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[Canadian Politics] Take care. Listen to health authorities.
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Even if we disband and defund the police, we will still need anyone interacting with the public from a position of authority to be monitored and for there to be oversight and accountability for all interactions with the evidence from this monitoring being one of the best sources for unbiased facts.
MWO: Adamski
I think that would be a good start
Okay I'll bite. Now that you've fired half the officers and given us an officers per capita of two thirds of the least policed western country, what would your diversity hiring requirement be set at?
I have to spend a few hours getting this out of my head.
Edit: I should probably specify that is Tyler Shandro, Minister of Health for the province of Alberta.
I never finish anyth
Yeah you got me, I don't have an exact hiring number in mind. And to be clear, cut "in half" was not meant as an exact value either, but rather to mean "take a lot of money there and put it elsewhere". Actually since each municipal, provincial, and the federal police departments are independent, there is no single budget cut or hiring value that can apply across the board. Some will need to be cut more or to hire a much more diverse staff, some will be less affected, heck some may even be underfunded or already adequately diverse. I don't have data on every single police department in our country.
Id rather have that reaction than a strong desire to punch him right in the little bits.
Sure but it's a step. Even incremental improvements are valuable . good cops should love the things as it protects them as well from false claims.
And it's not just an officer problem. The problem is that the job itself is completely ludicrous - that's why we need to seriously dismantle the whole system. I think "a good cop" today is just someone out there that is socially aware and active - it doesn't change the fact that no one person can perform all of the duties we put on the police force. At the end of the day they're still a shitty cop - maybe not a shitty person, but a shitty cop indeed.
The laws you make to control police do not matter, at all, unless you have a way to enforce the law for law enforcement. Body cams make no difference if they aren't fired for turning them off.
Yes 100%
It should be like any other equipment for the police. No Cam? No Patrol until you do.
Just make it so they physically cannot be turned off without tamper and make it an automatic firing.
That being said police have taken over the roles of social workers in a lot of situations. Lot's of people in trouble are terrified of the police and having guns and the law involved in every situation is batshit.
Hell, the #1 police call is a wellness check. Why cops? Most of the folks that have wellness checks done are usually in more of a medical/mental/addiction field.
The starting points are different - police in Canada are often unofficially unaccountable, but next door the unaccountability is explicit and backed by the state. That is a huge difference, and it gives us way more options on this side of the border for things we can do about the whole situation.
Unless they can actually be trained to handle those without, y'know, immediately executing the person they're called to check on, that's definitely one of those Things That Needs To Change, including shifting or reprioritizing funding as needed to get actual social workers or other specialists in the cars.
As is, the default response being the person whose training emphasizes "compel the source of the disturbance to immediately comply with demands to stop being a disturbance or else face physical punishment" is the exact opposite of what most crisis situations require.
How about no pay if your cam isn't on.
Turn it off for 10m, beat all hell out of someone, turn it back on, you're only out a few bucks.
If cameras are what we're using for accountability, then if the camera isn't on, there's no record of your actions, and there's no accountability. If there's no accountability, you're not a cop, and you have no authority. Plus, a full investigation and penalties as to why the camera wasn't on (tamper, lack of battery, etc. just figure out who fucked up and bring down the hammer).
It blows my mind that police are trusted to be authorities on themselves and their conduct in the first place - it's a clear invitation to abuse and corruption.
"Are you suuuuure you didn't beat that man to death?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"Sure, or just pretty sure?"
"Sure."
"Damn! Thought we had him for a second. Okay, you're free to go, I guess. I wonder where all the bad apples are, then? We never seem to catch them on the witness stand."
The thing is (and I fully support body cams) that technology will fail in ideal circumstances and that incidents where the footage may be needed is often in less than ideal circumstances. A body cam that gets knocked off center by a vigorous chase through some bushes followed by a struggle may well still be on, but be dislodged and pointed in an inopportune direction or obscured by debris. Its easy to say to bring down the hammer if an incident happens and its not on film, but real life will get in the way. There certainly should be a shit ton more accountability for such things but, in reality, there are limits there too (and they should be higher than they are now, no disagreement).
Are they applying for CERB or the CESB?
If they're applying for CESB, they can make up to $1000 (before taxes) within the 4-week period they're applying for.
Any top-up to their salary that would raise their earnings above that threshold would likely render them ineligible for the CESB, which might be why their work is not offering one.
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Apparently she quoted a speech by someone else during a meeting.
I talked to my wife who recently had called police for a wellness check on one of her patients (she is a Youth and Adolescent Psychiatrist). There is certainly situations where you want a properly trained police officer doing the visit. Is the wellness check for your elderly family member who lives by themselves in a different city and they haven't responded to calls for awhile. You probably want a police officer to go by and if need be enter the premise if there is no response. Also other situations where a person may be off there meds and either a danger to themselves or others. A properly trained police officer who is informed of the situation would be better suited for this than a social worker. At least in Alberta anyone can call police for a wellness check, unfortunately this means whomever is calling might not know what is happening with the individual. That said if there is confrontation the last last thing that should be happening is bullets flying.
You want specialists over generalists. I don't want police handling potential mental health issues - I want specialized persons for whom that is their entire area. Starting with some kind of "people predominantly trained in the use of force and exerting authority" and adding on "but has some training for mental health issues" is inferior to "people trained for assisting with mental health crisis" with "self-defense training" added on.
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Ya they are just over the 1k , but work still refusing them a top up because student. And he's super struggling. And understandably pissed since could have gotten Cerb if didn't do part time during all thus.
If you're a journalist reading a quote while doing behind the scenes prep for a piece, it seems rather infantile to self censor offensive speech. That being said, I wasn't in the room at the time, so I can't say if there were other factors involved, but if she was just reading a transcript of something outloud then punishing a journalist for this is rather extreme.
but I don't really know much about the reporter or her previous actions
Just another white person thinking they are the arbiter of culture or some shit this and BA showing us that
Yeah no. Defaulting to "the police are supposedly competent handle these situations" is the reason so many wellness checks result in immediate executions. Even if it doesn't get that far, every person I personally know who's been on the receiving end of a wellness check - every one of them - has been injured because whatever idiot showed up at the door screaming commands immediately escalated things to violence.
If they're to be there at all, there should be someone else present who actually knows how to handle things, to whom the officer is one hundred percent subordinate.
In Calgary we have PACT , Police and Crisis Team. They have Police, Psychiatric nurses, RNs and social workers and are trained for these situations.
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/findhealth/service.aspx?Id=1050105
If you remove police from that then they need to be replaced by something that have similar powers and the capability to defend themselves and the ability to ensure that the situation is safe for the other members of the team. Though in this case this this for known mental health, addiction and psycho-social issues, to me it sounds like something like this should be used for wellness checks too (if they aren't already)
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Their mindset going in is DANGER DANGER criminal!
Someone who's actual profession is evaluating peoples mental health and well being should be the ones engaging. The police can attend as a backup if something does happen/begin to happen.
This guys mother called in to the police for help with her son as she was concerned and officers showed up, saw a cut on his hand and just assumed he's got a knife or something and is an immediate danger.
Nothing in the video or the stories I found indicates he was acting in a threatening manner to anyone and officers sure as shit didn't actually SEE a knife so the whole situation was unnecessary.
An organization who's first reaction is to use force for compliance instead of talk should not be the ones leading these interactions.
If the call comes in that some dude is brandishing a gun and threating the public then sure, show up with the police but everything else, maybe tone it down 10,000 notches.
I guess it's not surprising. Had she been kinder to her co-workers in the past it's less likely that she would be facing the same issue.
See also:
I wish I kept in touch with the one old acquaintance of mine that worked for the CBC News team.
Steam: CavilatRest
just from observation it seems this is the big friction point, alot of police training seems time focused, that you have to resolve the situation immediately. where it seems if you step back for a minute and realized its not a time sensitive issue. an example* like sure the guy may be on the train, holding up the whole line, but he's not violent and there are no other people in the vicinity in danger. just stand down and talk and wait it out. its not a big deal.
there seems to be an impatience to resolving the issue, and most people under stress aren't going to respond well to overt shows of force or constraint. like hell we killed a guy in an airport with tazers because he had a stapler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident#Criticism_of_the_RCMP
(also a note, his mother was in the airport at the time and no effort was made to bring her to the situation for translation or de-escalation.)
all they got was perjury. and only 2 of them. and it took almost 8 years to get a conviction.
what is accountability?? its still a sham here in Canada.
*also bystander Video is the only reason this ever became known to public. Video makes a difference.
the warning signs have been there for years, Police are not the solution to these calls and never will be.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BretonBrawler
"Bystander video" should get a statue once we get our shit together.
For anyone who didn't already see it, another Native American died at the hands of police last night. The RCMP claimed to ineffectively taser him repeatedly, and then shot him "when he still came at the with a knife."
What a fucking look ... Someone pointed out that there have been more deaths in NB from police since last week than from COVID in total.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
I was genuinely surprised to learn that they didn't have that kind of agency. On either side of their borders, Nova Scotia and Quebec both have such a thing. I think I just assumed every province had some equivalent.
Calgary got destroyed last night. My house is ok but my neighbors all have shattered windows ,siding and car windshield.
Thanks 2020