Police Facial Recognition Skills Continue To Decline

Whether it is a food, air, or water-borne virus, or a strange and hitherto undocumented brain condition, there is no question that police facial recognition skills are declining, calling into question their ability to accurately testify in criminal cases.

Perhaps the most public example of this dysfunction was evident in the case of Adam Nobody, the young Toronto man who was viciously assaulted by Toronto Police during last year's G20 Summit in Toronto. Despite the fact that he was swarmed by up to 15 officers, only one, Const. Andalib-Goortani, has ever been charged, the rest of the officers apparently unable to identify other colleagues who took part in the assault.

The affliction's latest known victims are members of the Hamilton Police Service who took part in a botched drug raid in May of 2010. Having broken into the wrong apartment (perhaps number recognition failure is a symptom of the disease's progression?) in their efforts to arrest a 36-year-old black cocaine trafficker, (colour-recognition problems?) they instead arrested a 5-foot-7, 130-pound 59-year-old refugee from Burma, Po La Hay, who wound up with facial lacerations, three broken ribs and a fractured vertebra.

As reported in today's Hamilton Spectator, Hay was the key witness Wednesday at the opening of the assault causing bodily harm trial of Hamilton police officer Ryan Tocher, who has pleaded not guilty. Despite Hay's testimony that he had been kicked in the ribs two or three times, and despite the fact that five officers were in the kitchen where the beating took place, no one seems to be able to identify Tocher as the assailant.

I can only hope, for the sake of peace, order, and our security, that Canada's best medical minds are currently and urgently researching this terrible malady that seems to be targetting our boys and girls in blue.