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How this Toronto cop arrested Alek Minassian without firing a single shot

Toronto police chief says improved de-escalation training saved the accused van attacker’s life
The Canadian Press

A Toronto police officer’s actions after a deadly van attack along a busy city street on Monday afternoon are eliciting praise and surprise, but retired Toronto police officers tell VICE News that’s just the way cops are trained in Canada.

Const. Ken Lam arrested 25-year-old Alek Minassian without harming him after the man allegedly drove a van down a one-kilometre stretch of sidewalk at Yonge and Finch, killing 10 people, and injuring 14, who were primarily women.

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In videos of the arrest that emerged on social media, Minassian pretends like he has a gun in his pocket. He repeatedly draws a black object out of his pocket and points it at the officer. When the officer says “No, get down, get down,” he replies, “Kill me.”

Instead, the officer appears to realize that the man is unarmed, and quickly moves in to arrest him, without using deadly force.

“Our officer defaulted to his training, and as a result we have a successful outcome,” Toronto police chief Mark Saunders told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

‘Suicide by cop’

The officer’s de-escalation approach might seem counterintuitive, but former Toronto police detective sergeant John Muise tells VICE News, “It was textbook.”

The officer “acted courageously” and used his training, Muise said.

One aspect of his training was to use his police car as cover, Muise said. The officer also seemed to be concerned about the man’s ability to hear him, so he opened the car door and turned the siren off.

He used the car as cover “until he figured out that what the man had in his hand wasn’t a gun,” Muise said. Then he could move from his cover and engage more closely

“He figured out what was going on, which was in all likelihood, someone who wanted to die at the hands of a police officer,” Muise said.

It’s something known as “suicide by cop.”

In the video, the officer retreats slightly when the suspect appears to go for a gun, Muise explained. When they are in close proximity, the officer takes out his baton and raises it, but does not strike Minassian.

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Muise said officers are trained to use a range of tactics, from talking to the suspect to deadly force, and this officer was using the less harmful range of those tactics.

“Calm, cool, collected,” Muise said of the Toronto police officer. “Canadians can be proud of what this officer did, be proud of the Toronto Police service that day.”

Another retired Toronto Police officer, Fred Iannuccilli, said the officer followed procedure “as close as possible.”

“I thought it was excellent actually,” said Iannuccilli, who used to teach police use of force protocol. “He’s very calm and collected about what he’s doing.”

His only criticism was that the officer should have crouched behind the car for cover and pointed his gun over the hood of the car.

The retired officer also said Const. Lam was constrained by the fact that people were walking along the sidewalk behind the suspect and the van, and there was a building with glass windows that his bullets would have travelled through.

New de-escalation training

Although retired police praised the constable, Toronto police officers have previously faced criticism and criminal charges for using deadly force, particularly against mentally-ill men of colour who were not carrying guns.

Const. James Forcillo was found guilty of attempted murder after he shot and killed Sammy Yatim in 2013. And in 2015, Toronto police shot and killed Andrew Loku, who was holding a hammer and had a history of mental illness. Those recent cases were part of a series of deadly shootings by Toronto police dating back to the late 1970s.

Following Yatim’s death, a retired Supreme Court judge penned a 300-page review with recommendations to change Toronto police training, including six more weeks of training on de-escalation and dealing with people who have mental illness. By September 2015, police said 79 of the 84 recommendations in that report were implemented.

Toronto police have upped their training around de-escalation, police chief Mark Saunders told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

“Our training at the police college as well speaks to de-escalation,” he said. “More people will be dealing with de-escalation than pulling out their firearms in most police agencies in Toronto. It is a focal point of our training piece.”

“That said,” he added, the arrest of Minassian without harm “was nothing short of remarkable.”