Here’s a side of the James Forcillo case I do not hear debated at all yet. It appears to me that the powers that be work to ensure that when a situation like the Sammy Yatim case arises, the officer is suspended with pay and then charged– if at all– with murder. If the murder charges are dismissed, as they almost always are, then the officer is off, scott-free. He will probably not even lose his job.
One thing is very clear from the James Forcillo case: he was incompetent. Is it actually possible that, if the judge finds him not guilty of murder, he will return to his job, without consequence?
The debate about these incidents almost always devolves into an argument over whether the cop murdered the man in cold blood or saved the lives of innocent citizens by stopping a ruthless, disturbed killer in his tracks. It seems to me that most of these incidents really lie between those two extremes. In almost all of them, the police involved demonstrate severe incompetence and dishonesty. They screw up the situation leading to a tragic outcome, and then lie to protect each other.
Think that’s harsh? Now that we have seen, over and over again, how the videos of these events do not show what the officers insisted happened, how can you not be skeptical of the police version of all of these events?
[whohit]James Forcillo[/whohit]