A tragedy unfolded in Calgary’s southeast neighbourhood of Forest Lawn on Saturday..Calgary city police received a call a man was threatening people at a busy strip mall in the area and had actually struck someone with a long stick he was carrying..The police responded with a number of officers and a police dog..Amateur video, taken after police arrived at the scene, shows the man, Latjor Tuel, crouched near a light standard, holding a long stick and a knife. .As the man stood up and appeared ready to attack the police officers, they opened fire with non-lethal plastic bullets, but Tuel ran towards the police officers with, as the video shows, the intent to attack..The officers tasered Tuel, to no avail. Tuel then struck the dog with the stick and fell upon the animal, stabbing it several times..At that point, police fired lethal rounds from their firearms and Tuel fell, dead..Tuel was well known in Calgary’s Sudanese community. As a child in Sudan, he was recruited into fighting in his home country. He told a friend he was having nightmares about that time of his life. His family believes he may have been suffering from PTSD, adding he was not an aggressive person..His death is a shock and a concern to family and friends, to all Calgarians and the Calgary Police Service (CPS)..I am acquainted with one high-ranking CPS official and another who worked on the force..Police officers fear nothing more than situations such as that which unfolded in Forest Lawn on Saturday. .No one should die under those circumstances, but cops don’t just start randomly shooting. They’re trained to assess situations. Under duress, they need to consider if their own lives, and the lives of others, are at risk..Police dogs aren’t pets. They’re trained to recognize dangerous situations and react to them. The dogs are not trained to go for the throat and kill, just to subdue. As an aside, the police dog involved in the incident was rushed to a vet, where surgery was performed. The dog survived..As with all incidents where police discharge their weapons, The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is investigating and the Calgary Police Commission (CPC) convened on Wednesday to review what happened and whether it could have been prevented..But, shortly after ASIRT became involved and before the CPC investigation, Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek, who metaphorically holds the Calgary city police purse strings, got onto Twitter..“Loss of life in our city is tragic at any time, but the loss of Latjor Tuel is particularly devastating. Mr. Tuel was loved by friends & family, and was a well-known member of the Sudanese community in Calgary. He was in crisis & we are left with so many questions,” Gondek tweeted. .“While we await an investigation, we question de-escalation methods & use of lethal force. We question why mental health support is not embedded within community policing. We question how to strengthen newcomer support services to deal with complex trauma. .“I look to Calgary Police Commission to ask difficult questions during public session (Wednesday), and to push for policing models that incorporate mental health supports. My thoughts are with Mr. Tuel’s family. My actions will be focused on de-escalation & change.”.The mayor’s expressions of grief and shock are no doubt heartfelt and comforting to Tuel’s family and friends..However, she should not be going public on Twitter — or anywhere else for that matter — about how the police commission should conduct its investigation before the investigation starts. Nor should she question the actions of the police officers at the scene that fateful day. .It reeks of obstruction..Such thoughts, questions and suggestions should wait until the investigations are over and perhaps restricted to council meetings..And the hard questions she wanted posed in the commission meeting?.Here’s one asked of CPS chief, Mark Neufeld, by commissioner Heather Campbell..“How is it we saw in Ottawa for three weeks people who outnumbered the police, who openly assaulted others, who were armed, unmasked, had weapons both visible and concealed, and police, including members of CPS, thankfully, were able to bring the demonstration to conclusion without the discharge of a service weapon?”.In response, Neufeld said, “Are you aware in Ottawa of any individual charging toward the police officers with a knife? I don’t know the utility of trying to shoehorn this situation with the Ottawa context.”.I don’t know where Campbell gets her information, but if that’s her view of what happened in Ottawa, we should all be questioning how she got to be a member of the police commission..Thomas is a Western Standard contributor
