Toronto Policeman Charged with Murder

66 Replies to “Toronto Policeman Charged with Murder”

1. Good.

2. Both men deserve justice.

3. Sorry, but I think this is the right call. Whatever problems this kid had, there is nothing in that video that shows me that shooting him 9 times was justified.

4. Looks like the cop may have panicked,three shots to put the perp down,and another six into him while he was down.
   That’s more shots than the OPP fired in the entire Caledonia escapade.

5. Good. This was a huge over-reaction on the cop’s part. There were no potential victims on the streetcar to save so why not use the taser first or wait for some teargas or flashbang grenades? While the victim was no saint, being a drunken moron is not a capital offense. Not to mention shooting someone on the floor six times.

6. If the facts justify the charge, then the right thing to do is to charge the individual and then allow the most vigorous prosecution and defence to occur. Sites like SDA and others should remain vigilant to ensure that misreporting, yellow journalism and the like are unable to prejudice a fair trial.

7. Why did they have to use deadly force?
   How about shooting him in the legs to bring him down.

8. “That’s more shots than the OPP fired in the entire Caledonia escapade.”
   HEE, Heeee, heeeeeeeeeeeeee…..
   A lot more.
   But back to the murder charge – it simply had to be laid.

9. Uh, that’s second degree murder he’s charged with – and being union-backed cop he will probably be plea bargained down to manslaughter. Personally I want all these trigger happy ‘roid head punks permanently off the force, no pension and with a court ordered gun prohibition for life. There are far too many bad cops these days, the brass throws one to the wolves once in a while to keep the illusion of police public accountability alive.

10. “How about shooting him in the legs to bring him down.”
    1) You jest?
    2) You’ve never fired a pistol?
    Nine shots was about eight too many. I don’t like to second guess police but when the guy is laying on the ground twitching, he’s had enough. How did he miss his true calling with the RCMP?

11. Watch the video posted in the article. Watch it in max quality and full-screen. The suspect began moving toward the door of the bus with his hands lowered before the officer shot him.
    If you have:
    1. Taken over a bus with a knife.
    2. Caused a hostage situation.
    3. Refused to drop the knife when ordered to by police.
    4. Begin moving toward an officer with a knife (who has told you to drop the knife)
    You deserve to be shot. The officer here had a reasonable belief that his life was in danger.
    I’m sorry that most of you do not understand the legal and moral justification for the use of lethal force. It is: “the threat of grave bodily harm” If you have a knife and you start “coming at” a police officer, you have passed the threshold needed to justify lethal force.
    Further, the number of shots fired is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the suspect stopped his aggression. Based on the fact that the suspect had to be tazed after being shot 9 times, it is reasonable to assume that he had not stopped his aggression.
    Contrary to popular belief, handgun cartridges cannot and do not cause instant death or incapacitation. Rather, they most often (but not always), have a psychological effect which causes the victim to stop whatever action he is doing. If a suspect is mentally strong and focused on continuing his aggression, he can continue to fight for several minutes after receiving a fatal wound.
    If you don’t believe me watch and look-up:
    1. The 1986 Miami FBI shootout, where two FBI agents were killed many seconds after the killer had received a “fatal” 9mm wound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlSCE88UhyA
    2. This presentation given by a trauma anesthesiologist on handgun wounds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tku8YI68-JA
    One final note: I am not a cop apologist. I think about 20% of cops are total dicks. I think many of those dicks are unfit for duty for a long list of reasons–poor judgement being chief among them. However, the cop in this case was justified in acting the way he did.

12. “How about shooting him in the legs to bring him down.”
    Says the guy who never fired a gun in his life. A pistol is a defensive, close range weapon, and rather inaccurate. Couple that with a massive dose of stress and adrenaline and that’s why anyone who has ever done any training knows you aim for the biggest part of the body. Also, use of the gun is a last resort to protect life, you shoot to disable/kill. A leg shot does neither. Stop watching cop shows and thinking it’s reality TV

13. I was going to reply to some of the comments, but Matt @ 1:53 already said it, and better than I could have.
    Here in the states, at least, police are trained to keep shooting – at center mass – until the suspect goes down. No “one shot and wait”, no “aiming for the legs”, etc. Outside of Hollywood, trying that kind of stuff gets people killed.
    I haven’t heard anything about this case before, or watched the video. I suspect the deciding factor in this case will be what happened after the suspect went down. If, as some comments have suggested, he continued firing once the suspect was down, that may be enough to be considered excessive force. (Though I freely admit that I am unfamiliar with Canadian law in this regard).

14. So I guess if the cop had stopped at 3 shots instead of emptying his pistol the shooting would have been justified? I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict this guy will get off. I think this was justified. You take over a damn bus with a knife and threaten cops you get shot. I know there’s bad apples but this is not one of those cases.

15. Matt, “Hostage situation” is not correct. At the time of the shooting, there was nobody else on the streetcar. Hence there was no immediate need for the police to confront him. The only person he was in danger of harming was himself, and .. well, the cop did it instead.
    junior has the best take here. Let’s get all the facts into a courtroom and give the man a fair trial.

16. Good. Treat the cop like a normal citizen would be treated if they tried to defend themselves in their home with a legal firearm: arrest the person with the firearm and let the courts work it out, regardless of the cost.
    If a person who legally owns a handgun shoots an intruder who is carrying a knife who refuses to drop the knife and continues moving forward, the home owner would instantly be charged with all kinds of weapons offenses and murder (assuming the intruder dies). Cops should be subject to the same rules and punished accordingly. The problem is that the rules are against law abiding citizens where there are no rights to protecting life and property.
    BTW…9 shots to take down a mentally challenged kid with a knife? Anybody has to say that is excessive. Like someone said above, why not use a taser, pepper spray or beanbag round? This cop had a hard-on to shoot somebody and now he has to face the consequences. Good!!!

17. Policemen’s perennial dilemma — damned if you do, dead if you don’t.
    C0p stabbed in the head in Harlem; suspect arrested at scene
    Soon-to-be dad Officer Eder Loor, 28, is in critical condition; ‘He’s not out of the woods yet’: Mayor Bloomberg
    A musclebound mental patient who was off his meds plunged a knife through the skull of a city c0p in an unprovoked East Harlem attack — and then calmly strolled away.
    In mere seconds, the 26-year-old ex-con snapped during a conversation with cops, driving the knife with such force that the blade pierced the c0p’s brain.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/stabbed-harlem-suspect-arrested-scene-article-1.1062928#ixzz2cRMLznS2

18. I’ve been using guns for over fifty years,and am a decent shot with either rifle or pistol. I don’t go for the Hollywood version of “winging” the opponent,or the unrealistic dangers of “the knife”.
    Several commenters at other sites remarked that “the knife” is a deadly weapon if thrown,and the cop was in danger,20 feet from the kid. N.F.L. More Hollywood.
    But,the cops seem to be recruiting too many people who are afraid of any contact whatsoever with a perp,so their first reaction is to shoot and shoot some more. They have billy clubs and mace,and should be competent with their sidearms.They are also wearing armor that’s supposed to stop a handgun bullet or a knife.
    The cop had backup,lots of other officers were on site,and he could have simply stepped off the empty bus and closed the door,leaving the drunk and /or stoned kid in there alone.
    This time, the cops reacted in the opposite way to the Vince Li case,when they would NOT enter the bus while a guy was having his head severed and was being eaten. They treated Li with kid gloves.
    I’m also no cop basher.Until the Dziekanski case,I routinely accepted the cops version of events.Dziekanski,and the RCMP brass’ outright lies about the case,only revealed by an amateur video, made me rethink my view.
    The Police Forces in Canada no longer can be trusted to tell the truth,as we have seen SO many times since Dziekanski. This time, the cops and their thug mentality will be on trial,let’s hope justice is done,for once.

19. The good constable is guilty of nothing but doing his job—enforcing the law. That evening, that required putting down a young Arab thug so intoxicated that he hadn’t the wits to even keep his lad in his pants, never mind to not pick a fight with armed police. Nothing of value was lost to any decent person. Far greater a loss would be the good constable, who, if he is sent to prison and left at the mercy of hardened criminals with a score to settle with Toronto’s finest, has nearly no chance of ever coming out alive.
    The anarcho-tyrannical left only approve of the law being strictly enforced, to the letter, against loyal Canadians who work for a living and believe in God. “Oppressed” riff-raff from the ends of the earth who wash up on Canada’s shores are to be allowed to do as they think best.
    Invariably, what they think best seems to be spending their days drinking and taking drugs and raising Cain and terrorizing decent people to their heart’s content, all at taxpayer expense, of course, because employment in an honest trade in demand in a civilized society is either beneath them or beyond them. Anybody who dares complain is to be shunned by polite society as a racist.
    Well, the left have got what they wanted from the cowards at HQ, and if there’s any justice left in this world they’ll get it good and hard. If Constable Forcillo gets anything resembling a fair trial, he’ll walk, just like George Zimmerman.
    (Does nine shots surprise you? It’s often the case that the police encounter a man so stoned out of his cerebellum that he is incapable of feeling pain, and it sometimes takes at least nine bullets just to slow him down. The constable’s brothers will confirm this. What do the leftist lynch-mob have? A grainy cell-phone video.)

20. I have shot a lot of rounds (approx 30,000) through 9mm and 45ACP pistols practicing for and competing in IPSC. The average police officer shoots 500rds during their initial training and qualification prior to getting their badge, and perhaps 100rds per year thereafter for requalification. That is not enough practice to reliably hit a specific body part to immobilize someone. That is why the average cop is trained to shoot for center mass. Incidentally, the scariest person ever on my club’s range was an OPP officer who was shooting a competition as a guest. She violated all four firearms safety rules and would have been ejected from the club several times over if she was a member.
    Sammy Yatim had a 3″ blade, which is hardly Excalibur. There were at least a half dozen cops there, all equipped with non-lethal devices such as batons, pepper spray and at least one had a taser. Every police officer wears body armour and is trained in judo-style grappling techniques. It should never have come to gunfire. There should have been no gunshots after he was down on the floor posing no further threat.

21. Shocking. Usually they just get paid vacaction until the union finishes the whitewash and gets them re-instated.
    Any private non-LEO citizen videotaped shooting someone under these circumstances would have been charged straightaway. LEO’s are not above the law. If anything, it should be more strictly applied to people charged with knowing and enforcing it.
    Having said that, it won’t matter. Key line in the article is that no Toronto policeman has ever been convicted of murder. He’ll be found not guilty, there will be a civil suit, and Toronto taxpayers will pay the settlement.

22. Dick Slater:
    “The good constable is guilty of nothing but doing his job—enforcing the law. That evening, that required putting down a young Arab thug so intoxicated that he hadn’t the wits to even keep his lad in his pants, never mind to not pick a fight with armed police. Nothing of value was lost to any decent person.”
    What happens when the state turns on you Mr. Slater? Be careful what powers you give the government. They do not care about race, color, age or anything other than their power and controlling us. Today it ok to ‘put down a young arab’, tomorrow a white Christian libertarian.

23. “How about shooting him in the legs to bring him down.”
    Perhaps he should have shot the knife out of his hand. Gimme a break. What about the risk of accidently hitting bystanders? If they’re trained anything like the military then they aim for centre of mass of the individual, since they’re not snipers.
    Nine shots fired seems excessive, if so then charges are warranted and the police officer should be held accountable. OTOH maybe the perpetrator (let’s not forget that’s what he was) was brandishing a knife while approaching the officer and/or others and wasn’t going down, who knows until all the facts are in.
    Our troops can attest to putting multiple .556 and .722 rounds into pumped up Islamist nutbars who kept coming despite taking several hits, so we know it’s at least possible.
    Let’s hope the trial considers all of this and doesn’t turn into a Zimmerman style witch hunt.

24. I bet if the perp had been the head of the hells angels, and all other aspects of the incident unchanged, those of you calling for the cop’s head would be silent. I bet if the perp had been Paul Bernardo escaping from jail, and he had taken 9 shots, you would be silent.
    I think police departments should be broken into three separate organizations:
    1. One for dealing with community policing (speeding, petty theft, etc.)
    2. One for dealing with hard criminals (gangs, drugs trafficking, etc.)
    3. And one for dealing with the ever-growing group of absolute losers, drifters, bums and other assorted dregs of society, such as this Yatim idiot.
    Cops get training specific to the organization they are in, and cops should work in a given organization because they want to.

25. It was a small knife. One good cop with a baton could have easily disarmed him. No cop’s life was ever threatened.

26. Depending on the evidence presented and the verdict, something very valuable may be lost: trust in the police. Citizens lose confidence either by police doing too much (US military style police) or too little (UK style elf ‘n safety). Excessive force and bureaucratic induced cowardice will both lead to a complete loss of respect. Like most institutions today, the police have lost the public’s previous support because of the police department’s and officer’s own actions. Investigations are the right thing to do in cases like this, regardless of the race or religion of the criminal BTW, dicky. Aren’t the other religious conservatives pretty embarrassed every time you comment?

27. From the beginning I called this Yakim kid Canada’s Treyvon Martin. It was inevitable that
    the cop was going to be charged.
    I agree wholeheartedly with Matt.

28. Because shooting someone in the legs is deadly force. Although it is more often survived than shooting in the trunk of the body or in the head, you can die from a gunshot wound to a limb so shooting someone in the leg isn’t justified unless deadly force is justified. And if deadly force is justified/required, you shoot at the “centre of the visible mass” because a. it is more reliable for stopping the threat and b. less likely to miss and risk hitting an innocent bystander. That’s the doctrine everywhere because exhaustive analysis of real incidents show it to be best practise.
    Although nine shots seems excessive, and may indeed be in this case, if Const. Forcillo wasn’t justified in using deadly force he went wrong with the first shot. If he was justified, he may be still end up convicted of something if the court concludes the threat was stopped with fewer than nine shots and that it was reasonable for him to be expected to discern that and stop shooting sooner.

29. How many of these questionable cop shootings or other questionable judgement calls by cops are the result of the employment equity programs lowering the standards?

30. Your comments make as much sense as some of the others, I suppose:
    haven’t seen the video (which most of us have looked at a half-dozen times) and don’t know Canadian law. Yea, that’s almost as clear as the kid’s explanation would be if he was asked why 3 x 4 could equal 11.
    When reading SDA comments about why some people are killed for no good reason, remember that they haven’t a clue what the heLL they’re talking about.
    Wait till the trial, and do some research yourself.
    This is a blood-thirsty crowd, with a few exceptions.

31. Quick question for those who are on Sammy’s side — do you regularly use TTC or any public transit?

32. I’m disappointed in many SDA contributors’ rush to judgment. Even some of the “critical thinking” stalwarts seem to be rabid.

33. I no longer trust police. I think charges are warranted with the facts known now. Back in my younger days, in the rough and tumble bars of Northern Ontario mining communities, it was not unheard of to see a 6’4′ police officer jump into the fray of a bar fight with the patronage brandishing bottles and knives, and start clubbing heads,sending many to the hospital for a long time. These days, not so much.

34. Stan, employment equity programs have not helped at all from what I understand. This is what more than one cop has told me.

35. I see one of the great thinkers who comment on this site has now begun calling those who want to wait for a trial as being on Sammy’s side.
    What the HeLL is wrong with some of you?
    There are no “sides” no “us and them”.
    This is what a large number of you did when we had the Trayvon-George incident. Couldn’t wait for a trial, but just had to empty your guts.
    God, you make me want to puke!

36. It is also possible that if the court decides he had justification to shoot but some of the shots were unnecessary, that his error in taking however many extra shots the court thinks unneccessary was excusable because of his perception of things in the heat of the moment.

37. It seems that many people are now jacked-in to “direct democracy” and “direct justice”
    Let’s have a direct vote on Yatim.
    Let’s have a direct vote on Zimmerman.
    Let’s have a direct vote on storming the Bastille.

38. I wonder if the cop in this instance has been deliberately over-charged, so as to make a “not guilty” verdict more palatable to a jury.
    Seems to me any shots fired after the perp went down (unless he was making a credible effort to regain his feet) could be considered excessive force, and maybe warrant a manslaughter charge.
    What make and caliber of handgun was the cop toting? I thought the Glock 10 mm had pretty much swept the marketplace for police sidearms.

39. 9 hits not 9 shots to put down this suspect by a professional law enforcement officer who we can assume has at least some amount of firearms training and proficiency testing.
    Meanwhile law abiding, licensed firearms owners are restricted to a 5 round magazine capacity regardless that a manufacturer’s standard magazine capacity might be, say 10, 20 or 30 round magazines depending on the rifle.
    This episode just reinforces the notion that the powers that be in this country do not believe in the fundamental right of a citizen to protect the lives of themselves or their family with any kind of firearm.
    The hypocrisy is astounding but unfortunately not surprising.

40. That cop is a thug. Conservatives really need to rethink the reflexive defence of police. Just think of Calgary, where while every decent man and woman was helping with the cleanup the RCMP were looting homes in High River. Looting during an emergency is often considered a shooting offence; it should have been treated as such here.
    In the US the police have a long tradition of violence and thievery. It was an insane idea to provide them with military equipment and paramilitary training. We must do what we can to see that it happens here.
    It is common in the North for companies to hire First Nations people to shoot predators which might attack them. Maybe we need, each of us, to hire our own First Nations person to keep us safe from police attack.

41. First of all, anyone who suggests, based on an internet article they’ve read, that Yatim was such a threat as to justify pulling the trigger; no. A reasonably athletic man with an edged weapon and good footing at 20 paces in a straight line is a VERY serious threat to a man with a holstered sidearm. Make that same man hop down a set of stairs, change directions and charge a trained man settled into a combat stance with with an aimed sidearm and you’ve got apples and oranges, pure and simple. Have the guy with the gun backed up by a dozen or so compadres and whatever real threat you might have pretty much disapears. You can see this clearly in the body language of the other officers on scene.
    What happened? The officer’s behavior has all the hallmarks of a rage response, perhaps in response to the young man’s taunting and likely triggered, no pun intended, by the young man’s step towards the stairs. The marker here is complete absence of restraint. I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher charge here is strategic and intended to secure an aquittal.
    To my mind the tasering of the victim post shooting is potentially the more significant and frightening crime here. We know that certain people can be prone to just “snap,” so to speak, into a rage response. They shouldn’t be given guns, or I think in many cases drivers licences. If the tasering, however, was an attempt by officials to story up the scene (how else to make sense of it?) and cover up a crime, would this not represent an intentional, premeditated criminal act – say accessory to murder if that is the charge they are going with? If this is how police operate in this country, and they are allowed to get away with it, we all have cuase for concern.
    Finally the byline to this post proves that the progressive caracature of conservatives as moral troglodytes, is in some instances accurate.

42. All you internet policemen should volunteer sometime to take down a deranged man with a knife. Let me know what steps you would take when he lunges at you. I know I’d put a bunch of holes in him and sort out the consequences later.

43. Been there, done that, didn’t have to shoot anyone, but gave ’em one hell of a beating with the baton. I realize that’s old-school compared with ‘shoot first ask questions later’.

44. I’ve done it and I didn’t have a gun or backup protection. Just me and the guy with a knife.
    As to laying charges just remember that being charged and being convicted are two separate things. Given the information I have I would suggest that the cop be charged and then let the judicial system sort it out. That’s not a pro or anti cop stance.

45. I’m reminded of the scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’.
    Indy, when confronted by a sword swinging character, pulls out a revolver and shoots him.
    While I am concerned about the power vested in our police force, this incident would never have happened if a knife had not been brandished.

46. Why didn’t the police just wait? The man was alone on an empty street car. A couple of years ago, the police patiently waited outside an empty bus while a man who decapitated a fellow passenger went about his business. Here they had a clear opportunity to contain the situation but resorted to deadly force.
    Also, if I was with a bunch of people one of whom shot someone, I would be charged as an accessory to murder.

47. Physically inept women on the force makes it pretty much a certainty that a shoot first policy is in place for everyone. Anything else would be discrimination.
    Anyway, this wasn’t much of a loss.

48. Physically inept women on the force makes it pretty much a certainty that a shoot first policy is in place for everyone. Anything else would be discrimination.
    Anyway, this wasn’t much of a loss.

49. The guy was no immediate threat to anyone. The cop should be charged. They are not above the law.
    Nick – you win the thread.
    Anyway, the fact that Slater is wanking off to this killing should tell everyone what they need to know.

50. I’ve been there, on a ride along with the OPP. I *do not* want to repeat that, and I don’t wish for anyone to ever repeat that. Luckily in my case, they were able to subdue him when tasers weren’t a “bad thing.” As a useful point, most services across the country don’t get slash resistant, or stab resistant vests. You’re on your own against those knife wielding nutbags.