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

Originally posted by IvanAstikov
reply to post by Dragoon01

 

You say you are a student of self-defence, but can I ask you how many times you've had to defend yourself without the convenience of a weapon?

And I don't mean in a gym in some kind of drill, or in a ring with a referee - I'm talking about on the streets, where there was just you and your eye of the tiger preventing you getting a serious ass-whupping.

I know MY capabilities in such situations... do you know yours?

Twice,
Yes I know what I am capable of and not capable of.
that was many years ago when I was young and dumb and got drunk all the time. Now I am to old to be fighting stupid kids on the street but I am WAY more dangerous now than I was back then. Dont mistake that for bravado. I am not trying to make myself out to be something special. Thats the point, if I can train and become more capable then anyone can. In my last defensive pistol class we had a 65 year old man who had just recently had a triple heart by-pass. He got out there and did the run and gun just as much as he could.



EDIT to add: Reading your other posts I dont disagree with you that this was a bad shoot. I just dont agree with bad advice on the safe distance of people with weapons. I do not however see what unarmed streetfights have to do with this situation?

Well, I still have questions about this, but I have learned that the police officer is a weight lifter - gained 40 pounds of muscle in a few months. They are doing drug tests on the deceased, they should do drug tests on the officer.

reply to post by Rocker2013


I'm about to quote MYSELF here, since you seem to have either not read all of my post, or simply not adequately process it. So hopefully you should notice it THIS time.

EPH 612

There is no cause to believe that those men were monsters. That said, their actions were inexcusable. They made mistakes. They need to pay the penalty.

and in an earlier post

EPH 612
But can we at least agree that the level of force used in this case was unnecessary?

I NEVER said that their guilt should be enough punishment. I NEVER said that their actions were justified. If you read the above quotes, you'll notice I said their actions were "inexcusable".

But I DO stop short of comparing those officers to child molesters and terrorists. They are human beings, the same as that teenager that was shot. That means I attempt to show them the same compassion that I show everyone else. I recognize that the officers involved may ordinarily be good people. DOES THAT MEAN I EXCUSE THEIR ACTIONS? No. Let me say it again, most emphatically NO. But comparing them to child molesters is going too far. If you must use inflammatory comparisons, kindly leave the comparisons to those that adequately reflect their crimes.

We're discussing this thread on ATS Live Show #172 - 3rd August 2013

The entire thing is a freaking tragedy.

It's certainly a tragedy for the young man who died, and his family, first and foremost.

It's a tragedy for the cop who will eventually have to deal with that psychologically. Cops and soldiers don't get out of this free of side-effects. It just takes most of them a long time to show up.

From the backseat armchair (and isn't it easy to argue from there), I think I side with the people saying that the force was not "for lack of any alternative" and was probably unreasonable.

But I have a couple of caveats to that.

First, I have to say that much like we do with soldiers, we put LEOs in situations where their lives are constantly in grave danger, they face horror and violence and the worst in humans daily, and they end up the walking uber-paranoid insta-violent sorts because that is the survival skill that this kind of role forces anybody into -- anybody who's going to survive. It is different with LEOs than soldiers but there is clearly an overlap. This is what happens to humans in those situations. We should not be surprised. We should as a culture be looking at how to deal with this in a more intelligent way than "tackle the LEO for being wrong." Sure there is room for discipline or even punishment in some cases but I think as a culture we are ignoring some larger, more fundamental issues that these kind of situations just highlight. I think it is fair to err on the side of a person defending their own life.

Second, I would just like to mention that if I were standing at the front of a bus with a knife in my hand, I could have it in the neck of a man standing near the back in about 0.4 seconds. This is why cops shoot people with knives. Because some people know how to use them, and the very fact that someone is a) standing there with a knife in the first place, and b) refusing to put it down despite police orders, heavily implies that person may be very likely to use it.

The officer has received 6 year's in prison, at least some accountability over the usual..no winner's here though..very sad.
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