Toronto Police Kill 18 Year Old Alone On Streetcar. Caught on Video. I Am Speechless.

The cop doing the shooting looks like a bit of a lard ass - colour me surprised. Probably felt like backing away from a potential threat would be too much like hard work and was probably pissed off he'd had to get out of his comfy car seat.

reply to post by Caroline13456


I saw a man who stepped forward immediately after told "Do not move". just before that moment I anyone should have assumed he was a suicide bomber or that he had more hidden weapons than the knife, to be so bold as to not simply give up when first approached.

While it might be true that when all facts come out the police might have well overreacted, we don't know the events that led up to that moment, the verbal threats he could have made or the length of time this encounter took.

His age is a non-issue. If he was old enough to threaten and scare people out of a street car he was old enough to take a bullet.

Sorry, this dude was asking to be shot -- at least once. And he might have given the appearance of attempting to detonate something after he fell down, we can't see or judge, but surely there will be eyewitnesses to come forward with details.

Police have a hell of a job to do as it is. Let's not assume from the very start that the police are at fault without learning all the facts. First three shots were likely non lethal (and intentionally so), but also ineffective in stopping the guy from continuing to appear as a threat, since the subsequent shots came after several seconds, not exactly an impulse decision. But we will know more as it develops. I do hope the media covers it.

-rrr

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by RAY1990
And when somebody disobeys a direct lawful order is the typical reaction of a Law Enforcement Officer to shoot them?

It can be.
You can turn a traffic citation into getting yourself shot through your own actions, if you act up enough.

You know, it always amuses me that its the “cops fault”, how about the personal responsibility of the person causing the situation for their actions resulting in them getting shot?

edit on 7/29/2013 by defcon5 because: (no reason given)

All too true, I have seen myself how quick a situation can escalate because of the erratic behavior of somebody in police presence. I try to keep it real on the situation and how/why it escalated.

I think in my personal humble opinion, that these officers should have set up more of a perimeter. After all, all public servants are supposed to set up a safe zone boundary when an accident or incident has happened or is happening.

It is usually advised for officers to back off in a potentially life threatening situation isn't it?
Wait for back up if possible, so the situation can be handled better without as much risk to life. Obviously this cannot always be, if somebody starts attacking an officer out of the blue then the smart thing would be to repel the attacker.

All these officers had to do is back off, 20-30 feet and form a perimeter so the suspect cannot escape. It would have been the safe thing to do and would/could have stopped the situation panning out as it did.

It's the man's fault (not boy) this situation happened regardless of health, but it was the LEO's fault this man is dead. They could have handled this differently if they chose to, they were in charge of the situation.

They approached the vehicle.
They felt they could handle the situation and perform an arrest.
They felt threatened and shot.
They could have handled it more professionally.

Now they are filling in reports as to why they had to put a man down and I hope they are scrutinized on every little detail.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord


To me, and granted, the quality is optimum, it looks as though his body-language shifts as he's waking forward, he goes from arms-crossed confrontational, to dropped arms and drooped shoulders as if he figured out he better give up.

Thats going to be the problem. There is NO WAY any of those officers are going to say he was giving up. I expect that even with his disposition of dropping his arms, he was coming forward when they previously had said if you keep coming, you're finished. Kind of a finality in those words, and thoughts.

reply to post by whatnext21


I don't care if he claimed he knew the schools of every cop's kids on the scene and threatened to kidnap them when he was released. Nothing he said can justify him being shot so readily.

Wait... are we now racially profiling and thinking that an Arabic appearing person should be treated differently than, say, a Swedish looking one???

That, to me, is every bit as untenable as those last six shots.

Look, by no means am I trying to say that excessive force is the right thing to do...

But you know what, from what I hear, these guys that were trained to shoot until the threat is down.

What I'm trying to say is, I've heard from friends before that the army, military and/or police training, basically teaches the enforcement officers to shoot to kill.

For instance, if you deem someone is a threat to you, you actually shoot the person until they are dead. You never leave someone half dead.

I suppose, these folks felt that if you leave an ounce of strength in the criminal, they might get back up, pull out another weapon from somewhere and end your life. So when they see a suspect having the capability and the ability to fire/kill them, they're supposed to be responding with deadly force.

And I'm not talking about shoot them in the leg or arms to incapacitate them. Shoot to kill is how they've been trained. So forget about firing 1 shot and wait for backup, you shoot until the threat is down, you shoot until the threat is dead.

I hope that makes sense. I mean, until they change this type of attitude, you will get a lot of these type of things happening left and right.

Originally posted by Visitor2012
The taser WAS used, but they had to shoot him to death first. Then to make sure the corpse's muscle spasms wouldn't harm the officers they handcuffed him. Common LEO operating procedures

You did notice that they were still yelling for him to “drop the knife” right?
Then after all that the officer comes out and radios for an ambulance?
Just because someone is hit with gunfire does not mean they are dead, especially if they are on drugs.

Originally posted by Hefficide
That, to me, is every bit as untenable as those last six shots.

In your opinion how many of those shots hit?
At what point was the subject incapacitated?

reply to post by IvanAstikov

What if the 18yr old had the mental age of an 8 yr old, what then?

Do you think the officers will know that at the time of incident? No. They sometimes use lack of reasoning and will eliminate the threat.

If you've aimed 9 shots at a fairly stationary target and you haven't killed that person, that in itself should be good reason to remove that officer from duties. It's only luck apparently that the dead teen never had a machine pistol tucked into the back of his trousers and didn't pull it out and spray the cops in a drug-fuelled frenzy.

Originally posted by neo96
Literally over kill.

A suspect armed with a knife versus 10-12 or more cops?

9 shots?

There is no excuse for that as already said cops have access to less lethal means, Taser, bean rounds etc.

In Toronto no less I think people really have not taken a good look at society lately it is a pretty messed up place.

Neo, in agreement with you, and believe it or not, the Taser came last. Now, I wonder why that was done? kind of cart before the horse wasn't it. Maybe they didn't know someone was filming, then the video is stopped when the patrol car came round the corner, and why did it come round that corner anyway?

reply to post by sylent6


No, which was why I suggested that smart cops could have kept him talking and established those sort of things, with a little patience.

Originally posted by luciddream
reply to post by Carreau

 

Considering this is Toronto, where you barely here any gun fights, especially Cops shooting a civilian..Heck last year was probably the most gun shots and it was 4/per year...

9x shots for a guy who wasn't moving, not aggressive and on a empty street car?

I understand you have to drop whatever you were doing if police ask you, i mean i would, but what prompted the 9x shots?

Gun is a last resort too.

Huh? Barely any gun violence? Well perhaps if you compare it to Chicago, but Toronto isn't all that safe. There are definitely areas you don't want to go to late in the evening. (shots fired just this morning and a shotgun was taken by the cops)

Some actual statistics:

2010 - 136 shootings
2011 - 118 shootings
2012 - 154 shootings
2013 - 109 shootings

---------------

As to the case in question to me it was definitely an over-reaction by the officer. The teenager was either on something, or was having some mental issues (he was holding his penis with one hand, the knife in another) but at the time of the shooting wasn't a threat to the officer. He was still in the street car, was taunting the cops but that shouldn't be an issue to the officer.

Perhaps the cop was scared? Perhaps he has a mean streak? I do not know but the 3 shots would have been enough to take down that teen (and look at where he was aiming during the second grouping of shots, the kid was down) Someone should have been brought in to try and talk to the kid before any force was applied.


But like the US, our police are becoming more and more militarized, more and more becoming the heavy hand of big brother. I wouldn't be surprised if the Special Investigations Unit comes up with a whole lot of nothing in this case (as they are ex cops)

Originally posted by Hefficide

Wait... are we now racially profiling and thinking that an Arabic appearing person should be treated differently than, say, a Swedish looking one???

That, to me, is every bit as untenable as those last six shots.

I know what you're saying. And I know full well what you mean. And fundamentally, you're dismay is correct. However.....

Regardless of who is truly at fault, recent history can't be denied. 'Surprise' has been an effective prerequisite. And without question, Arabs have been at the core, more often than not. Isn't it prudent to be humanly cautious?
I'm not necessarily comparing, but my apprehension of Pit-bulls comes to mind. They're not all gonna tear your legs and arms off, but you never know- based on what you know- from what you witness or are told.

One other little thing I might mention; Ya know... if they'd stop cuttin' people's heads off and stop acting so freaky about the littlest things-- I think the world would have a little more patience with "Arabs".

Finally, I am not in any way condoning what these officers did, and the extent to which they went. I am commenting only on your reference to profiling.

reply to post by defcon5


Obviously by the first three shots - as he never exited the bus and his forward inertia is very obviously stopped during those initial shots.

There was easily a several second pause between the two episodes of fire and at no point during that time did the suspect emerge from the bus.

And... SUSPECT is the correct term for the guy.

reply to post by truthseeker84


In California, police officer don't take waste no time in putting suspects/subjects down whether they're armed or not.

Here in Bakersfield, the police rank the top five in KILLING PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!! These boys break records out here.

These officers are trained to kill and nothing more. There is no talking, no reason and no "I'm sorry mr. officer" The BPD and KCSO academy literally train these officers to be killers. Heck, LASO and LAPD shows some sort of restraint.

reply to post by be4ne1


And if the world would stop showing all those pesky videos of American soldiers killing civilians - Arabs might not consider us to be barbaric war mongering fanatics.

It's all in ones POV and the propaganda that is splashed onto ones TV.

There is no excuse for racially profiling. In fact there are a slew of laws in nearly every Western nation to prevent and forbid doing so.

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by Hefficide
That, to me, is every bit as untenable as those last six shots.

In your opinion how many of those shots hit?
At what point was the subject incapacitated?

At that range the majority had better have connected or that officer shouldn't have a firearm.