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Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights
Speaking as a former police officer, I wish to address some of your commentary.
First; No proper criminal would put him/herself into a stupid situation like that? I'm sorry, but this sounds as if you are taking the criminals side here. What the hell is a "proper" criminal versus an improper criminal?
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Well I'm going to answer this anyways even though I know you understand exactly what I mean.
A proper criminal thinks firsts and then acts, regardless of his/her immoral intentions, so that s/he gets the result that is more desirable (like suriving, not getting caught).
If you go crazy with a sawed off shotgun you're not supposed to even have in Toronto in the first place, then you're doing it wrong.
Trying to get what you want with strong arm tactics that put your life at risk where the odds are more than likely you will be apprehended or worse shot, is not a smart thing to do.
I'm not taking the criminals side, just making an observation. I think what he did was reckless.
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Second; Yes, he most certainly did deserve to get shot. Derserve to die? Maybe...maybe not. That's another debate. But as someone who has stood on the other side of a badge, I'll tell you this. You take a hostage, threaten that hostage with a gun, then you point your gun at a cop? Yes, you deserve to get shot. Period. No room for discussion there...at all.
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Well you certainly deserve to be punished for taking a hostage, and yes you give police officers the right to shoot you when you point guns at them.
I didn't know at the time when I made the post that this was the same guy that had fired shots before, but I personally think you only DESERVE to get shot when you've fired shots yourself. Untill that point, if you get shot, it was only because you might have harmed someone. I guess this makes it just a pointless semantics arguement.
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I'm extremely liberal on an awful lot of issues. Not this one. This bleeding heart crap about "we don't really know what his intentions were"? Bullcrap! He made his intentions crystal clear when he pointed his weapon at the cop. At that precise moment...the instant that he decided to point his gun at the cop, all bets are off. It's finished. He goes down.
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But then again nothing is really clear in a situation like that.
Apparently, he pointed his gun at the police officer (the ETF unit I think, I'm not sure) several times. Even
he's not clear on his intentions. Maybe he was stupid enough to think that he could intimidate police officers by pointing his gun at them, or maybe he was trying to get himself killed because that's what he wanted. Maybe he wanted to shoot the officer but hesitated over and over again. A man with a hostage and after 40 minutes of negotiations he doesn't even have any demands.
Now I'm not saying that since they didn't know what he wanted, they shouldnt've shot him, but instead, that he didn't DESERVE to get shot.
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Third; "for simply taking a hostage you don't deserve to die." I'm here to tell you now, that there is not a single cell of me that doubts, for one milli-second, that the hostage felt otherwise.
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I'm pretty sure the hostage was too shocked to have wanted something as anger-driven as vengance from the criminal.
What I'm saying is, the act of taking a hostage shouldn't merit you death.
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Finally; "he was only shot because he waved his gun at the police officer." What do think he was doing? Waving good morning to the officer? If I were the responding officer to that situation I'd have done the same. No question. And for any cop that hesitates that fraction of a second, to ascertain the perpetrator's real intention...well, we have special ceremonies to honor these brave souls. Complete with parades, speeches and salutes. We called those ceremonies funerals.
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Then we're in agreement about that one
Although once again, I find out after I posted, that this guy waved his gun at the cop several times apparently.
"Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino said an Emergency Task Force member, fearing for the "safety of the woman," shot at the man."
See, not exactly. That's part of it, but the cop also shot fearing his own safety.
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Originally Posted by Shakran
So uh, what's the diff? If you're going to kill a victim without provocation, then you deserve to get killed if killing you will prevent you from killing that victim. I have much more sympathy for someone who shoots a man in self defense than I do for someone who shoots a man to commit a crime.
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The way I see it:
If someone is going to kill a victim without provocation, then one solution is to kill that someone before they kill the victim, to prevent that someone from killing the victim.
I don't see it in terms of deserving. You might deserve (severe) punishment for taking a hostage and endangering lives but not death.
So to recap what I was saying, he didn't deserve to get shot in return for holding a hostage. Although he certainly did for firing shots before (which I didn't know about at the time).
Just try not to misunderstand me, I'm not sympathizing with the criminal or being disrespectful or ignorant of the great work the police did.