Toronto Subway Shooting: Police Officers Too Quick To Open Fire?

TORONTO - All of the facts have yet to emerge in a police shooting at a Toronto subway station, but it has renewed debate over how officers in Canada's largest city use force.

A few dozen of protesters turned out Sunday night for a rally outside the downtown subway station where an 18-year-old was shot Friday night and sent to hospital.

One of the protesters, Sakura Saunders, says frontline officers are too quick to shoot in confrontations and that only senior officers should have guns.

Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigation Unit, believes four of the nine officers at the scene fired their weapons.

Media reports say witnesses saw a man on a subway train holding what appeared to be a gun before police arrived.

The SIU confirms it has recovered a weapon, but hasn't confirmed what type.

One transit rider, Jessica Wong, says she was on the train when police approached a man and told him to put his hands where they could see them, with the man yelling back "I don't have anything to live for any ways."

Wong said in an email officers had their guns pointed at the man when she and others started getting off the train, and that not long after she heard a number of shots.

"That is when everyone started running up the staircase and escalators. People who were coming down were going back up, people were even running up (the) down escalators," she wrote in an email.

The SIU, which is automatically called to investigate cases where someone is killed or suffers serious injury when police are involved, hasn't said whether the teenager is still in hospital and what his condition is.

Saunders said in her view police went for their guns too quickly in the confrontation.

"It seems from the witness accounts that the police did not take time to assess the situation before firing an excessive amount of bullets," she said.

There has already been considerable debate over how Toronto police use lethal force.

In July there were noisy protests after 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was shot on an empty streetcar _ an incident that was caught on video.

An officer faces a charge of second degree murder in connection with the case, which is awaiting a hearing to be held next year to determine if there is enough evidence to send the case to trial.

Toronto police have also launched a review of use-of-force policies and an ongoing coroner's inquest is looking into the deaths of three Toronto-area residents who were gunned down by police at different times over the past three years.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca/
Author: CP