Shots ring out in Longueuil
Shots rang out in Longueuil Tuesday afternoon as police fired on an armed man involved in a family dispute. Four people ended up in hospital.
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Kate
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Bill Binns 19:58 on 2021-04-13 Permalink
Cops better start learning how to use their words to disarm pshycos if Projet gets it’s way.
SMD 20:40 on 2021-04-13 Permalink
Yes, exactly. Note that he was “armed” with knives and the police shot four times… and missed all four times.
MarcG 20:44 on 2021-04-13 Permalink
It’s not “Projet” pushing to disarm police it’s their victims and the sympathetic forcing them to take the position.
Bill Binns 09:37 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
@SMD – Why the scare quotes around “armed”? You don’t consider a knife to be a deadly weapon? Are you ready to go hand to hand with someone brandishing a knife? That’s what we are asking cops to do.
Chris 09:38 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
>and missed all four times
Do we know they were not warning shots?
Chris 09:51 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
Bill, I was going to say the same, but interestingly the OED defines ‘armed’ as “equipped with or carrying a firearm or firearms.” OTOH, Merriam-Webster defines it as “furnished with weapons”.
It really depends on the scenario, but there are potentially better ways for cops to deal with crazies with knives. Notice in that video though, that there are no innocent bystanders around at risk. It really depends on the details, which are hard for us armchair warriors to judge.
Blork 10:18 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
It’s really easy for us to sit here in our stuffed chairs smoking our pipes and to muse over how cops should be able to disarm a knife-wielding man without firing a shot, but take a look at the video in the La Presse article that Kate linked to. The guy had a pretty big knife and he was enraged. He was actually running at the cop who fired her gun, and she had about two seconds before he would have been on her and likely overpowering her. The first two shots stopped him in his tracks but then he came at her again walking very aggressively and she fired two more.
These might have been warning shots. I’m not sure what the protocol is, but you don’t just fire at nothing, nor do you fire in the air, so those bullets went somewhere; likely into a parked car if she was very controlled and watching her background. (The only thing worse than shooting an assailant is accidentally shooting a bystander.)
OTOH she might have missed because it was a panicky situation; for the first two shots the thug was moving quickly and she was moving backwards; that’s not an easy shot. The second shots were technically “easier” but by then she would have been overwhelmed with adrenaline so shooting straight might not have been so easy.
You can talk all day and all night about training, but being in an actual hot situation like that, with guns drawn, is not something you can easily simulate, so there’s no guarantee that it will go as expected the first time it actually happens to you.
Bill Binns 12:38 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
I always thought that they should train cops to shoot people in the legs in certain situations. Nothing removes all the aggression from a guy like having his knee exploded by a 9mm. The benefits include the assailant surviving the incident but possibly being sufficiently hobbled to not be a danger to anyone in the future.
Blork 15:09 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
Sounds OK in theory, but in the moment, when you have a crazy guy with a knife running at you and literally have only a few seconds, getting a clean leg shot isn’t all that easy and you run a higher risk of missing and taking out a bystander with a ricochet.
MarcG 20:18 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
The person experiencing a mental breakdown is not a “thug” (or the person super stressed because they’re poor as hell or addicted or, or, or). People lose their shit all the time, it could easily be you. I wonder if some readers would actually be upset if our society helped people in distress – it seems like you just want to hate them so you feel better about your own totally-fucked-but-at-least-i’m-sorta-keeping-it-together lives.
Blork 20:58 on 2021-04-14 Permalink
Good point, MarCG, and you’re right that anyone can lose their shit, and it would be good to take a different approach to such interventions.
Losing your shit does not make you a thug, but there is such a thing as a thug losing his shit. If you look at the way that guy was going after the cops and other people, you’ll recognize this as more than just someone having a breakdown – in this particular case. I mean when a highly aggressive guy with a 10-inch knife is literally running at you and is only 10 metres away it’s not really the time to be thinking about offering a shoulder to cry on.