Martin Baron's footage of the Toronto Police shooting Sammy Yatim dead.Early on Saturday morning, 18-year-old Sammy Yatim pulled a knife out on a crowded streetcar that was traveling west on Dundas St. W, right by Trinity Bellwoods park. Luckily, the streetcar was stopped before anyone was hurt, the passengers were fully evacuated, and the police were quick to arrive. What followed, however, has been the source of confusion and outrage in the Trinity Bellwoods community and Toronto at large, as a police officer shot the 18-year-old nine times. Then for whatever reason, police electrified his body with a taser.
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An "enhanced" camera angle of the shooting.Unfortunately, for many people, this incident is forcing the city to recall the widespread police brutality that surrounded the G20 conference in 2010. Martin remembered his experience during that weekend, “I witnessed the G20 kettling at Queen and Spadina from my office window (working on the weekend for a deadline). I saw the police act as aggressors and escalate hostilities when their role should have been to de-escalate and cool the temperature down. What or who were the police protecting that day? I can find no better answer than that the police were ultimately protecting their own authority.”The highly aggressive tactics of the Queen and Spadina kettling, and the shooting of Sammy Yatim, share an uneasy commonality. They both are clear examples of a militaristic and violent approach to policing—one that most people would agree does not belong on the streets of Toronto.
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