AN ACT OF BRAVERY
Mohamed Fahmy on the citizen’s arrest outside the London mosque,
Yesterday, one man died and about 10 people were injured after a van veered off the road and drove into worshippers leaving prayers outside the Finsbury Park mosque in London.
In the most recent wave of terrorist attacks, the perpetrators either took their own lives or were killed and, in several cases, arrested by the police. This time, the deliberate attack to harm took a different route when a number of brave men at the scene arrested one of the terrorists and handed him to the police.
I believe the police cannot fight this ongoing global battle alone. Private citizens must help in this unprecedented age of terrorism.
There are rules, though, for citizen arrests. One cannot just detain a man on the street on suspicion of wrongdoing — an unpleasant scene I have seen numerous times during my work in the field as a journalist. In Canada, the law once stated that members of the public “must find a person either in the act of committing a crime, or escaping from and freshly pursued by persons who have lawful authority to arrest that person.”
The laws have become more flexible in Canada to allow more citizen arrests.
In the past, a citizen could arrest someone only if the perpetrator was found committing the crime. More recent laws allows the arrest “within a reasonable time” of the offence. For example, it would be lawful to chase a shoplifter after he leaves a store and arrest him. The apprehension is only lawful if no police officer is able to capture the thief at the time of the incident.
The Canadian Citizen’s Arrest and Self-defence Act does not clarify the “reasonable time” allowed — an ominous legislation leaving critiques demanding more clarity.
I think it’s subjective and it should be treated on a case-by-case. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association suggested a maximum limit of 24 hours on citizen’s arrests.
Some worry this may encourage vigilantism. It’s a rather thin line to walk between the reality on the ground and the chains of the law.
Witnesses outside the mosque told reporters at the scene of the London attack that two more suspects were inside the van and fled the crime scene.
I wonder what the British counterterrorism police would say if one of those survivors of the mosque attack identified and arrested the rest of the gang a week later. Would it be an unlawful citizen arrest?
Some people have an immediate reaction and jump to intervene when a criminal is caught in the act. Others may choose to remain idle, fearing for their own lives.
Would I be able to turn over the suspect to the police without delay? That is the first question I would ask myself before deciding to take on a criminal.
Saeed Hashi, a worshipper outside the mosque, pulled one of the attackers out of the van as it stopped to back up.
He described to reporters at the scene how he grappled with the big muscular man for 10 minutes on the ground and pointed on camera to the wounds he received on his head and neck before the police arrived — a remarkable heroic story.
As much as vigilance is encouraged in similar situations, citizen arrests are potentially dangerous when a person is not trained to handle a suspect.
In the past three days, Muslims in U.S. and the United Kingdom have been murdered outside mosques. Nabra Hassanen, an Egyptian-American teenager, was assaulted and killed in the early hours Sunday as she walked home after prayers at a mosque near Virginia in Washington.
As the breaking news developed in London, reporters on the scene focused on the labelling of the gruesome events: “Terrorist attacks,” “hate crimes,” “Islamophobic attacks”
Others wondered if Daesh and its affiliates are getting exactly what they want by turning people of different race, ethnicity and religion on each other — sowing more sedition in our civilized world.
After each senseless terrorist attack I ask myself about the solutions moving forward and the lessons we can learn before the next one. This time around, the story I am writing is about the brave men outside the Finsbury mosque — lifesavers.
Citizen arrests are rare but they are necessary at times.