[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

Always a shame to see a good cop get railroaded like this.

This guy was not a good cop. He fired on someone who was not an immediate threat and then he continued to fire after the person was disabled.

If he was a soldier and the shoot took place in Kabul instead of Toronto his ass would be in the stockade for the rest of his life.

Pretty sad when the ROE for terrorists are more restrictive than for your own people.

Watch the video and still photos again. Yatim was clearly an immediate threat to both those at both ends of the bus that hadn't been able to exit yet. He was three large steps at best from being in arm's length and able to stab someone.

That's not true about soldiers either. They can and will neutralize any immediate threat with massive displays of firepower, like over in the sandbox where they will quite correctly annihilate any civilian vehicle that gets too close, accelerates at them, or refuses to stop. A wounded prick wearing a suicide belt is still as much of a danger as one who hasn't been shot yet. That's why the troops are specifically ordered to pump as many rounds into the bastards until they stop twitching.

[Lemmy]

Thanos Thanos:

Watch the video and still photos again. Yatim was clearly an immediate threat to both those at both ends of the bus that hadn't been able to exit yet. He was three large steps at best from being in arm's length and able to stab someone.

That was before the cops got there. By the time there was interaction between Yatim and the police, the bus was empty so there wasn't anyone there for Yatim to pose an immediate threat to.

[BartSimpson]

What Lemmy said.

[shockedcanadian]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Thanos Thanos:

Watch the video and still photos again. Yatim was clearly an immediate threat to both those at both ends of the bus that hadn't been able to exit yet. He was three large steps at best from being in arm's length and able to stab someone.

That was before the cops got there. By the time there was interaction between Yatim and the police, the bus was empty so there wasn't anyone there for Yatim to pose an immediate threat to.

Furthermore, anyone with any sense of logic would have realized if he was intent on stabbing someone he would have certainly had done so when he was surrounded by unsuspecting riders on a bus than when surrounded by 25 trained and armed cops.

Forcillo is a classic example who shouldn't be a cop. Whoever hired him should be assessed for their judgement as well and/or the reasoning presented. The jury didn't get to see he was in the top .0013% in the entire TPS or something ridiculous like that in terms of the number of times he had pulled his gun. So much so that an internal system flagged him, he was supposed to have his assessment addressed, but according to him his superior mentioned it to him and the appropriate action wasn't taken.

He's a trigger happy individual who from what I saw of the video in the number of times I viewed it proved Sammy correct when he called him "a f___ing pu__y", why else was he the only one to fire his gun in such a situation?

Here is the absolutely frightening issue. What if there wasn't video evidence of this event? How many other similar situations go down without consequences for the officers? In a civilized society the right to be an officer and publicly carry a firearm must only be available to the most qualified of people, if this is a top notch officer, Lord help us all.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

I'm not biased toward either side in this, because I find the whole thing a little perplexing. But, this is how I see everything:

Was there more shots fired than what was needed? Yes. Forcillo could have stopped after the first volley. However, I do not pretend to know what is going on in the mind of a police officer confronted with a situation like that. They are trained to do what is necessary, and I am not going to armchair something that is beyond me. It's too easy to condemn police.

That having been said, I also believe that had Sammy Yatim not gotten himself screwed up on Ecstasy, or pulling a knife and his man parts out on a streetcar, it is very likely that none of this would have ever happened. I don't fully buy the sob story of the mother either. When I was that age, I had the fear of God put into me about drugs by my parents, among others.

He also had time to drop the knife, but he advanced anyways. We are all responsible for our own actions. Sammy's got him killed, and Forcillo's got him in court.

I am not leaning to any one side, merely related what I see, and how it all adds up to me. Can lessons be learned? Of course. Whether or not good comes of this, we'll have to wait and see.

-J.

[BartSimpson]

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

He also had time to drop the knife, but he advanced anyways.

He advanced, true, but only towards the front of the bus. The video from the rear of the bus doesn't show him trying to exit the bus by turning bodily to his right and then descending the steps.

Again, had Forcillo been a civilian there'd be no doubt whatsoever that this was a bad shoot.

But if you folks are good with cops getting to carry out summary justice on your streets then I suppose this was a good shoot.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

But if you folks are good with cops getting to carry out summary justice on your streets then I suppose this was a good shoot.

Ferguson, Missouri. Chicago, Illinois. Etc....

Don't be so quick to judge.

Fix your own problems before you criticize others.

-J.

[BeaverFever]

Lemmy Lemmy:

What a ridiculous outcome, stretching logic to absurdity. How can someone possibly be guilty of attempted murder but not guilty of murder when the guy ended up dead? Yeah, I get the "two incidents" argument, but I'm not buying it.

Bring on the appellate process. This one'll be a decade straightening out. And "suspended with pay", eh?

I buy the "two incidents" argument. If the finding is that the bullet that killed Yatim was justified, how can can you find him guilty of murder for firing additional bullets that didn't kill him?

At the same time, if the finding is that there was no basis for the cop to fire the second volley, how could you find him not guilty of trying to MURDER him, just because the first volley was justified?

And let's be clear the first and ultimately fatal volley struck Yatim in the spine and heart and he fell to the floor. There is just no way any reasonable person could perceive him to still be an imminent danger to anyone. It's not like he would have been getting up on his feet or anything. Hence the shooting, like many if not most illegitimate shootings, is attemped murder as gunfire is commonly known to cause death so intent to kill is often automatically presumed under the law.

[Lemmy]

It's interesting mental gymnastics, Beave. But it's a Bait & Switch. It's a diversion. You break down the big picture into enough little pictures and suddenly you forget the big picture. That's the climate change denier's tactic. This was one incident and for the courts to view it as two opens all kinds of troubling precedents. Can we now expect to have a string of "Not guilty of Sexual Assault but guilty of attempt sexual assault" using the defence that "Yeah, I did threaten to fuck her at knife point but I put down the knife before I entered her"?

[andyt]

I find it hard to convict a cop of anything when he's up against somebody with a knife. But it would appear the cop could have backed off, there was no imminent threat. As such, for sure he should lose his job. And some sort of negligence charge - negligence causing death, which is the same as manslaughter. Give him the low end of the scale for that.

[Lemmy]

Yeah, there's that, andy. Maybe we should look on the bright side: the shithead was convicted of a serious personal-injury offence. Maybe this incident ushers in some change, both in the standards for acceptable use of force and the playbook for police interaction with people in distress. Still, seems a hollow victory for liberty.

[BeaverFever]

Lemmy Lemmy:

It's interesting mental gymnastics, Beave. But it's a Bait & Switch. It's a diversion. You break down the big picture into enough little pictures and suddenly you forget the big picture. That's the climate change denier's tactic. This was one incident and for the courts to view it as two opens all kinds of troubling precedents. Can we now expect to have a string of "Not guilty of Sexual Assault but guilty of attempt sexual assault" using the defence that "Yeah, I did threaten to fuck her at knife point but I put down the knife before I entered her"?

Your analogy has the sequence of events backwards, since the crime he was convicted of here was the second event. In that case and to continue with your theme, it would be possible to have consual sex with someone and then subsequently sexually assault them during the same encounter when they won't go for round two. Probably happens to prostitutes all the time.

And breaking down a crime into pieces and separate offences is normal course. Haven't you ever noticed that people who get arrested get charged with dozens of offences for a single incident? In fact it's probably rare to be arrested and only be charged with one offence. For example steal something and get charged with theft and with possession of a stolen object.

[Lemmy]

Yeah, like I said, mental gymnastics. It's fun. Except for the dead kid making this a real-world event instead of a law school hypothetical.

[BeaverFever]

andyt andyt:

I find it hard to convict a cop of anything when he's up against somebody with a knife. But it would appear the cop could have backed off, there was no imminent threat. As such, for sure he should lose his job. And some sort of negligence charge - negligence causing death, which is the same as manslaughter. Give him the low end of the scale for that.

If there's no imminent threat there's no reason to shoot, full stop. Imminent threat is all that matters, it's not a tick-the-box situation where you get to shoot at your leisure if some technicality is met.

[andyt]

I'm not sure imminent threat is always that black and white a situation. Which is why I said it would appear. I wasn't there, would have hated to have to make that decision. I believe 20 feet is the lethal range of someone with a knife, ie where they can charge and get you before you can react. So I don't know exactly what this cop's options were, just that people are saying he had some. He may just have been more jittery on the trigger than the next cop. Not because he wants to kill, just because he responds differently. So he should lose his job. I don't see him having murder or attempted murder on this mind tho. He had no motive for it that I've heard about.