Do Police Have The 'Right Stuff'?

Given the killing of people like Sammy Yatim and Steve Mesic and the taser takedown of Iole Pasquale, it would seem a legitimate question to ask, as Star readers offer their views:

SIU ruling on Tasered senior yet another shock, Oct. 11

Maybe Toronto Police Service just needs to hire tougher cops or send them for martial arts training.

I’m having a hard time imagining a confused, feeble 80-year-old woman rushing three physically fit officers with the speed and fury of a Ninja while flashing and twirling a bread knife and doing flying drop kicks. Maybe these guys should transfer to the TTC and work as fare collectors.

Best to keep a thick layer of plexiglass between them and those dangerous pugnacious seniors. Then if an armed robber tries to hold up the booth, they can utilize their use-of-force skills on a more deserving citizen.

Douglas Porter, Peterborough

Is it not ironic that health-care workers in long-term care are able to help Alzheimer’s patients without resorting to violence while a group of police officers were so frightened, maybe even terrified, that they Tasered an 80-year-old woman to protect themselves.

Our highly paid police officers could take a lesson in dealing with the elderly from our health-care workers, often immigrants women working for minium wages. Anyone who is so nervous and easily frightened should not be police officers working on the front line.

Howard Wilson, Toronto

For Those Who Don't Know Their Place

What do you do when citizens believe that democratic rights should be more than an illusion? Call in the authorities to remind them of their true place in the foodchain.



On a related topic, The Star's Rosie DiManno has an excoriating assessment of yet another free pass given by the SIU to the officers involved in the 'high-risk' takedown of 80-year-old Iole Pasquale, the dementia sufferer who was tasered, not once but twice, while meandering down the street in the middle of the night in late August holding a bread knife.

Says DiManno:

... as SIU head Ian Scott noted in his reasons for not laying a charge, the cops had no knowledge of Pasquale’s mental condition, although they suspected there might be synapses misfiring in the poor woman’s brain. And Pasquale was non-compliant, which is the de facto rationale just about any time an officer resorts to escalating forcefulness.

Clearly not the finest hour for either the Peel Police or the SIU, if the latter has indeed ever had one.

On Tasers And Tim

As usual, Star readers offer their penetrating commentary on recent events and the benighted Tim Hudak. Enjoy!



80-year-old woman tasered a day after rules changed, Sept. 4

I find it extremely disturbing that Peel Region police officers called to Thomas St. and Erin Mills Parkway on Aug. 28 around 3:30 a.m. were unable to “talk down” an obviously anguished 80-year-old woman. According to the article, the woman was “walking along the road,” which is not at all busy with traffic at that time of the morning. Surely, even if they could not get her off the road of her own volition for safety reasons, they could have easily overpowered this senior citizen.

Instead, they tasered an 80-year-old, causing her to fall, at which time it seems that she fractured her hip, as well as incurring other injuries. In view of all of the unfavourable publicity regarding how police appear to rush to use force above all other methods, this does not bode well for our citizenry, young and old.

Grace A. Taylor, Streetsville

Really? Tasering an 80-year-old woman? Did Peel Regional Police feel so threatened by her that they felt their only option was to use a Taser?

Mary Smart, Kingston



Collision course for Hudak, labour, Column Sept. 5

The Conservative party in Ontario is ready to self-destruct and one big reason is that Tim Hudak, Randy Hillier and other dinosaurs in the party want to “deunionize to reindustrialize,” medievalize not modernize labour in Ontario. This backward vision whereby the province transforms itself into Mississippi or Arkansas in order to attract exploitive employers who treat their employees like dirt instead of paying living wages and providing fair benefits is a non-starter with the Ontario public. It is one of the main reasons the Tories are tanking in the polls.

We don’t need political leaders who take us backward. We deserve leadership that moves us forward, by following successful examples like Germany. Attacking unions might throw some red meat to the dinosaurs in the Conservative party, but the quicker they become extinct, the brighter Ontario’s future will be.

David Lundy, Merrickville

Re: Proposed bill would help building firm, hurt unions, August 31

Bill 74, a private members bill introduced by London-area Tory MPP Monte McNaughton, to overturn a Labour Relations Board decision re: the use of unionized workers caught my attention. This strikes me as another “race to the bottom” for Canadian workers.

The Labour Relations board gave the giant construction company, EllisDon, whose head office is also in London, two years to lobby Queen’s Park for a change.

A couple of questions: Did EllisDon become a giant company without the help of Canadian education/training programs/Canadian infrastructure/benefits and resources? Benefits that support the growth and success of Canadian companies are also due to Canadians.

If companies from other countries can bid for jobs here with complete freedom to hire non-union workers, isn’t that a sure sign that Canada and Canadians have been sold out by our governments?

If I were the head of EllisDon, I would exert pressure on the federal government to establish a level playing field, rather than try to undermine the workers who have made EllisDon profits possible.

If Canadian companies lost their right to a level playing field due to the free trade sell out, why should the most vulnerable workers be bullied and sacrificed?

Donna Chevrier, Mississauga

Your Morning Jolt

Most people get their morning jolt from their breakfast cup(s) of coffee. As I wrote earlier this week, an 80-year-old woman, now identified as Iole Pasquale and suffering from dementia, got her jolts at 3:30 a.m. from two police taserings while walking along a road in Mississauga with a bread knife.

Described in the original report as frail, police sources say Pasquale was out of control and refused to follow police orders to put down the weapon before she was Tasered.

As a consequence of the tasering, she fell down and broke her hip. Any degree of independent living is no longer an option. Paquale's daughter Angela could be described as a tad upset.

A crime wave of unprecedented proportions seems to be under way; given the cases of Sammy Yatim wielding a pen knife on a deserted streetcar, a crime for which he paid with his life, and Steve Mesic, the emotionally disturbed unarmed Hamilton man whose disrespectful turning of his back on police apparently warranted death, given that his dorsal area was the recipient of the bullets that killed him, few would dispute the dangers police confront on a daily basis.

What is to be done for our brave men and women in blue? Surely the public second-guessing that follows such highly-publicized events is deeply demoralizing to those who protect and serve us.

But undoubtedly, relief is forthcoming for our centurions. The SIU is currently investigating the Pasquale rampage and, if past practices are any indication, full exoneration of the subject officers is all but assured. The Sammy Yatim case is the likely exception. The citizen video of that killing has been widely circulated, offering a view of events that would challenge even the most elaborate and obdurate of police 'narratives.'

Nonetheless, citizens have been warned. Obey authority. Offer no resistance. Question nothing. Your well-being, even your life, may very well depend on complete compliance and passivity.