Sammy Yatim and the Toronto Police

I am more than a little surprised to see that the death of Sammy Yatim is causing controversy in Canada.

For those outside the Dominion, Yatim was a young Syrian immigrant who pulled out a knife on a Toronto streetcar and threatened passengers, in what looks like a feeble attempt at terrorism. He did little or nothing to prevent all the passengers, and the driver, from escaping, and then was cornered by police. He refused to drop his knife. He was shot nine times, then tasered, and was DOA at hospital. As it happens, the event was video recorded by several sources, and can be seen online.

I am amazed that there is any question that this was a very bad performance by the Toronto police. Watching the videos, I can also detect no attempt to talk Yatim down. Instead, the police react emotionally, confrontationally, shouting demands and requiring instant response. This is just stupid; have they never before encountered someone on drugs, or someone hallucinating? Not even someone drunk?

Conceivably, the officer who fired felt Yatim was advancing toward him. Even so, this could not have warranted three shots, then a pause, with no movement visible, then six more shots, then tasering. The most charitable explanation available seems to be that the officer panicked. If so, he is obviously temperamentally unsuited for police work. But even this cannot explain the later tasering by another officer. It is hard to see that as anything other than deliberate torture of a dying man.

We are lucky that everyone nowadays has a video camera in their pocket. I warrant that, just a few years ago, an incident like this would have been quietly covered up and everything would have gone on as before.

But we now know that there is something very wrong on the Toronto police force. Nor should this come as a surprise. If you're a born bully, what sort of career is going to appeal to you? Being a policeman has to come high on that list. This is something of which we ought to be eternally conscious; we must develop effective means to screen for this.