Police are trained to take risks like Sammy Yatim posed, expert tells combative defence lawyer

Sammy Yatim and Toronto Police Constable James Forcillo.

It was with one answer that Robert Warshaw, the key prosecution witness at the trial of Toronto Police Constable James Forcillo, put into manageable size the bottom-line issue with which jurors in these cases must always grapple.

The issue is, what can the public reasonably expect of its police officers?

What Warshaw said, and he was answering a particular question, was this: “We’re not talking about the plumber, the schoolteacher, but a trained police officer … He is a trained police officer and should be held to the standard police officers are trained to do.”

Warshaw was in the final throes of a long cross-examination by Peter Brauti, lead lawyer for the 32-year-old officer who is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder in the July 27, 2013, streetcar shooting of Sammy Yatim.

The two men had been going round and round for more than a day, their positions basically irreconcilable.  (more...)

Police are trained to take risks like Sammy Yatim posed, expert tells combative defence lawyer

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A violent end: Tracing Sammy Yatim’s standoff with Toronto police