Toronto suspect was taken alive; others haven’t been so lucky

Canadians have been seized by the video of a Toronto police officer facing down Alek Minassian, the suspect in Monday’s van rampage, and peaceably arresting him without a shot fired.

“He’s a hero,” declared Mike McCormack, the Toronto police union boss. “Not just a Toronto hero, but a national hero.”

On Tuesday, Minassian appeared in court, facing 10 murder charges and a further 13 counts of attempted murder. Without the restraint of Const. Ken Lam, the officer in the video, Minassian wouldn’t have made it that far.

Instead, he could’ve been dead; another officer might have reacted entirely differently. And, had Minassian died in the street, like so many others Monday afternoon, we would never get the answers everyone’s now so desperately seeking.

But let’s pause for a second. A police officer is getting a great deal of praise for, in a tense situation, not just gunning someone down.

Well done, constable. This likely happens around Toronto and Ontario regularly, and we just don’t hear about it.

But here’s the catch: We are so accustomed to seeing incidents involving police end brutally that when it doesn’t happen, it’s praiseworthy. In Ontario, there’s a problem with police violence, and the courageous actions of one officer shouldn’t obscure that fact.

Since 2000, in 40 instances police have fatally shot people who were in the midst of mental health crises. That’s according to a critical 2016 Ontario ombudsman report on police de-escalation tactics, which are meant to help calm people in crisis and release some tension during the interaction, to avoid violence.

To put it in perspective, at the time of the ombudsman report, at the Ontario Police College officers received five 90-minute sessions on how to communicate. In comparison, they got 15 90-minute sessions on how to drive. (De-escalation training has been beefed up in many places since that review.)

It’s clear that Toronto, in particular, has had a real problem with officers killing people in crisis. But violent incidents involving police are not isolated to that city.

Ottawa Const. Daniel Montsion faces charges in the death of Abdirahman Abdi in July 2016, and the Special Investigations Unit is investigating two incidents, one from February 2018 and the other from June 2017, when Ottawa police fatally shot people.

But since Lam’s a Toronto cop, let’s look at incidents in the GTA.

In July 2015, officers arrived at Andrew Loku’s apartment building. He’d been on something of a rampage. He had a hammer. And an officer shot him dead — less than two minutes after arriving on the scene.

Or how about Jermaine Carby, shot three times by Peel police in September 2014 after a traffic stop? He was carrying a knife.

Or Ottawa’s Devon LaFleur, armed with an air gun, killed by Toronto police in March 2016. Officers had been on the scene for less than one minute before they fired nearly two dozen shots at him. Eight hit their target.

Or Sammy Yatim, just 18 years old, alone on a streetcar, armed with a pocket knife, and shot dead on the street in July 2013. Const. James Forcillo was handed a six-year sentence in Yatim’s death.

Since 1989, coroners’ inquests have made some 550 recommendations on how to reduce police shootings in Ontario. These deaths have, without a doubt, contributed to the current crisis in trust in policing. And it hasn’t escaped the Ontario government’s notice, with its reviews on police oversight and new regulations on street checks (those regulations themselves are subject to an ongoing review.)

So yes, praise Const. Lam. There was enough death in Toronto on Monday, without another person killed.

Let’s just remember all those who haven’t been so lucky in their interactions with police. Or the officers who haven’t been quite so cool-headed under pressure. And it shouldn’t escape notice how many of the people who died were black or men of colour.

Loku, Carby, LaFleur and Yatim certainly hadn’t killed anyone.

If police could bring Minassian in alive, after he allegedly killed 10 and injured 14, the question to ask is this: Why didn’t the other men get the same treatment?