Friday, August 07, 2009

WWSD

What would Shawn do?

What would you do?

I submit this for your consideration, a true story of something that happened to Shawn just about a week ago on his way home from work.

It was Friday (Saturday?) evening, and Shawn was at a transfer point on his way home from a long days work. He was at the downtown transportation centre, where the buses meet, come and go, to a variety of places in the region. Most days it is quiet enough, but some evenings, it is a rowdy, downright seedy locale. This particular evening, it was flat out chaos.

As Shawn watched from the bus window, a security guard (who had already subdued the teen in question, for whatever reason) was slamming the kids head off of the curb, trying to get him to release the kids' clenched fist.
Now, I have no idea what was in the boy's hand, neither does Shawn. Shawn can say, that it was not a gun, or a knife, or any type of weapon. It was completely enclosed in his hand, not visible to anyone.

The boy was on the ground, not resisting, but the security guard still felt the need to slam this kids head off of the curb several times, just for the hell of it, I suppose.

It was at about this point that a small crowd has gathered and Shawn decided to egress the bus and see what exactly was going on.

I want to stress this fact:
When Shawn got off of the bus, there was NO police presence, just the security guard and the kid, and a few onlookers.

Shawn called out to the (in)security guard to stop, and leave the kid alone. See, here in Canada, you can't just assault someone because you wear a special vest with a crest on it. It just doesn't work like that.

As Shawn was standing there, somebody came from behind, and without speaking or indentifying himself, grabbed his arm, as if it swing him around. Shawn reacted, and pulled the wrist that was grabbing at him, twisting it outward to hold the guy off.

Imagine his surprise when he turned to look at the offeneder, only to find a cop, with his gun pointed directly at his head.

I have replayed this in my head, over and over, rewinding it as if it were a movie...I can see it all clearly, I can see Shawn's reaction, the look of sheer panic and terror on the face of the kid, see the small crowd running for cover as the police officer pulls his gun and points it at Shawn.

I still can't say that Shawn did anything wrong. We have both intervened in cases like this before. I once jumped into the middle of a knife fight because nobody other than an elderly woman was helping the person that was being attacked. It all happened so fast - I really just reacted more than acted, you know? It was just an instinct. I was willing to let the dumb ass kids fight it it out, but an innocent lady was added to the melee, I couldn't stand by.

I don't think that this is much different. I wish that someone had been there to interrupt the mugging in January with Jessica and her friend.

This time however, Shawn, the man I love, came thisclose to being shot.
Is it just me, or is this officer of the law a wee bit trigger happy? I dunno...I guess that since he didn't actually pull the trigger, I can't say that. I just think that the whole thing was wrong. It went down like a script in a bad movie.
Since when does a cop come up from behind and grab a man, an innocent bystander, without identifying himself? Would it not have made more sense to announce his presence, LOUDLY, to the group that had gathered?

Here's what really rubs me.
This officer was wrong. Flat out WRONG. Not only did he not apologize to Shawn (scared the life outta him) but Shawn was made to apologize to the cop - over and over.

There was paper work - an 'incident' report was filed, but we have heard nothing else about this. I always thought that there was an investigation whenever a police officer pulled his gun.
I guess not.

I don't know if Shawn getting off the bus made a difference. Maybe that security guard would have done worse if Shawn had just turned away. I don't know. I will never know.
The one thing that I do know is that I am proud of Shawn for doing the right thing, it just scares the hell out of me that it could have cost him his life.


What Would You Do ?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I would be pissed! Pissed at the treatment of the kid and pissed at the way that my husband was damn near shot.
Seems like there is no happy medium...Does there??

Maggie Mae

Coffeypot said...

I don't give a shit about the kid. He chose not to open his fist, so what ever he got, right or wrong, is on him.

But the cop and I would have had plenty of words and I would have call in the papers and everything I could do to get this fucker off the streets. There are all kinds of rules about pulling a weapon, and he should have announced he was there before touching anyone. I would not let this drop - but that is just me. I'm as asshole anyways.

Biddie said...

Maggie - Pissed is putting it mildly! This is outrageous, imo. I thought that we were living in Canada, not behind some iron curtain.

Coffeypot - I think that this asshat should be off of the streets, too. He is in obvious need of more traing at the very least.
We are still waiting for the police to contact us - we don't even have an occurance number yet...
It still scares the crap outta me. I try not to think of what could have happened.

Anonymous said...

What Would I Do?
I would probably steam quietly about it - I have a bad habit of not dealing - but would be angry as a swarm of hornets.
The bottom line here? It never should have happened and the cop should face some internal consequences.

Peter

Biddie said...

Peter - I agree, 100%. Maybe he IS facing something through internal affairs, but I have no idea. I don't even know this guys name...Hopefully, if nothing else he is replaying this in his mind over and over the way that Shawn and I are.

Kimber said...

Badge number! Always get the badge number. Or at least a name. It's pretty bad when you can't trust the police officer on the scene. Hopefully this was just a random occurance and most cops are not like this idiot. I'm glad Shawn is okay.

Biddie said...

Kimber - Never got a badge number. I suppose that Shawn was too shaken up to think straight. You know me, if I had been there, I would not have backed off untill I had his badge number, underwear size, and his mothers maiden name.
Hopefully, this idiot is at the vvery least getting some more training before he hits the streets again.