A Truly Dumb Idea.
I read what is, quite frankly, the most shockingly dumb idea on a fellow BT blog today. Now, I’m sure the gentleman involved isn’t stupid, but his idea sure is.
In reacting to the taser death in Vancouver, the blogger wrote a piece saying that police officers should not be armed with handguns. Now, the death of the unfortunate polish man is a tragedy, but it is incredibly short sighted to think that police officers would be safe on the streets without pistols for self defense. More people would die, both police and the public.
Less than a month ago, Constable Douglas Scott, 20, RCMP was shot and killed in the tiny hamlet of kimmirut. He was responding to a call of a drunk driver at the time.
In October, Constable Christopher Worden, RCMP, was killed in Hay River after responding to a noise complaint.
York Region Const. Robert Plunkett, a 43-year-old husband and father of three teenagers, was killed in August while investigating an airbag theft.
Constables Marc Bourdages, 26, and Robin Cameron, 29, RCMP were shot and killed in july of 2006 while pursuing a suspect in a domestic dispute.
Constable John Atkinson, 37, of Windsor police was shot and killed while responding to a robbery at a convenience store.
Constable John Goyer, 40, of the Abbotsford police service was killed while responding to a domestic disturbance.
Laval Constable Valerie Gignac, 25 was shot while responding to a noise complaint.
All within the last two years, all responding to the sort of ‘normal’ policing that your average constable responds to. SWAT units are all well and good, but the average cop needs to be armed for both his/her protection, and the protection of the public. One of the lessons learned from the Montreal Massacre was that the initial responding officers need to move in immediately to halt violence. This lesson, learnt after Lepine took 20 minutes to slaughter 14 women, and confirmed after unarmed British police had to sit on their hands for a long period of time while a massacre took place at Dunblane was a critical one, and was applied during the dawson college attack. In that event, the police officer who were already on site responding to an unrelated call, a regular constable, took his service pistol, and entered into the building, confronted the suspect and shot him before he could do further harm. The suspect was well armed, and had a lot more ammo, and it would have been far bloodier had the officers not been able to subdue him quickly.
People seem to think that firearms are ‘evil’ or ’scary’. Guns are no more dangerous than a paperclip. People are dangerous, or not. The guns have nothing to do with it. Are there some cops who take their authority too far, or act outside of their service’s use of force policies? Absolutely. Does that warrant disarming all normal duty officers? Not at all.
And this taser issue, while tragic, is ignoring the reality of taser use: they save lives. Toronto police introduced the taser in 2006, and their year long study is worth reading (you can read it here) . They introduced tasers during this period only to the Emergency Task Force, Public Safety units and Front Line Supervisors. During the time of the study, Toronto Police used tasers 174 times and in one of three ways:
1) The taser was visibly demonstrated and a command given to comply, and the suspect complied without the taser actually being used.
2) The taser was touched against the suspect and deployed without a dart.
3) The taser was deployed by dart to a suspect.
In 44% of incidents, (1) was the use of the taser. Meaning, 44% of the time, simply the threat of using a taser was sufficient to convince the suspect to comply. In every one of the 174 uses, there were no injuries to either the suspect or the police (the small punctures or bruise are not counted as injury). There were no deaths, and no one even filed a lawsuit. in 146 of the cases, the taser was used against a suspect in extreme emotional distressed, what the study was Emotionally Disturbed Persons (EDP’s). In 50 of the cases, the person was determined to have a mental illness before it was deployed. In 94% of these incidents, the taser was sufficient to ensure compliance without resulting in an escalation to another use of force option.
What does this all mean? It means that tasers are safe. They ensure compliance of an unruly suspect with greatly reduced risk to officer safety, and they ensure that the suspects are less likely to be injured than other use of force options. As such, it is WISE to have officers equipped with them, as it prevents injury or harm to both the suspect and the police.
So, enough with the cop-bashing. Enough with the dangerous idea of disarming the police. Its just silliness borne from being poorly informed.
I’ve read through the post you linked to, and I don’t think you’re really getting the point the author was trying to make; he doesn’t seem to be suggesting that the police be disarmed, rather, he’s suggesting that citizens take back most of the responsibility for defending themselves. Only a pie-in-the-sky optimist can seriously hope that the police can protect ANYONE, since they have no real hope of being there when you’re the victim of a crime. Despite that, that’s what the government tells us we have to do. This is analogous to having them tell us “If you have a fire in your kitchen, don’t use a fire extingisher to put it out, just phone 911 and wait the 5 or 6 minutes it’ll take for the fire department to get there to hopefully be able to put it out.”
—SDCI remember a former police officer saying that if he had to remove his handgun from his holster to gain control of a situation it was an admission of failure.
Because a taser is “non-lethal” (well, mostly)there seems to be a tendency for officers to use it rather than invest in communication that would defuse the situation. We can see that in the video of the shock troops in the airport hitting the Polish man in 20 seconds. We also can see it in the Youtube video of the Utah state trooper, not advising the citizen that he was subject to arrest if he refused to sign the traffic citation and then shooting him in the back without adequate warning.
In both situations we can see incompetence leading to use of a device that could save officers’ lives against armed and/or truly violent offenders, but could end up getting banned because of their incompetence and then lying to cover up after the fact.
—Paul A.re: comment 1, I read “I would have no problem with police officers being unarmed if the population judges that regular citizens should not me armed.” as being fairly clear given the context of some of the other comments, and the article he cites. Second, I am a legal gun owner, if someone breaks into my house they are going to have a very rude interruption. I keep my guns stored in a manner compliant with the rules and regulations prescriped by the government, but I know where everything is, and I drill myself on getting it in a hurry. So, I completely understand that citizens should have a full right to defend themselves, that is a position I hold. What I think is dangerous is his argument that should we decide that the citizenry should be unarmed, therefore the police should be disarmed. This is a very dangerous statement that would put officer’s lives in jeopardy if someone made the mistake of taking the idea seriously (no doubt the NDP are all over this already).
re: comment 2, the glib cliche is a silly cliche. Did the officer who shot Kimveer Gil ‘fail’? Police officers are given the ability to use lethal force specifically because there are times when it is the option that must be taken for the sake of officer and public safety. Read the study on taser use in Toronto, its good reading. All 174 instances were because the suspect chose not to respond to other options. Second, you cite the Utah example, and frankly its a bad example. The suspect is tasered in a completely justified use of force. The suspect was beligerant and combative, he repeatedly disobeyed lawful verbal orders, he was ordered to stop, he turned away from the officer, and he put his hand in his pocket. The officer at that moment, by himself, on the side of a busy highway, was faced with a suspect that could possibly be armed (he has no way of knowing), who is combative, and who has just put his hand in his pocket to retrieve god knows what. The officer needs to take charge of the situation immediately. This guy is very lucky he didn’t get shot, only tasered, because his actions were very threatening. As for the polish man, the officers likely knew by the time they arrived that the man was combative (he threw a chair at a window, that’s combative). He was not responding to verbal orders, and he was gesticulating wildly in obvious emotional distress. The choice is: tackle him, taser him, hit him with a baton or shoot him. A taser was the least likely to harm him, and was the justifiable choice.
Incompetence is what happens when people judge events based on their misconceptions of when force is justified or not.
—adminRe: comment 3
As a ride along in a US city I observed the officer defuse situations far more advanced than the Utah one or the Richmond airport one without using any more than his voice, body language and communication skills. He was and is, in my opinion competent. Watching his humble and effective performance off and on for close to thirty years has given me a gold standard with which to compare the swagger of the Utah state trooper and the arrogance of many of the RCMP officers I have met.
That said, the tasered driver in Utah could learn a thing or two about effectively dealing with traffic cops. He did ask for it. The officer as the adult in the picture could have handled it more effectively. I have personally seen it done. And I have seen a weapon pulled in the right circumstances. Didn’t know i could fit under the dash of a cop car :0).
—Paul A.