What an incredibly dangerous precedent

I’d have to say I’m a bit concerned with a recent decision in Quebec by a jury in what USED to be a capital murder offence. The case was the trial of a man for killing a police officer during a botched drug raid. Two officers were actually shot in the raid by this man, one died. The accused was charged with 1st degree murder, attempted murder, and drugs and weapons charges. With last weeks decision, all were acquittals or dropped by the crown. Upon hearing this on the radio, my mouth also dropped in shock. Here we have a dead officer, a maimed officer and the general public and police community in shock at the verdict.

What was it? Well, from media accounts, it was a dynamic entry of a SWAT team into a house executing a search warrant. In a dynamic entry, no announcement is made by the entry officers. Sometimes explosive or distractionary devices are used to surprise any occupants and prevent them from destroying evidence or escaping before an arrest can be made.

In this case, upon entry, the officers were faced with gunfire from the drug dealing occupant. In the trial, the defence argued that the defendant did not know the entry officers were police, thinking he was being robbed of his drugs and shot the officers as a result. The jury BELIEVED this argument and acquitted him of murder. Also, the trial judge ruled in camera that the search warrant was not valid. This however was not revealed to the jurors, who decided on their own. This decision sets an incredible precedent to any criminal — indicating they can shoot anyone entering their home, including police. I just don’t buy the argument that the accused did not realize the person entering his home was an officer until after he was on the ground, that is incredible. Also what is incredible, is that this man survived the ensuing entry team. I’m surprised there wasn’t just a fatality inquiry rather than a trial for this cop-killer.

To the crown, please please please appeal this case to the Supreme Court of Canada. We need to vindicate justice, if at least for the sake of the officer’s family. No one should be allowed to shoot a cop in ANY circumstance.

Hiatus

I apologize for the lack of posts lately as things have been relatively busy.  I recently moved my family across the country, to join a different police service for reasons of being closer to home.  It was a big leap to make after being settled in one job, city and lifestyle, only to start a job with a new organization, sell a house (well, not yet) and move everything you own 5,000 kilometres.

The new employer is great.  One good thing I realized before I left my last job was that policing is the same everywhere, just a bit bigger or smaller depending on where you find yourself.  Each place has the same type of calls, same type of people (perhaps with different accents), but generally, its the same.   So, in moving, I understood this and was able to handle the transition.  Of course, in every department, the paper work and surroundings are different — so I’m still getting used to that.  So here’s to the same career in a new place!

Its not about race, its about criminality.

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Jerome Skolnick wrote a couple of seminal books that have shaped sociological theories on policing. Skolnick’s theories were based upon field studies of American police officers. His recent work has focused on corruption, abuse of authority and excessive force — while his early work talked about the police culture and the daily work of police officers. I studied these theories as part of my academic studies and saw some of them play out in my own research while watching from an outsider’s perspective. More and more though, now that I’ve been doing police work for a few years, I’ve realized that the theory of symbolic assailant may have been applicable in the 1960s, but it now needs a bit of updating.

The best way to describe Skolnick’s symbolic assailant theory was: how officers associate a minority as a criminal. In Skolnick’s studies, he found that officers were more likely to single out a minority male as an offender (of some crime). However, from an updated perspective, I feel the symbolic assailant is now actually about characteristics and behavior. More simply, how officers find criminals and how officers categorize them for attention or future references. This translates into what police officers develop as a ‘mental shorthand’ or characteristic of those people that most relate to criminal activity. This is not to say that racism is absent from all policing, however, with the current standards of what’s acceptable in our society and Canadian culture, racism occurs at significantly lower amount than previously studied.

How does today’s symbolic assailant manifest itself? Whether by appearance, clothing or behavior, officers can identify criminal people from the rest of the citizenry. Although much different than other theories such as phrenology, I’ve found that officers do have a sense of ‘what a criminal looks like’ and develop cues based on their past experiences or clues learned from colleagues. These clues then make up part of an officer’s on-going investigative activities, basically how they look for ‘trouble’ in daily patrol. For instance, police officers often look for the people that stand-out amongst the regular public. Things such as dirty clothing, disheveled appearance may indicate someone who is living on the street. From there, inferences can be drawn from past experience that homeless people usually have some sort of substance abuse problems, which they turn to criminal activities such as minor thefts, frauds, etc, to provide for these addictions. Another inference may be drawn from someone with similar disheveled appearance with an over-abundance of tattoos, the sign of a rounder at local jails. All of these calculations are made over time through experience, but also occur in an instant — especially when confronting the particular person that has drawn your attention. I think it’s also important to make clear that identifying the symbolic assailant in my context does not involve a ‘race’ consideration. Although that may have been the case in the 1960s, nowadays, I would argue it is the characteristics of criminality that stand out to a police officer.

Moving away from people, the same inference can be drawn to cars for example. Police officers know that criminals use a variety of cars to do their criminal deeds. The wide majority of ‘crime vehicles’ usually fall into three categories: the shitbox, the stolen car and the gangster’s wheels. Each of these have their own characteristic giveaways, such as to name a few: the shitbox - rusted to the bone, plate falling off, parts not functioning; the stolen car - (sadly so obvious) 4 young adults in a Honda or Dodge product late at night; the gangster car - shiny wheels, jacked up, souped up engine, etc. All of these vehicles usually draw the attention of a police officer, whether the vehicle is stopped or checked — the clues are there for further investigation.

Sometimes, there are exceptions to an officer’s ’symbolic assailant’. But, despite the outliers, with good learned investigative skills, having a good sense of what a criminal looks like can give you opportunities for good police work.

On the other end of the scale, I have heard about some departments where the symbolic assailant theory has been taken to a whole new level due to human rights complaints. In one department, contact slips must be completed with ALL encounters with the public, in order to disprove any potential complaints that officers are only targeting one specific minority group. This is obviously an extreme case of risk management on the part of the department.

In the climate of more and more charter of rights violation decisions, officers must articulate correctly their reasons for stopping to talk to someone, both to the court and the individual. Cops are excellent observers of criminal activity, lets make sure that we demonstrate that to the public.

Warrants, warrants, warrants

“I THEREFORE COMMAND YOU, IN HER MAJESTY’S NAME, TO BRING FORTHWITH THE SAID PERSON BEFORE ME.”  Those words just seem to be music to my ears lately.  We’ve been working on a new project, rounding up wanted persons throughout our assignment area.  I never realized how much fun it is hunting humans and after a while, it becomes addictive.  As my partner and I have come to realize after a few months, you tend to learn a few tricks that lead to some good catches.  (Like him or not, you also realize that Dog the Bounty Hunter has some great tactics). Its funny, but we mostly rely on the offender’s family to help us find him or her.   So far though, we’ve found the most useful person to our hunt is the ‘ex’.  It’s amazing how much useful information can be revealed with a few inquiries and they usually have a few interests in having us catch their old husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend.  

Hunting wanted persons also usually leads to some wierd encounters with people.  Most people we’ve arrested are criminals who never went to court — but rarely are they those who are somewhat paranoid about police contact.  The ones that do become paranoid are the real interesting ones to catch — especially when you see what lengths they’ve gone to avoid getting caught.  Going after warrants is also very unpredicable, much like doing traffic stops: as you never know what you’re going to run into next.  Last week, we ran into a strange backwoods family of a sex offender, a female who almost had a heart attack upon her arrest and a sickly guy with a terrible infection (whom we decided to ship to the hospital instead of jail).  

In two weeks, we were able to catch 10 people on over 50 outstanding warrants.  Based on some computer checks, it looks like we’ll never run out of people to find with well over ten thousands warrants in our city.  Its like an endless supply of fun!

The neverending case that shouldn’t be…

The Cst. Ferguson manslaughter trial has always puzzled me and continues to do so. Back in 1999, Cst. Ferguson was in a life or death struggle with a prisoner in a cell area. The prisoner grabbed his gun and Cst. Ferguson fired 2 shots at the prisoner during the struggle. In the eyes of the court, the first shot was self-defence and the second constituted manslaughter, despite the judge saying it was admittedly from his training. This conclusion by the court baffles me. Although, I only know what I’ve read in the decision and the papers about the case, it seems that Cst. Ferguson was in a life or death struggle (which it is when someone grabs your gun), why does one shot over another differ in a response? What does this say for a trained ‘double tap’ response to a lethal force situation? Are we supposed to wait to see what the first bullet does first, then continue if necessary? You can begin to see the trouble in assessing a deadly struggle in such a way.

Nevertheless, Cst. Ferguson served time in jail for the ‘crime’, was paroled and yet an appeal was just finalized at the Supreme Court level. From the latest appeal, the Supreme Court has said that the trial judge shouldn’t have skirted the mandatory minimum prison term for manslaughter with a firearm due to the circumstances of the case. So, he may be going back to jail? Its not clear. It is certainly a wierd one.

As an aside: it would be interesting to see how many of these cases have appeared in recent years (firearm struggles in cell area, resulting in deaths). Perhaps there needs to be a policy change in Canada where firearms should be locked up before entering all police detention areas. It is the case in prisons throughout the country, but I don’t believe its a standard with the police facilities. (Some have certain areas restricted, but others aren’t clear).

Partners

When comparing to other occupations, police partnerships are a unique characteristic of the job and an important aspect of doing police work. It would be rare to find another job where workers spend 10 hour days in a relatively small work environment such as the patrol car (as compared to a cubicle, office or ordinary workplace). Having a good partnership can make the job fun and exciting, but can create stress and difficulty should there be a personality or work-ethic conflict. From an administrator’s point of view, partnerships are crafted to ensure a balance in temperaments, such as a ‘laid back’ cop paired with a ‘hyperactive’ one (to the coppers out there, I’m sure you know of a few partnerships where you have two ‘hyperactive’ cops are put in the same car — it usually becomes a complaint-prone two-person wrecking crew).

In good partnerships and because of the amount of time together, officers come to ‘know’ what the other is thinking at a call, most specifically when your partner getting ready to move into action. This is an important part of a partnership and police work, as you don’t have the chance to discuss what you’re going to do next in front of the bad guy and you just have to rely on your partner knowing you well enough to react accordingly. Eventually, you have little ‘hints’ or ‘giveaways’ that only partners know and telegraph the next move.

Beyond the tactical stuff, what two officers experience on the job becomes exclusive to that partnership. In two years with my partner, we’ve been in situations that made us laugh, shake our heads in disgust, sit in quiet reflection or high-five, such as after a good arrest. In all of these situations, a bond between partners is built upon and we usually end up referring to these ‘memorable’ moments when reminded of them in the run of any given workday. Often, partners spend more time with each other during a work week than you do with your spouse during that same week. As a result, the shared time develops an interesting and unique connection between colleagues.

Before becoming a police officer and during my stress and policing research work, police ’solidarity’ was a subject that I often talked about as a method of coping ‘culturally’ with stress. However, what I’m realizing now after being on the job, is that the partnership bond is significantly more valuable to an officer than relationships with other colleagues. With their work partners, officers talk about personal matters, workplace difficulties, usually anything and everything. Also, eventually your workplace social identity is closely tied to your partnership as other co-workers refer to you as “Dan’n'Pete” almost as a singular person. Of course, I would have never been able to fully experience this as an outsider researcher.

What is unfortunate is that long-standing partnerships are rare nowadays, as police forces are hiring more and more recruits thus requiring new staff to be trained and mentored. As a result, partnerships are split up, putting senior officers with junior members in order to guide the new officer. This new partnership usually is short lived, as both officers gain more experience, move to other positions or begin the training cycle yet again.

Another media misrepresentation

I’m actually getting tired of talking about these stories, but I feel I should. Too often do we see the media jump to conclusions quickly, talk about subjects they don’t understand and use a short video clip to justify a full sensationalized news story. This is the case yet again with a video from Victoria of an incident that occurred three years ago.

The video is of a detention cell and a youth who was held in cells after being arrested while intoxicated and drunk at party. The video shows the youth having her legs restrained (with a hobble, not a leash as the reporter called it). I haven’t used my leg restraint yet, but would during instances which its necessary, including aggressive arrestees, regardless of their age.  Also, why does the reporter seem that by taking parts of your clothing off is so offensive?  Anything could be used against officers or the subject themselves, such as shoe laces, bra straps, belts, elastic waist bands, ad nauseum.  To the reporter, Kathy Tomlinson: perhaps you should learn about regular police procedures and terminology first before attempting to sensationalize the incident.  Also, why did you only include a short clip from the officer and then have a long story from the girl’s family?

After watching and reading about the story, I can’t help but wonder a few questions: Who released this video? Was it the plantiff in the civil case? For what reason? Due to the timing, it seems the reasoning behind the video release is not for ‘public awareness’ of what occurred, but to benefit somehow the civil suit which begins next week in court. Why did it take 3 years for this story to be released?

There is more to this story than we are lead to believe.

Ban Handguns, now.

With the recent shootings in Toronto, the mayor David Miller has repeated his appeal to the federal government to ban all handguns in Canada. I would support such a ban and I’d like to think that many others would as well.

Handguns have no other purpose than for shooting other people. Despite those that must possess a handgun for workplace use, such as police or military, I can see no reason why anyone must own a personal use handgun. Handguns lack any social purpose other than nefarious ones — unless of course you’re from the States — where they appear as their own living, breathing ‘entity’. We must resist falling into the influence from the US culture and the outrageous arguments from gun lobbyists about self-defence and rights under their constitution. The bottom line is that we aren’t the US, nor do we want to be.

When I was younger, we lived in a country which had a ban on personal ownership of all guns. Even as a young kid, I felt safe walking around on my own, taking the train to school — it was a society that we generally felt secure. The only persons who could legally possess guns were the police, but I imagine there was an illegal trade as well. We’re not going to prevent all handguns from entering the country by illegal means and the criminals would find their own ways to get handguns. However, at least they wouldn’t be able to steal guns from private citizens, borrow from a legitimate owner or order them through the States.

A perfect example of a successful ban on guns is the automatic weapon prohibition. Occasionally, an automatic rifle shows up on the radar during a police seizure, but it is a rare event. Using this as an example to a handgun ban, we could surely reduce the prevalence of handgun crimes to a rareity. Its a long term proposal, but definately worth it to save lives.

This isn’t candid camera

I’ve been busy at work lately, and as a result, haven’t had much time for posting. The little hiatus though has given me a chance to think of some things to talk about. One topic has been nagging me ever since New Year’s Eve.

I worked New Year’s Eve voluntarily this year. (I know, crazy eh?) The service was offering to anyone interested for a call-out shift to bolster the usual numbers for New Years. Seeing that I’m a junkie for call-out, I accepted and we went around putting ‘fires’ out and passing ‘band-aids’ out all night as per usual on such a busy evening.  At one of our many house party calls, we attended to backup another car who had an arrest. The officers had asked us to watch their prisoner while they were inside dealing with the incident and I stood outside watching the guy who was sitting in the back of their car. A few minutes later, one of the party-goers began video recording me with their cell phone. I stood there for a while, then realized that someone was video taping me while standing around near the porch area. I approached him, told him to stop and he tried to lie about what he was doing. He put down the phone and left after I confronted him about it. A few minutes later, the arrest began doing something stupid in the back of the car. Needless to say, the arrest was taken out of the back of the car and sorted out. While we were doing this, the citizen began recording again from just outside the house. I didn’t notice as I was dealing with the arrest, but my partner confronted him a second time and he eventually was led back into the house.

The irony in this story is incredible. In my previous job, I was a researcher and organized research studies on police, private security and the like. I never video taped officers, but I audio taped them with their permission. I did however read many studies on the proliferation of video recording devices and how they are reversing the stereotypical Big Brother analogy from state-derived surveillance to civilian surveillance. Now, more than ever, anyone can have access to video or photo technology and without much effort, post it to a world-wide audience. The prevalence of this type of technology has changed our notions of surveillance and social control greatly. Not only are citizens observed more easily, they observe the observers just as well (or better!).

While I would be the first to defend civil rights and the Charter Rights of the individual, I’m starting to feel that for many civilian amateur videographers, its not about ‘being a voice’ for the people, human rights or whatever. Sadly, these videographers are only out for one thing, fortune (and with that, maybe a little fame too). Recent publicized video recordings such as the Vancouver Airport video, the downtown Calgary video, and others have garnered sensational media attention. In some cases, these videos have ‘earned’ a significant windfall of cash for the camera person. (In the Vancouver case, it was several thousand dollars from each tv station).

Another problem arises with these videos: they are still only a snapshot of the incident. They do not show the circumstances that lead up to the video being started, the TOTALITY of the incident (ie. what lead to the arrest, the dealings with the arrestee, what was said, etc). Usually what occurs is the video is misunderstood and it becomes a media event.

In the end, with all that said, I don’t like being video recorded without my knowledge. Too often it seems there are those out to make a quick buck from a short video taken out of context. There are those that say, “Well, if you’re not doing anything wrong…you have nothing to worry about.” I don’t need someone else to tell me, because I know I do the right things at work. However, I would never want to be the scapegoat of a media circus, bent on making stories sensational in order to sell their product.

Why don’t YOU bring that taser to a gun fight…

Today, the RCMP public complaints commission released an interim report on the use of tasers in the RCMP. The report seemed to be a knee jerk reaction to highly publicized recent in-custody deaths and gives several recommendations when the taser should be used in police practice. One recommendation that Paul Kennedy makes is that officers should use the taser only in instances where the subject has entered the “death or grievous bodily harm” category (in other words, the subject may inflict death or grievous harm to someone). This recommendation is flat-out ridiculous and devoid of common sense. If an officer in one of these situations, they will most certainly use their firearm — the weapon designed for the situation (or another type if in the event that it is unavailable). To suggest that the taser should be used in a lethal force scenario puts officers and the public at risk and is completely against training and indoctrination. Who would trust a taser for saving someone’s life, including the officer? Come on people, stop making rash decisions from a locked room with only news articles as sources…