Police can鈥檛 do much these days without someone shooting a video that has the potential to go viral, often labelled 鈥減olice brutality.鈥� In the case of an arrest made Saturday on Douglas Street, a bystander鈥檚 video shows clearly what happened: Police were doing their job and doing it well.
After a call was received about a man threatening people with a knife, police used a surveillance video to identify the suspect as Sean Michael Kelly, 36. He was known to police 鈥� he had recently been released on bail after appearing in provincial court on charges of mischief, resisting a police officer, damaging property, causing a disturbance and possessing a dangerous weapon.
When two officers located Kelly, they saw he had a knife attached to his pocket. They told him not to touch the knife, but he pulled it out, threw it on the ground and started to walk away. One officer fired the Taser at Kelly, who dropped to the ground, but managed to struggle away from the police. He was Tasered a second time and suffered a cut on his forehead as he fell to the pavement and was handcuffed.
The incident proves the value of Tasers 鈥� they are meant to subdue suspects with a minimum of risk to the suspects, the public and the officers. In Saturday鈥檚 incident, the officers acted professionally and quickly to defuse a dangerous situation.
Too often when police are involved in such situations, their actions are quickly labelled as police brutality by armchair critics and amateur videographers, but force can be necessary to subdue dangerous subjects. Police are trained to use logic and persuasion, but when a man is dodging about, knife in hand, in a busy intersection, that鈥檚 not the time for gentle persuasion.
Police are frequent targets for criticism, but let鈥檚 remember they are constantly at risk of being targets of another kind. Even involved in something as innocuous as a traffic stop or offering assistance, they are exposed to the real possibility that someone wants to do them harm.
It must be annoying to officers to be surrounded by rubberneckers with smartphones, recording every move they make, but it has become part of the job.
And it can help. When Robert Dziekanski died after being Tasered at the Vancouver airport in 2007, a bystander鈥檚 video of the incident proved to be a game-changer, showing the Taser use to be excessive. The video sparked an inquiry that led to sweeping changes in the use of Tasers by police.
In March of this year, an adjudicator ruled that a Victoria police officer used excessive force during a 2010 arrest, largely on the evidence of an amateur video. The officer was suspended for two days without pay and ordered to take use-of-force training.
Those are exceptions to the rule. Yet many are too quick to judge. A person who uploaded Saturday鈥檚 arrest to YouTube referred to it as 鈥減olice brutality.鈥�
鈥淭his is the standard procedure; it is systemic and 鈥榓cceptable鈥� violence,鈥� wrote the poster. 鈥淭he state violence perpetuated by police every day.鈥�
That鈥檚 unfair, inaccurate and illogical, a conclusion drawn without the facts. Any police officer would prefer a peaceful resolution to conflict, rather than see it escalate into violence. But force must often be met with force, if public safety is to be protected. That was clearly the case in the Douglas Street arrest.
Police should not be immune to criticism or shielded from public scrutiny. But theirs is a difficult and often dangerous job. We should be as quick to praise as we are to criticize.
