his family.

Images of Forcillo at a very safe distance from Yatim, fbombing him and thuggishly escalating the situation before callously killing him and then emptying his pistol into him, are fresh in my mind. So too is Forcillo’s lying about his encounter with Yatim — as shown by video — and the information that the jury never heard about Forcillo being criticized in the past for drawing his firearm unnecessarily.

James Forcillo seems to be the antithesis of the Toronto van attack’s arresting officer Ken Lam, and it is the Ken Lams on the police force who occasionally deserve your praise. The fact that there are certainly other James Forcillos on the force is on the other hand a matter for concern, and I’d hope a reason to constrain your sympathy for any one of them.

Finally, Ken Lam didn’t use a Taser. Police misuse of them in the past suggests that putting one on every belt would increase incidences of undue abuse with them. Police have plenty of weapons at their disposal already, especially including their training in psychological and physical methods for de-escalating situations and making arrests. It’s those latter weapons that they need to be using, and praised for using, more often. Mark Magner, Everett, Ont.