NP View: Allan Adam video shows the need to fix the police
National Post View
13/6/2020
THE VOICE OF THE RIGHT WING IN CANADA THE POSTMEDIA ALBATROSS
NATIONAL POST WRITES AN EDITORIAL IN FAVOUR OF POLICE REFORM
NATIONAL POST WRITES AN EDITORIAL IN FAVOUR OF POLICE REFORM
AND OUTRAGE OVER THEIR RECENT OPPRESSION OF FIRST NATIONS PEOPLES
National Post View
13/6/2020
\© RCMP via Reuters Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is walked to a police vehicle during his violent arrest by RCMP officers, in a still from police dashcam video obtained during legal discovery, in Fort McMurray, Alta., on March 10.
Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)
There is something you may not notice at first when watching the video of RCMP officers arresting Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam: bystanders were filming the incident.
Adam was arrested in Fort McMurray, Alta., in March. The video, taken by an RCMP dashboard camera, shows a verbal dispute between Adam and an officer. It escalates suddenly when Adam is tackled by another officer who had just arrived at the scene, knocked to the ground, struck and held down in a chokehold. Adam suffered injuries to his face during the arrest; he documented his injuries with photographs that show a bruised and swollen face. The cause of the incident? An expired licence plate tag.
And the entire event was captured by a crowd of smartphone-wielding citizens. You can see them in the tape, if you take your eyes off the arrest itself.
The RCMP says that it reviewed the video of the incident and did not find anything that warranted further investigation of the officers’ conduct. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) will now conduct a separate review.
It hardly needs to be noted that the emergence of this video comes at a fraught time for the relationship between law-enforcement agencies and the citizens they are supposed to serve. People throughout North America have been horrified by the recent examples of police officers acting in ways that shock the public. No reasonable observer denies that police are asked to perform heroic deeds at great personal risk. But it is increasingly hard to deny that there is a major problem with how often officers are resorting to force, particularly against minority communities.
ASIRT will now conduct its investigation. Throughout North America, protests will continue to be held and elected leaders will be pressed to support reforms. Honourable law-enforcement officers will continue to serve their communities, but, tragically, too many others will abuse their authority. Indeed, the most frightening aspect of all the recent videos — in Minneapolis, in Fort McMurray and elsewhere — is how fearless officers have been in using what appears to be unreasonable force, even though they knew full well that they were being filmed.
There are many worthy proposals for how best to reform the police — including reducing their mandate, in favour of deploying better-trained specialists in many of the civic functions we have saddled police with by default. No doubt the police themselves would welcome much of this burden being taken from them. But the broader cultural issue of bridging gaps between unaccountable police and increasingly skeptical communities is one of the most pressing issues of our time. And it is not going away.
Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)
There is something you may not notice at first when watching the video of RCMP officers arresting Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam: bystanders were filming the incident.
Adam was arrested in Fort McMurray, Alta., in March. The video, taken by an RCMP dashboard camera, shows a verbal dispute between Adam and an officer. It escalates suddenly when Adam is tackled by another officer who had just arrived at the scene, knocked to the ground, struck and held down in a chokehold. Adam suffered injuries to his face during the arrest; he documented his injuries with photographs that show a bruised and swollen face. The cause of the incident? An expired licence plate tag.
And the entire event was captured by a crowd of smartphone-wielding citizens. You can see them in the tape, if you take your eyes off the arrest itself.
The RCMP says that it reviewed the video of the incident and did not find anything that warranted further investigation of the officers’ conduct. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) will now conduct a separate review.
It hardly needs to be noted that the emergence of this video comes at a fraught time for the relationship between law-enforcement agencies and the citizens they are supposed to serve. People throughout North America have been horrified by the recent examples of police officers acting in ways that shock the public. No reasonable observer denies that police are asked to perform heroic deeds at great personal risk. But it is increasingly hard to deny that there is a major problem with how often officers are resorting to force, particularly against minority communities.
ASIRT will now conduct its investigation. Throughout North America, protests will continue to be held and elected leaders will be pressed to support reforms. Honourable law-enforcement officers will continue to serve their communities, but, tragically, too many others will abuse their authority. Indeed, the most frightening aspect of all the recent videos — in Minneapolis, in Fort McMurray and elsewhere — is how fearless officers have been in using what appears to be unreasonable force, even though they knew full well that they were being filmed.
There are many worthy proposals for how best to reform the police — including reducing their mandate, in favour of deploying better-trained specialists in many of the civic functions we have saddled police with by default. No doubt the police themselves would welcome much of this burden being taken from them. But the broader cultural issue of bridging gaps between unaccountable police and increasingly skeptical communities is one of the most pressing issues of our time. And it is not going away.
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