The best way to perpetuate poverty is by spending on arms
and military, and the best to fight terrorism is by fighting the basic needs of
humanity, because hunger and poverty perpetuate crime.
Re: Academics urge ‘radical expansion’ of refugee aid, Oct. 13
Academics urge ‘radical expansion’ of refugee aid, Oct. 13
In the same issue of the Star where a very
small minority of “academics” call for expansion of Canada’s dollar
commitment to bring more people here from Syria, there is an article
that states that “here” we have between 9 per cent and 29 per cent child
poverty.
I live in Toronto. Every day I see homeless
persons – men, women and sometimes children – begging for money. Again,
begging for money. Thin emaciated, with rotting teeth, from poverty.
Behind the Eaton Centre, in the shadow of a church, are the names of
homeless persons in Toronto, who died on the street, many without
identity on them, unknown persons. Many frozen to death.
At times it feels like I am in the Rohinton
Mistry novel, “A Fine Balance.” Not to mention the deplorable conditions
for Canadians on reserves.
A different approach to the refugee crisis
would be for Canada to put pressure on countries around Syria to accept
more refugees. For example, how many have been accepted by Saudi Arabia?
The balance of what would have been spent to
bring and resettle hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to Canada
could then be used to eradicate poverty and homelessness in Canada. For
our own citizens, no less.
I am an academic and I do not urge radical
expansion of refugee aid before a radical expansion of aid to Canadian
homeless persons and a radical expansion of aid to Canadian persons
living in poverty.
Small groups of “academics” led to sign
petitions, do not speak for the majority of “academics,” nor for the
majority of Canadians. And they most certainly do not speak for me.
Mario C. Estable, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Ryerson University
The 400 protesters correctly state that
“offering aid to displaced people [is] written into Canadian DNA” and
cited how we helped fleeing Hungarians, Czechs, Vietnamese and Kosovars.
To that list we can proudly add what our
ancestors did, at great risk to themselves, to rescue slaves via the
Underground Railroad.
Terry Poulton, Toronto
Four hundred academics are asking for
substantially more aid to refugees. At the same time, the headline of
the GTA section of this newspaper reads that “one in four children live
in impoverished households” in Toronto.
There is a saying in French: “Charité bien
ordonnée commence par soi-même.” The message is clear: aid should be
given at home first. A government’s responsibility is to its own
citizens first.
Likewise, let the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries look after their own.
May I suggest to those academics that they are welcome to look after the refugees themselves.
Claude Gannon, Markham
Thank you Joe Fiorito. Stephen Harper’s
inability to bring Syrian refugees under threat of death to Canada now
reminds me of our government turning back Jewish refugees during World
War II. Have we learned nothing about how to treat minorities?
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ASHLEY SMITH:Psychical
torture practiced in Canada by oppressors of the government institutions and
private consortiums, no less vile than any other kind of torment, intended to
destroy psychologically and keep their victims silent.
We appeal to the courage and conscience of the human
rights organizations, international community, democratic governments from
around the world and global media, to condemn the crimes against humanity that
has been committed and continues committing in psychiatric hospitals and
detention centers in Canada.
Violence at new psychiatric inmate facility draws ministry concerns
Nurses who have faced homemade weapons blame design of Waypoint, a new hospital for men with a history of violence.
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Cody Storm Cooper
Waypont Centre for Mental Health Care, opened in May 2014, sits on the edge of Georgian Bay.
The patient emerged from his room carrying a sword, and the nurses put on their riot gear.
The two-foot blade was bent 90 degrees, and a
two-inch screw had been fashioned to the top. He made the sword from
materials he found in his cell at Waypoint Mental Health Centre, the
province’s sterling new state-of-the-art psychiatric facility.
This incident, detailed in Ministry of Labour
inspection reports, staff memos and internal emails, is just the latest
in a string of workplace violence claims that have prompted the ministry
to investigate the province’s only “maximum secure” forensic mental
health hospital, the Star has learned.
“The Ministry of Labour is aware of and is
investigating complaints of workplace violence at this facility,”
ministry spokesperson Janet Deline said in an email to the Star. She
confirmed the ministry has investigated 20 events — including complaints
and injuries — since the facility opened last year.
Waypoint, which overlooks Georgian Bay in
Penetanguishene, Ont., opened in May 2014 with a price tag of $474.1
million, a joint project by Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of
Health and Long-Term Care.
Cody Storm Cooper
Waypont Centre for Mental Health Care, opened in May 2014, sits on the edge of Georgian Bay.
The 160-bed Atrium Building holds male
patients charged with violent crimes who have been found not criminally
responsible or unfit to stand trial due to serious mental illness. It
replaced Oak Ridge, a more traditional prison-like structure built in
the 1930s to provide custodial care to the “criminally insane.”
“We don’t disagree that there have been
challenges with our new building and everyone, including our senior
staff and board, is aware and concerned,” Waypoint’s director of
communications, Laurene Hilderley, told the Star. She said the
administration has already addressed many concerns about the new campus,
spending $1 million since the opening on enhancements to patient rooms,
fencing, lighting, doors and camera systems.
Health ministry spokesperson David Jensen told
the Star “it was of paramount importance to Waypoint that the new
facility would maximize the quality of life for their patients in a
respectful and secure setting.”
This philosophy, said registered practical
nurse John Wardell, has contributed to the Atrium’s design flaws and
technological problems, escalating the danger for nurses in an already
high-risk environment.
Aaron Harris
John Wardell, former union president at the Waypoint facility, worries about the safety of health-care workers at the facility.
Wardell worked at Waypoint for more than 17
years, serving as president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Local 329 for the last three, till this summer. OPSEU is currently in
contract negotiations with Waypoint.
“The hospital has lost sight that these
particular patients have violent tendencies,” he said, adding they
cannot be safely managed in other public institutions. “The public would
like to think that once someone has medication in them, they improve.
Some people in this facility do not fit that mold. They are not
treatment-responsive.”
Certain patients, no matter where they are,
would always find a way to make weapons, he alleged, but in the Atrium,
they can find the tools to do it.
Spokesperson Tonya Johnson said the Workplace
Safety and Insurance Board has received 107 claims from Waypoint staff
since opening. Twelve incidents stemming from assaults, violent acts or
harassment resulted in lost work time.
The Star has found claims of numerous serious incidents since May 2014. For example:
According to a workplace injury report, a registered practical nurse
was preparing for the evening lockdown in August 2014 when a patient
called out “goodnight” and threw a cup of boiling water in her face. She
spent the night in hospital and suffered burns to her right eye and
face.
According to an urgent memo from Waypoint’s health and safety
coordinator, a staff member narrowly avoided being stabbed in the face
with a 10-inch shiv. The patient lured the staff member close to the
window in the door of the room, then slid the knife through a rubber
seal between two doors.
Three days following June’s sword incident, a
provincial inspection found “the patient was able to destroy their room
to the point of accessing metal supports from behind the drywall,
including the removal of a towel rack, and proceeded to construct
weapons out of these materials.”
“The patient was yelling from his room … there
would be a bloodbath,” one employee said in an email describing what
staff saw that day.
“I believed that the door would not break and
everyone would remain safe so I was completely shocked and taken aback
when the staff member yelled he’s out … I truly feared for my life.”
Talks between OPSEU and Waypoint broke off late Tuesday, amid heightened union concerns around safety.
“It is a continued pattern of this employer
refusing to work with the union to resolve these problems,” said Greg
McVeigh, the Local 329’s staff representative. “These things don’t
happen when everything is hunky-dory.”
“The general consensus,” said John Wardell, “is someone is going to get killed in here.”
The media’s
the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they
control the minds of the masses”
"Brutality and
insolence of policemen have increased greatly, and the Police Commissioners
seldom, if ever, convict officers for these offenses. HUMBLE CITIZENS OF ALL
RACES TODAY ARE IN MORE DANGER FROM THE POLICEMEN’S CLUBS THAN THEY ARE FROM
THE ASSAULTS OF CRIMINALS. "- Frank
Moss
Again
the media are helping to keep the impunity of a heinous crime perpetrated by
the officer James forcillo. The savage execution and tasering of Sammy Yatim in
the tram carried out for officers trained to kill and degrade the inert body of
a young boy is unacceptable in a multicultural
society as is Canada. All the overwhelming evidence; "Toronto Star"
marks history of the impunity of atrocious crimes committed in this country.
The family of Sammy Yatim is mourning the loss of their loved one, and with the
hope to get justice. But until now the Canadian judiciary demonstrated to be a
system Sterile of injustice.
Const. James Forcillo trial marks a historic moment in Canada
The charge — second-degree murder — is rare
enough in police circles but citizen video of Sammy Yatim’s death makes
this a trial like no other.
"Armed and Dangerous in Public Places" - Victims of Police Brutality Massacred in Residential Areas? (100% of evidence)
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Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo
The trial of Const. James Forcillo in the shooting death of Sammy
Yatim on a Toronto streetcar in 2013 begins Tuesday. Forcillo, 32, faces
a charge of second-degree murder.
By:Wendy GillisNews reporter, Published on Tue Oct 13 2015
When James Forcillo walks through the doors of
a downtown Toronto courthouse Tuesday, the constable will follow a path
few Canadian police officers have taken.
The short, stocky 32-year-old cop will fight
his way through a throng of cameras and reporters, enter the largest
available courtroom — used for high-profile cases due to its capacity —
and appear as the defendant in a murder trial.
Nationwide, a second-degree murder charge
against an on-duty police officer is exceedingly rare. A conviction is
unprecedented. If Forcillo is found guilty in the 2013 shooting death of
18-year-old Sammy Yatim, he will be the first Toronto police officer ever convicted of murder for an on-the-job death.
Landmark, watershed, historic — suffice it to
say, Forcillo’s trial will be closely monitored for all that it
represents. While the 12-member jury selected last week will rule on the
guilt or innocence of one officer, it will unofficially decide on
issues much greater.
“In some ways, you could say the officer is
not the only person on trial,” said University of Toronto criminologist
Scot Wortley. “I think the legitimacy of our current police
accountability system, our current civilian oversight system, is also on
trial.”
Yatim was killed in a hail of bullets
just after midnight on July 27, 2013. Moments before, the teenager had
exposed himself and pulled a small knife on unsuspecting passengers on
the Dundas St. W. streetcar.
By the time police arrived, Yatim was alone on the streetcar. Shortly after, Forcillo shot Yatim eight times. As he lay on the floor dying, he was Tasered by another officer.
Forcillo was charged one month later by the
province’s Special Investigations Unit, initially facing a second-degree
murder charge. Then, in a decision last year that still puzzles legal
experts, the Crown added a second charge: attempted murder.
The much-anticipated trial comes amid
unparalleled public scrutiny of police locally, nationally and
throughout North America. In Toronto, critics place Yatim alongside
other well-known names as yet another example of the unjustified police
killing of a person in mental or emotional crisis — another Edmond Yu, Michael Eligon, Sylvia Klibingaitis.
Just as the high-profile recent deaths of
black men by U.S. law enforcement sent people to the streets in protest,
Yatim’s shooting galvanized Torontonians, inspiring outraged
demonstrators to clog downtown streets shortly after his death.
Hundreds of thousands of people feel they
witnessed Yatim’s death, thanks to widely disseminated citizen video.
Bystanders’ cellphone cameras recorded the scene as Forcillo fired his
gun nine times at Yatim, six of those shots coming as the teenager lay
on the floor of the streetcar.
The video in this case is vital — without it,
many lawyers say it’s unlikely there would have been a trial. Also
attributable to the citizen videos is an exceptional phenomenon: the raw
emotion felt by so many members of the public prior to the beginning of
a trial.
“People are watching this trial closely
because they want to see that justice will be served,” criminologist
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah said.
But what justice looks like in this case
depends on whom you ask. Amid what many have called a crisis of public
confidence in law enforcement, some officers and police associations
argue that anti-police sentiment has gone too far. Some quietly fear
that a guilty verdict in this case could result in cops failing to use
force in situations where it’s warranted.
Shortly after Forcillo’s arrest, Toronto
Police Association president Mike McCormack said the officer wasn’t
afforded the presumption of innocence. “This is exactly trial and
conviction by YouTube,” he said.
For Forcillo — who has pleaded not guilty —
the criminal trial is a long-awaited opportunity, his defence lawyer,
Peter Brauti, said. “He hasn’t been able to tell his side of the story,”
Brauti told reporters last month.
That story has the potential to change public perception — of Yatim, of the shooting, of Forcillo’s guilt or innocence.
“There are those who steadfastly stand behind
the police and will not question their actions at all. And there are
those who perhaps are on the other extreme and question every police
action,” Wortley said. “But it will be interesting to see where this
case sits with the average citizen.”
The role of video
Ask legal experts what makes the Forcillo case different from other cop trials and you hear one word, repeatedly: video.
Bystander and surveillance video has already
played a vital role in the trial. To Christopher Schneider, a Brandon
University associate professor who studies policing and technology, the
video represents a historic first: Never before has there been an
on-duty fatal police shooting that was recorded and uploaded to the
Internet in advance of police statements about the video.
“As best I can tell, this is the very first video of its kind, in Canada, ever,” Schneider said.
As a result, citizens interpreted the events
on their own, forming passionate opinions about what transpired. “Almost
always, the police tell us what we saw,” he said.
Or, in cases without independent witnesses or
video, police simply tell the public what occurred. In short, the
existence of strong video evidence of the shooting is a game-changer.
“It used to be that the police could shoot and
kill people, and it was a lot easier for them to change the stories,
embellish or lie or not include certain facts and their word was taken
as gold by the courts,” said Davin Charney, a Toronto criminal lawyer.
Now, they can’t get around the video — and
that’s going to increasingly be the case, due to the use of body-worn
cameras and the frequency of citizen-shot cellphone video, Charney said.
But there are the Yatim shooting videos that have been released to the public, and then there’s the video yet to be seen.
Expected to be played at trial is surveillance
footage from inside the streetcar in the moments before Yatim was shot.
It may bolster the case against Forcillo, or complicate the narrative
that he unjustifiably shot Yatim.
Use of force and self-defence
There is, of course, no doubt who pulled the trigger. One high-quality video from a member of the public shows
Forcillo drawing his gun and firing two distinct bursts of shots at the
teenager — the first three causing Yatim to fall to the ground and
then, six seconds later, six more bullets.
A central question is whether the force Forcillo used was justified.
“(Forcillo) will be relying, over and over
again, on self-defence,” said Reid Rusonik, a Toronto criminal lawyer
not connected to the case.
In cases where self-defence is being argued,
the law gives significant consideration to an individual’s perception
that he or she is in danger of grievous bodily harm or death. But
there’s no mathematical calculation to determine permissible force,
Rusonik said.
“There’s no law that says it’s five shots that
you’re allowed, or seven . . . The Crown’s going to have to say that
even though there’s a broad range, even the most generous settings of
that range were exceeded.”
Wortley added that Forcillo is going to have
to explain why he was the only officer on scene to shoot. Several
Toronto cops responded alongside Forcillo, but none fired their guns.
“That could be key to the case,” Wortley said.
Statements of defence in a civil suit
filed by members of Yatim’s family against Forcillo and the Toronto
police may provide clues about the defence strategy. According to those
statements, filed in court last summer, Yatim “aggressively” refused to
drop the switchblade in his hand and continued to dangerously wield the
knife after Forcillo’s initial three shots, prompting the officer to
fire six more times.
The defence claims allege that Yatim continued
to hold a knife “in a dangerous manner” after he was shot eight times,
and needed to be Tasered to be brought under control. The defence
statements also claim Yatim voluntarily consumed “an intoxicating
substance which caused or contributed to his irrational or dangerous
behaviour.”
Indeed, one of the things Forcillo’s legal
team is likely to do is attempt to reduce public sympathy for Yatim by
painting him as violent or dangerous, Wortley said. “It’s a classic
defence strategy.”
What we can learn from other trials involving Toronto police officers
When Const. James Forcillo was charged with
Yatim’s death, he became the seventh on-duty Toronto officer to be
charged with manslaughter or murder in 25 years, since the creation of
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit in 1990.
But none of the other officers, charged in
connection with three deaths between 1997 and 2010, were convicted: all
were eventually acquitted by judge or jury.
Legal experts say the fact that so few are
found guilty may reveal a general reluctance to discredit a police
officer, a professional sworn to uphold the law. When testifying in
court, cops typically enjoy the “enhanced credibility” that comes with
the job, said David Tanovich, a law professor at the University of
Windsor.
But recent sharp scrutiny of police actions
demonstrates a shift away from the assumption that a police officer’s
word is golden, he said.
“Given what we’ve seen with carding, given
what we’ve seen with police perjury, and the number of times that judges
have taken the extraordinary step of concluding the police officer
lied, misled, exaggerated, I think that enhanced police credibility
might not be as strong today as it was,” Tanovich said.
That scrutiny, Tanovich said, combined with
the presence of citizen-shot video, changes the game so significantly
that little can be drawn from previous acquittals of Toronto police.
