Anyone who checks Jamie Graham鈥檚 lineage would understand why Victoria鈥檚 chief constable, who is to retire at the end of the year, stands behind his police officers when they鈥檙e accused of going too far.
The crest of Clan Graham depicts a falcon savaging a prostrate stork. Obviously, the raptor is using excessive force.
Its scrawny victim might say that it鈥檚 abusing its authority.
It鈥檚 more than a question of DNA, though. Our outgoing chief has been moulded by a culture of policing that once was largely hidden from public view. Now, though, folks are carrying video cameras or badgering authorities to put the devices in police cells.
They鈥檙e taunting the cops to use what is tiresomely referred to as 鈥減olice brutality鈥� so that they can catch it on film or whatever the things use.
There have been annual protests against police brutality in Montreal for 17 years, for Pete鈥檚 sake, and each anniversary succeeds in provoking more cops to provide more evidence of it. Those spotty-faced people in dirty bandanas are proving nothing but their own deficiencies.
Cameras focused by undercover cops on these sorts of 鈥減eaceful鈥� gandy dancers have been useful to apprehend ringleaders as well as those with rings through their noses. Now the worms have turned and trained their cameras on those in riot gear who are spoiling their fun, drowning out their 鈥渟tatements.鈥�
I hate to say it, but this is a good thing. Ours is supposed to be an open society. Our warts should show and be shown, too, and we see them too often when police find themselves in what Graham has described as 鈥渄ynamic鈥� circumstances.
It鈥檚 understandable that a chief should tend to side, initially, with officers alleged to have used excessive force. So it is that 鈥渦se-of-force experts,鈥� who are ex-cops themselves, should see things differently than those on the receiving end of it or those who see it caught on camera.
Graham, though he may not like it, has consistently expressed support for the review processes supplied by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner and the courts that have found cops went too far 鈥� including the OPCC adjudication that found two officers had used excessive force in dealing with a brawl outside Social Club in March 2010.
During the OPCC hearing, it was shown that a use-of-force expert found the two had acted 鈥渨ithin training and use-of-force guidelines鈥� if the police version of events was true. He accepted no other.
What the 55-second video shows is a police officer kicking one man in the buttocks twice before saying anything to him. It shows him kicking and kneeing another man who is lying on the ground.
Is this what police officers are guided to do by their training and use-of-force manuals? I can鈥檛 believe it is.
I can鈥檛 believe any guidelines say a cyclist who runs a red light should be punched by a cop as happened last month in 91原创 and has been shown repeatedly on Facebook. I can鈥檛 believe that police anywhere are trained to bludgeon suspects on the ground or put them in choke-holds until they expire.
We bystanders and viewers can鈥檛 know, as Graham says, the dynamic set of circumstances that police have to react to sometimes. We can鈥檛 even assume, as we might have before YouTube and Facebook鈥檚 prying into policing, that brutality is practised just by a few bad apples.
Some cops may have personalities that make them use excessive force more than others. Some, like the first-year officer filmed using his boot as a baton, are inexperienced.
Some learn behaviour from more experienced officers. Some ignore what they鈥檝e been taught at police academies and think they鈥檒l learn what they need on the street.
If degrees of enforcement are laid down 鈥� from verbal warnings to use of arms 鈥� maybe too much is left up to the officers鈥� judgment to decide what degree of force is necessary to make an arrest.
How many who become police officers quit because they find that serving and protecting isn鈥檛 all that鈥檚 expected of them 鈥� because they aren鈥檛 birds of prey?
