But many are rightfully praising the policeman’s actions, and at the same time comparing them to the actions taken in other situations that have had significantly different outcomes.

This begs the question: Why didn’t the police officer, now identified as Const. Ken Lam, shoot the suspect? The suspect appeared to be wielding a weapon as he walked toward Lam, and at one point even pleaded with the police officer to shoot him.

Bystander video of a Toronto police officer apprehending a suspect in the Toronto van attack on April 23.

As a former police officer and someone who studies police issues —including use of force — this situation is a case study on how things can go very right.

My initial reaction to the videos of the van driver’s arrest was that the police officer was professional and acting within his own assessment of the situation. This is critical.

Canada’s Criminal Code provides the legal authority for the use of force, but it does not tell an officer what to do in each situation. Likewise, police use-of-force models provide a framework for training and assistance in decision-making. But like the Criminal Code, they don’t provide a legal basis or a rationale for the use of force in any particular situation.
 

Deadly force a possibility

When faced with the threat of death or grievous bodily harm, a police officer is authorized to use force to protect themselves or others, up to and including deadly force. With this authority comes significant responsibility.

Just because you’re authorized to use deadly force doesn’t mean you always should. There are many times when police officers could legally use deadly force, but don’t.

Most of these situations do not show up in the news that evening. These situations mostly pass by unnoticed and unreported. This case made international headlines due to the nature of the crimes being investigated, and the presence of video footage of the arrest.

Clips from YouTube videos shot by people who witnessed the takedown of the man accused of killing 10 people in Toronto by driving onto busy sidewalks show a textbook example of how to apprehend a suspect without firing shots. YouTube
What went right this time?

First, you had a clearly well-trained police officer who was acting in a professional manner. This is what we expect from our police.

The suspect had everything going for him in order to survive his arrest. It took place in bright sunlight, but without the sun shining in the officer’s eyes. The suspect was silhouetted against a white van, which likely provided a clearer outline of the object in the suspect’s hands.
The suspect did not take a typical shooting stance, but stood upright with his shoulders back. He was not aiming an object, but pointing it from the shoulder.

From the video, it appears the suspect was yelling for the police officer to shoot him. He dropped his arm to his side and brought it back up again as if pointing a weapon at the police officer. Again, it he was not a typical shooting stance.
 

Constable de-escalated

This officer clearly had de-escalation in mind. He recognized his car siren was on and went back to turn it off. This shows that he did not have tunnel vision or hearing. With the siren off, clearer communications were possible.

With a good visual of the subject, the actions of the suspect, his calls to be shot and the artificial manner in which he was standing and threatening, the police officer clearly made a decision that the use of deadly force, while authorized, was not immediately needed.

I do not know what the police officer was thinking, but what came to my mind was an attempt by the suspect of a “suicide by cop.” This is a situation where a suspect tries to goad the police into using deadly force.

Police secure an area around a covered body in Toronto after a van mounted a sidewalk and killed 10 pedestrians on April 23, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

This by itself does not negate the risk to police and others. There are occasions when the use of deadly force is appropriate even when it is a purposeful attempt to have someone else kill them. Some suspects do follow through on their threats in order to goad police into the use of force. But not this time.
 

Risk assessment for police officers

The use-of-force models used by police include a risk assessment that asks the officer to take into account the following:

Situational Factors — These include the environment, the number of suspects, the perception of the suspect’s abilities, knowledge of the suspect’s background, time and distance from the suspect and threat cues given by the suspect.

Tactical Considerations — Is there cover, is backup available?

Subject Behaviour — Are they threatening and how are they threatening?

Officer’s Perceptions — Their own assessment of the situation and their abilities to handle it.

This risk assessment, however, does not provide “the answer” to an officer regarding shoot or don’t shoot, or any other use of force.

What it does provide is a framework for decision-making. This is all part of professional police training.

I faced a situation early in my service with the RCMP when I had a male in the sights of my pistol. It was a tense situation, and I felt that the use of deadly force was likely. But my training, in a fraction of a second, took me through an assessment of the situation.

I held my fire because I could not see the weapon that was being threatened, and I was behind cover. I held on until the suspect gave up. He was unarmed.

Decision to shoot not easily made

I have also worked with officers who had the misfortune to have had to resort to deadly force to save their own lives. It is not a decision that is easily made — and it’s one that can be very personal to the officer in the situation.

Their own perception, their own confidence, their training, their reaction to the situation — all have an impact on the outcome.

The courts have sided with police in this decision-making process, ruling that the courts must take into account the reasonably held assessment of the circumstances and dangers they find themselves.

So in this case, we had a trained officer, acting calmly and professionally, with a clear view of the suspect and the object in his hand, indications of an attempt at “suicide by cop,” de-escalation techniques used and a quick surrender. It all led to a successful arrest without the use of deadly force.

One small change in the circumstances, and the outcome could have been very different.

Police do not use deadly force because of the crime the suspect is alleged to have committed, but only due to the threat posed. This police officer made a heroic call. Const. Lam risked his own life to preserve another’s, even when that person was the suspect in a horrendous act that took so many innocent lives.
 

Glenn Hanna, Assistant Program Head, Justice Studies, University of Guelph-Humber, University of Guelph-Humber

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Her son Pradip Thakur told the newspaper that the officials at the Canara Bank’s Dahanu branch said his mother hadn’t filled out a specific form while opening the account under the Central government scheme, which guarantees accident cover of Rs. 1 lakh to the account holder. “My mother had opened an account in the bank under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. I want the bank to pay the insurance amount. Modi jine kaha tha (PM Narendra Modi had promised it),” says Mr. Thakur. Ms. Thakur had nominated her husband as the beneficiary.

He adds: “We are not very educated. It was the bank’s duty to inform us about the form when we were applying for the account with them.”

His wife, Rekha, adds, “How were we to know the procedure? They told us about other formalities, but didn’t mention a form for insurance. Rekha says she had accompanied her mother-in-law to the bank and both had applied for Jan Dhan accounts on the same day.

The bank officials are defending themselves, however. Insurances for riots and manmade disasters, anyway run into several complications as people-unfriendly regulations and a sector that has not been made accountable, are not made to pay up.

Officials at the Canara Bank’s Dahanu branch said Ms. Thakur is to blame for the situation. Initially, Manisha Matkar, the branch manager, said the Thakurs were mistaken. “Mr. Thakur is probably talking about another insurance cover, under which you need to contribute Rs. 12 per month. He should have approached me to resolve the issue,” Ms. Matkar said, when this reporter sought to know if bank officials were aware of the in-built insurance cover for Jan Dhan account holders.
Vineet Abraham, who will be succeeding Ms.Matkar as branch manager, said he doesn’t know about the Thakurs’ problem. claims he has no idea about the issue. “The person should have filled the form,” he said.

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With attacks like these, the group is seeking to sow fear among its enemies, maintain itself as the forerunner in the global jihadi brand war with al-Qaeda, and maintain the veneer of organisational vigour and vitalism it established with its stunning victories in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
But while the Brussels bombings may have wreaked carnage, they have failed to replicate IS’s triumphalism of 2014. Although not an intuitive conclusion, the attacks are in reality indicative of the group’s growing decline and desperation.

The imperative of now

Motivations behind the bombings are likely to be found in the tactical and strategic strains currently being exerted on IS and its wider global network.

The recent arrest of Paris terror attack suspect Salah Abdeslam in Brussels was likely seen as an existential threat to IS-linked cells inside Belgium. The perception of a breach may have driven planners to accelerate operations, for fear that the European authorities could employ critical intelligence gained from Abdeslam to disrupt future attacks.

Such a ticking clock may explain why the terrorists opted for a crude dual-bombing in place of a more sophisticated and co-ordinated hybrid assault similar to that undertaken in Paris in late 2015.
At a broader level, the attacks may also be linked to the immense pressures placed on IS by an array of local, regional and international actors. Collectively, the actions of Russia, the US, Iran, Turkey and many other players have translated into a loss of around one-quarter of the group’s territory over the last year.

Kurdish and Iranian-backed Shi'a militias have, in many cases, actively routed the group from its territorial holdings over the last year. Thanks to Iranian and Russian backing, the Syrian army is also exerting increasing pressure on IS. The Syrian army has made recent advances in areas such as Tabqa and Palmyra, signalling a significant shift in the regime’s willingness and capacity to combat IS.

All this has served to dispel much of IS’s mystique and the viability of its mission. In 2014, the group’s emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, could point to IS’s many and exceptional successes to make the case that it was clearly on track to establishing its Islamist utopian ideal. Such apparent evidence in turn allowed the group to garner legitimacy, support, and recruit new members.

Today, such successes are few and far between. Some are now questioning whether IS will even be a significant insurgent player in the Syrian conflict by 2017.

Terror, weakness and desperation

As IS stunned the world with its blitzkrieg across eastern Iraq in 2014, there was little need for it to conduct attacks outside the Middle East. Its apparent success and superiority over its local rivals was more than enough to draw large amounts of external support and recruits for its cause.

But as IS has weakened over the past two years, its popularity and freedom of action have become increasingly constrained within its immediacy. In such circumstances, insurgent groups often seek to strike outside their own borders as both a punitive measure and a demonstration of strength to potential supporters.

This was precisely Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab’s logic when it assaulted Kenya’s Westgate mall in 2013. This story echoes much of what IS is experiencing now.

Under increasing pressure from an African Union occupation force that included large contingents from the Kenyan army, al-Shabaab found itself pushed from its seat of power in Mogadishu into Somalia’s south. Unable to mount a serious offensive on the occupiers, the group opted to strike in Kenya itself.

This sent a message that Kenya could not expect to safeguard its own territory as long as it engaged in such perilous dalliances abroad.

As pressure has grown on IS, it has become increasingly inclined toward this strategy – from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon to Turkey to France, and now Belgium.

We can only expect more such attacks as IS continues to decline and lash out. Some will invariably foil the various security establishments arrayed against them.

But, it is crucial to remember that this type of terrorism is aimed at sowing discord, chaos, suspicion and divisiveness among the multicultural societies it targets. In doing so, IS is seeking to create the conditions in which its message finds more willing supporters among those disenfranchised by such division.

Courtesy: The Conversation

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