Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Some thoughts on things creeping north

I personally have a fairly high opinion of Canadian police in general. They are, taken as a breed, far more sensible, far less violent, far less paranoid and certainly far less hostile to the citizenry than their American counterparts who in many, many instances have spent the better part of the last three decades sliding downhill in their regard for the law or obedience to any limits on their authority.

I ponder this issue because when one looks south one sees the increasing use of the Taser to ensure "compliance". This is disturbingly often not about a response to someone genuinely resisting lawful arrest or being a threat to public or personal safety but more to do with not kowtowing rapidly or obsequiously enough to the officer's authority, whether or not the exercise of that authority is right or wrong, lawful or unlawful, rational or arbitrary. One commenter has noted,
I’m sure that [the Taser] makes the cops’ jobs easier and safer for themselves if they Tase more people instead of wrestling them to the ground; I don’t care. ... The police do not have a right to a completely submissive citizenry and they should be prevented from trying to create one.
-- Scarshapedstar, “Today in Tasering: And the Beat Goes On,” Correntewire, quoted at "You Still Can't Do That On Slashdot", "The Real Interrobang", August 11, 2008
That's the key, isn't it? A citizen should be compliant with the law, not necessarily with police authority. The latter is in service to the former, not synonymous with it and certainly not the determinant of it. Indeed, one of the hallmarks and safeguards of a truly free and just society is the ability of a citizen to stand up to an officer when the officer is wrong or breaking the law.

When officers feel that they have a right to Taser somebody who is problematic -- as in the Robert Dziekański case, where four trained, fit, young and armoured RCMP officers Tasered and killed one middle aged man -- as opposed to a genuine threat then we have a disturbing Americanization of our police methods of problem-solving. [Note: I'm forty-four and of about the same height, weight and build as Mr. Dziekański was. It will be a sad, sad day for policing when it takes more than one or two unarmed officers to subdue me or somebody like me, so much so that the use of four officers was ludicrous and the use of Tasers was monstrous.]

Police work is often dangerous, but so is giving men guns, Tasers and body armour and sending them out amongst their fellow citizens. The key to a democratic society is the balancing of our need for safety and policing with our need to be free citizens. For the most part we've balanced that in Canada, thanks in great deal to the good sense of the individual coppers involved. I'd hate to see that go. I like the Americans fine, but I don't want their society and I certainly don't want their policing problems and, frankly, I don't think that any sane person does.

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