ColbyCosh.com

Can you clarify the second-to-last sentence? When you write that "we're at the point" to make taped interrogations mandatory, do you mean that we are finally at the point where cheaper technology makes it possible? Or do you mean to say that a decline in police standards has also made it more necessary, even as it has become affordable?

It would also be good if people weren't arrested for silly little things like having an open bottle of beer at a hockey game.

It would also be good if people weren't arrested for silly little things like having an open bottle of beer at a hockey game.

Ah, but the open beer arrest was hardly the most surreal aspect of the Ian Bush saga. The part where he was shot in the back of the head in "self-defense" surely takes the cake.

The legal system in this country, perhaps unfortunately in this case, declares that people are innocent of proven guilty. Requiring a cop to prove that he didn't blow a guy's brains out because he was angry that he had to pick up groceries after work runs against this principle.

The fact that, in these situations, the cop probably is guilty more often than not (on the principle of "how many life-or-death struggles does a trained officer of the peace have with an unarmed inebriate who's just been hauled in for booze, culminating in a shot to the back of the head rather than simply smacking the guy around a bit?") is irrelevant, as our legal system is basically about avoiding punishing the innocent as much as punishing the guilty.

This is probably a good thing, mind. But in cases like this, it's really annoying.

Not my country so it ain't no never-mind, and the urgency of holding constabularies to the highest transparency and standards is righteous, but isn't it a little hopeful to think that this one invention from the century past --the video camera-- is a tool so sturdy that it can withstand that kind of civic dependence? I'm from LA, where we once had a bad experience with video of police in action.

(And the problem was all in the cutting. [See Cannon at my URL]. I work as a video editor, and with software I have lying around my house unused, I could have taken a lot of the tang out of that lemon.)

(PS- The software is for image stabilization. It's easy to make moving pictures tell lies. Telling the truth is hellishly difficult, which is why so few make a living at it)

"The legal system in this country, perhaps unfortunately in this case, declares that people are innocent of proven guilty. Requiring a cop to prove that he didn't blow a guy's brains out because he was angry that he had to pick up groceries after work runs against this principle."

It's because cops unilaterally and a priori claim a monopoly on the use of force. That very unique political distinction qualifies them for the distinction that you point out, and this rests on the very good and simple principle that authority and responsibility are two sides of the same political coin.

If cops want to step in it like that, then they should have to walk all the way through it, just exactly that deep.

The National Post had a fairly good illustration this weekend showing how someone could be shot in the head in the manner described at the inquest. The assumption always seems to be that this was some sort of execution-style shooting. The reason that Ian Bush was arrested was that he gave a false name to a police officer, supposedly as a "joke." He was also known to police as a bit of a troublemaker already, his family's lawyer raising the point that the police were interested in him because they suspected him of evading a drunk driving arrest earlier that year. The pathetic aspect of this whole case is that we don't know exactly what happened because the RCMP didn't have their video surveillance gear turned on in the interrogation room. Of course, even if the video record confirmed the cop's account, I still suspect that the family would attack the RCMP for excessive use of force. It happens all the time - families always deny any culpability of the dead person for the incident, regardless of whether they were drunk, stoned, or merely demonstrating the judgement of a rabid pit bull.

Whatever happened to just shooting someone in the leg? oh, those days gone by...

So giving a false name, being known as a "troublemaker," and being suspected of evading a drunk driving arrest are capital crimes in Canada now?
It happens all the time - sheeple always deny any culpability of the police for the incident, regardless of whether they were on steroids or merely demonstrating the judgement of a jacked up, power hungry fascist.

No, I wouldn't say those are capital crimes. However, I'd say that they're pretty good indicators of somebody stupid enough to attack a police officer in an interview room while mildly inebriated. And making an armed man fear for his life is a pretty good way of getting shot. Use your brain - instead of getting jacked up on testosterone, let the police officer act like an ass and then get a good lawyer.