Confrontations show divide in USA, Canada on the use of police force
TORONTO – One suspect is on a street in Toronto. Another is on a street in Brooklyn. Both are seemingly pointing weapons at police, one a metal pipe, the other a possible gun.
In Toronto, the suspect is Alek Minassian, who police say jumped out of a rental van after mortally wounding
10 people. In Brooklyn, the man is Saheed Vassell, 34, who is known to have mental issues.
Both behave erratically. Minassian,
25, hollers to a nearby Toronto police officer to shoot him, and he points something at the officer, as though it were a gun. Vassell brandishes a metal pipe as a phalanx of New York City police confront him after responding to a complaint about a possible armed man on the street corner.
In less than a minute, both encounters end in ways that show a sharp contrast in how each nation approaches the use of lethal force by law enforcement.
Minassian was coaxed to surrender and taken into custody peacefully. Vassell was shot to death April 4 in a volley of 10 bullets fired by four officers, sparking protests and community outrage.
The video of Minassian’s arrest garnered widespread praise for the calm demeanor of the officer on the scene — Ken Lam — who took down the suspect without firing a bullet.
Lam’s actions are in keeping with his department’s written policies, which strive to use as little lethal force as possible.
“Canadian society does not tolerate violence, and there is an expectation by the public to resolve conflict without violent means, and that includes police conduct,” says Rick Parent, an associate professor of police studies at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Parent, who has done extensive published research on deadly force in both countries, says the video strikes a chord because it plays on what people perceive as the difference between Canadian and U.S. cops. He recounts an interview he did with an ex-bank robber who had been involved in shootings with police on both sides of the border.
“He explained it this way: When you are robbing a bank in Canada and the police show up, you know that they are going to pause for a second or two and tell you to drop your gun — before they shoot,” Parent said. “In America, when you are robbing a bank, you know that when the police show up and they see that you are armed, they are going to start shooting — there is no warning.”
Parent says the Toronto incident shouldn’t stand as a typical scenario of how police in Canada handle an armed person. More often than not, Parent says, a threatening man holding a gun on a cop in Canada will get shot. But that man, he says, has more of a chance to survive the encounter in Canada than in the United States.
“When you are robbing a bank in Canada and the police show up, you know that they are going to pause for a second or two and tell you to drop your gun — before they shoot. In America, when you are robbing a bank, you know that when the police show up and they see that you are armed, they are going to start shooting — there is no warning.” Rick Parent Simon Fraser University
Another factor is the vast difference in availability of guns in the USA vs. Canada. There are about 300 million guns in the USA, according to the Congressional Research Service. In Canada, there are about 10 million guns, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project.
Parent’s research suggests a U.S. cop is much more likely to use deadly force because “policing in the USA is more dangerous than in Canada. ... Police in the USA are significantly more likely to be shot and killed” because more criminals are likely to tote a gun.
Statistics on deadly force in both countries are somewhat elusive. The FBI has acknowledged for years that demographic data on officer-involved shootings is not consistently reported to its Uniform Crime Reporting system, and Canadian researchers echo a similar problem.
The Washington Post has a listing of U.S. police shootings culled from news reports, law enforcement websites and social media. In 2018, 348 people have been shot and killed by cops in the USA, according to the Post database. Many of those who died got little more than a brief mention in a newspaper or on a website.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. built its own database and documented 461 fatal police encounters in Canada from 2000 to 2017.
Several U.S. jurisdictions, including Chicago, New York City and the state of Missouri, have tightened their rules on when its permissible for an officer to use deadly force. The rules changed in the aftermath of controversial police-involved shootings and deadly encounters between black men and officers that sparked nationwide outrage.