Keeping Calm
In Canada, where two mounties were recently shot during an active shooter attack in Alberta, public safety experts are warning against overreacting, in terms of steps to be taken to protect Canadian police officers.
“There will always be unexpected cases,” Margaret Beare, a law professor at York University, told the Mission Record. “I do not want to see militarization flowing as a result of these every-once-in-a-while hideous situations.
“It’s one thing to say somebody is really dangerous, and yet they’re not doing anything for which they can be immediately charged and held. There’s nothing that can be done and nor probably does our society want arbitrary decisions being made about people too dangerous to walk around until they’ve actually done something.”
Others say while the headlines and media focus might make it seem like there is an increase in cop-killings, the actual data does not mesh with that perception.
“What we’ve really had is Mayerthorpe, Moncton, and this one, and it gives the impression of a lot of police officers getting killed, but actually in statistical terms they’re at low risk,” Irvin Waller, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, told reporters.
“You get blips from time to time, but it’s basically been trending down.”
This is obviously a much different approach to perceptions of increased violence against police officers in the United States.
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