Could most cops in Vancouver go without firearms?
Posted March 11, 2014 7:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Could most police officers in Vancouver do their job without a firearm at their side?
A lawyer and mathematics professor in Toronto suggests police in that city should be banned from carrying guns, except for highly-trained emergency response teams. But a local security specialist doesn’t think that would work here in the Lower Mainland.
Toronto lawyer Peter Rosenthal says ordinary police in that city don’t need guns if expanded, armed Emergency Response Teams were available for fast back-up. He believes it would save lives.
“Essentially everybody who has been killed by Toronto Police has been somebody with a mental health issue who’s in some kind of crisis. It’s never a bad guy shooting out with police,” he argues.
Former VPD officer Leo Knight thinks that’s a bad idea.
“Police are coming up against people with guns all the time. [Rosenthal] is looking at it from the perspective of a couple of incidents involving [mental health] patients and he’s suggesting disarming the police. Well, the police do a lot more than deal with [mental health] patients,” he tells News1130.
“It’s typical of what comes out of academia; they spend so much time in the rarified area of academia, they don’t know what’s going on in the real world,” adds Knight.
He tells us people can turn violent in a moment’s notice and police need to have all the possible tools available to them.
