Unfortunately Negative Consequences

Research has clarified a situational awareness of "time distortions", when seconds feel far longer and concentrated attention leads to tunnel vision. All of which distorts a first-responder's actual vision. These are termed fight-or-flight reactions, taking place in the brain's amygdala. The amygdalas are two almond-shaped masses of neurons on either side of the thalamus at the lower end of the hippocampus.  When it is stimulated electrically, animals respond with aggression. 

Those symptons can tense muscles bulge eyes and dilate pupils, with blood pumping at 200 beats per minute. 

"The perceptual alterations that occurred within the officer (usually within seconds) are frequently met in an equal amount of time by the deployment of deadly force. This situation has typically caused police investigators and external reviewers such as the courts to take the view that it could be unrealistic and unfair to expect that a police officer facing a perceived threat to their life or another individual, must take the "time" to explore all the options and variables present."
Rick Parent, Professor of criminology, Simon Fraser University: Decision-Making & Police Use of Deadly Force

Darren Calabrese / National PostFriends and family carry out the casket of Sammy Yatim during the funeral for the slain teen in Toronto Thursday, August 1, 2013

 

Professor Parent is an ex-policeman. He knows his subject from every vantage point. Pointing out the average of a dozen police shootings a year in Canada, as compared to 400 in the United States, a country with ten times the population of Canada. "Although we know cops are tough, they do get scared", he says. "Police are humans first and make mistakes, so they have very strict guidelines."

The police shooting of a 18-year-old man on an emptied streetcar in Toronto has occasioned reaction not only from a disbelieving and outraged public, conflicted on one hand by the need for public safety and on the other angered over the death of an obviously mentally disturbed man. A man who held a knife, was loudly abusive, demanding that passengers debark from the streetcar after he had exposed himself, and who refused to obey repeated police instructions to put down his knife.

"I can't get inside the officer's head, but I am almost certain the last thing they planned to do when they went to work that day was engage in lethal violence. The question in the [Sammy Yatim] case is, what prompted this officer to take action when other officers who appeared to be in this situation did not? Why did this particular officer decide to shoot ... is it possible some of his colleagues did not feel that level of force was warranted at that time?" Those questions posed by Scot Wortley, professor of criminology at University of Toronto specializing in use of force, may be key to this entire conundrum.

Why did one police officer among a group of over twenty, take it upon himself solely to fire the first three shots and then almost immediately afterward, another six? And then demand the use of a stun gun? What did he see, what did he experience, what did he react to that the others might not have? Did he assume that he had to take the place of a senior officer, leading the situation to its conclusion? Was there a reason not yet revealed, or did he simply "lose it"?

Under Sections 25 and 26 of the Criminal Code of Canada a police officer is permitted to pull and fire his weapon if "he believes on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the purpose of protecting the peace officer" Research from the 1970s and 1980s found that police would fire warning shots to wound or frighten suspects, but bullets fall and miss targets, risking bystander injury.

Sammy Yatim was not passively submissive when he was ordered not to advance. He held a knife threateningly and he stepped forward despite being warned not to.

"You're aware of your surroundings as you get into the situation, because you're trained that way, to take everything into account", explained Syd Gravel, a retired Ottawa police officer, recalling his fatal shooting of a robber who was not armed, though it was thought he was. "But once you start focusing in on what you perceive to be a life and death situation -- and for me, I'd reached that point -- your intent and your focus is so much on the individual that nothing else matters."

Clifton Purvis, executive director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team explained "I just reviewed a file and the interviewer asked police 'Why did you shoot the guy at this point?' And the officer said 'He had a knife and he was coming at me and I was scared s---less'. I thought the guy was going to kill me'. You can talk about use of force and training, but ultimately as someone who makes a decision ...you have to apply a level of common sense."

"I'm a professor and I can give an excellent class, but it doesn't mean all the students are going to absorb it equally", said Professor Wortley. "The question is just how far can training go when these actual cases take place in real time and they have unfortunately negative consequences from time to time?"