When would you start shooting?

I was talking to an ex-cop the other day.

“Did you ever have to draw your gun?” I asked, thinking about the Wilbert Bartley case and people’s armchair judgment against the two RCMP officers involved.

“Yes, I did,” he said.

I asked him what it felt like.

He couldn’t give me an answer in a few words. Instead, he described a situation in which he had to unholster his gun because he was being threatened.

In trying to make an arrest, he suddenly found himself facing a loaded shotgun pointed at him from a few feet away. He was pointing his own handgun back at the man and telling him to surrender or he’d shoot.

“’I’ll shoot you!’ I was yelling. ‘Put down your weapon or I’ll have to shoot!’ I can tell you, I was scared shitless,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘This is it. If I don’t shoot it’s game over.’ My heart was pounding out of my chest and I was sweating like crazy.’”

As he cocked his weapon, the man suddenly dropped the shotgun and gave up.

It reminded me of the time I was at the RCMP training “Depot” in Regina and was invited to try out a video simulation training device. I’ve written about it before, but my reaction during the simulation still amazes me.

In the scenario, I was arresting a suspected drug dealer and was covering him with my gun drawn and at the ready. The druggie suddenly drew his own weapon.

I started firing from about 10 feet away, missing him with the first 20 shots, finally connecting with one to his butt as he tried to dive out of the way.

When it was over, I was trembling and sweating. I can only imagine what it’s like to be faced with a real situation in which a bullet or a knife or even an automobile could end your life in a split second.

The flip side of the equation is that if you over-react you could be responsible for taking another person’s life unnecessarily.

How can the human brain properly process such information in a way that will lead to a rational decision? It’s easy to joke about cops who can’t shoot straight, or cops who shoot barking dogs, or fight over donuts, but it’s no laughing matter. Police are trained in many different scenarios with the basic question, “Would you shoot?”, but until it’s the real thing no one knows how they’ll react.

It’s so easy, and so like us, to make judgments without facts. That’s what a lot of people, including Catherine Bartley, the mother of Wilbert, have been doing since her son was shot dead by two plainclothes RCMP officers last summer.

In comments to this newspaper published yesterday, she expressed anger at the fact no charges have been laid in the shooting. She was hoping the report that has just been released by Calgary Police Service would lead directly to charges.

No one can help but feel sympathy for Wilbert Bartley’s family, and understand their pain. They have a right to want answers but no one has a right to pass judgment before the evidence is in and assessed.

From what’s known of the incident to this point, there’s room to suggest the shooting of Bartley could have been avoided. It may be the two officers weren’t in immediate danger in the moments after Bartley rammed their van with his 4Runner. But could they reasonably have known that?

In a perfect world, they might have instantly assessed the situation and determined that it could be brought under control without lethal force.

But this isn’t a perfect world; it’s inhabited by imperfect humans who often have to deal with wildly imperfect situations. I’d hate to be sitting in the B.C. Crown counsel’s office reading that report and second-guessing those two cops to decide if they should have done it differently.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress.com