By Tony Keene
A few years ago, one Saturday evening in Mississauga, police were called to deal with a 62-year-old man with mental problems. They responded with uniformed patrol officers, a tactical unit, and dogs.
Then they shot and killed him.
Shortly before that, RCMP in New Brunswick were called when a mentally-troubled First Nations man was causing a disturbance.
They shot and killed him.
Around the same time, relatives of a 26-year-old Indigenous woman in Edmundston, New Brunswick, called police because they believed she was undergoing a mental crisis.
The police showed up, then shot Chantel Moore four times, killing her. Four times!
Stop and think for a minute. These are expensive, highly-trained, Kevlar-covered professionals, dealing with individuals who are not wearing armour and not carrying guns. Why then does it seem the police nearly always respond with gunfire?
Putting aside for the moment very valid arguments about racism and social conditioning, could the answer be that they all have guns on their hips to start with?
Maybe if every cop in Canada were not walking or driving around locked and loaded in the first place, it would be much less likely unarmed and disturbed people would be gunned down. If several armoured paladins cannot deal with a sick, frail man or a young woman without resorting to gunfire, one must ask what sort of police they are in the first place.
Although almost all police forces around the world are armed as a matter of routine, there are some exceptions. Two of these are Western industrialized nations, not much different from Canada.
These are the United Kingdom (less Northern Ireland) and The Republic of Ireland itself. Although trained and equipped tactical response teams are available, when responding to anything other than an active gun call, the police in both countries initially arrive unarmed.
Until 1998, Canada had an unarmed police force, The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Officers on patrol had guns; they just didn’t wear them on their hips, but kept them in their vehicles where they could be retrieved if necessary.
The argument will no doubt be made that, if suddenly confronted by an armed criminal, having to return to your car to get your weapon could be a problem. Yes, that’s obviously true. But having the gun on your hip means you are much more likely to use it, even when not confronted by an armed criminal, which seems to be the case, over and over.
When James Forcillo approached Sammy Yatim in 2013, the 17-year-old held a 12-cm knife. Yatim was inside a streetcar and had no hostages. Forcillo fired nine rounds, eight of which hit the boy. Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder (attempted murder!?) and served two years in prison.
What might the outcome have been, had Forcillo not been armed? Maybe he would have had to use that de-escalation training they are all supposed to undertake. Sammy Yatim would not have died, and Forcillo might still be a cop (Whether that is good or bad, you can decide for yourself).
The police forces in Britain and the Irish Gard, seem to be able to do their jobs, and have been doing them for decades; in the case of the Brits, for two centuries, without packing heat. When the Garda was formed in 1922, its first commissioner, Michael Staines, resisted calls for his cops to carry guns by stating: “the Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people.”
To borrow from Shakespeare, is that not a consummation devoutly to be wished?
NOTE: After two recent fatal shootings of police, the CBC published statistics showing that police deaths in Canada have been steadily declining. So there is no “war on cops,” as certain right-wing media have been screaming.
Don’t defund the police. Disarm them. Or at least some of them.
It will probably make all of us safer, and may even enhance our standing in the world.
Mounted Gardaí at Clonmel Show 2025, image by Dermot O’Halloran, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
