Friday, April 13, 2012
UNBELIEVABLE POLICE ARROGANCE AND STUPIDITY
How is this person still a police officer? Throw his ass in jail for illegal detention and arrest and see if he gets an attitude adjustment. Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record has this story; "Arrest prior to investigation ruled violation of rights". Clearly Constable Saverio Manafo thinks he's a cop in a third world country. "He arrested in this case, as he apparently routinely does, without considering other options, because in his mind, if it turns out there are no grounds for the arrest, the individual will be released". The Ontario Court of Appeal while making it clear that this officer's routine behaviour is a violation of citizens' constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure as well as unreasonable arrest; nevertheless needed to do more to condemn this idiot officer's behaviour. Demote or fire him. Police like this are the reason citizens have little or no respect for the police.
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GET A LIFE
ReplyDeleteGot one thanks. How about you?
ReplyDeleteHe should be proud for not only catching another drug dealer killing our communities, but what better honour than to have a coward like you trying to take cheap shots at him from behind a keyboard! The cops certainly arent perfect but if people like you are upset then I know they are doing something right. Like the other poster said…get a life loser.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is he didn't catch a drug dealer. Because of the cop's laziness and stupidity the guy walked. Try reading the newspaper story that I have a link to. As far as being a coward, hey you're the anonymous one here, not me. This cops illegal behaviour is similar to what happened at the G20 in Toronto. Ask any of the 1,000 people "kettled" at Queen and Spadina, held in the rain for four hours, handcuffed, arrested, charged, released and then all charges dropped how much respect they have for police. Our Police are their own worst enemy. Like bad teachers; bad cops should be weeded out. Rarely does that happen and as a result they all get a bad name. That's not fair to the good ones.
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight...
ReplyDelete1) The cop arrests the drug dealer for what he thinks is drug dealing
2) There are different kinds of drugs and money found on the drug dealer
3) The courts convict the drug dealer
4) Now some privileged judge who probably doesnt live in the area and doesnt have the experiences of that same cop decides to overturn things and call him "cavalier"?!
Best of all the drug dealers "rights" have been violated. Say it ain't so! How about all the lives that dealer has ruined making money off addicts misery?!
And they wonder in Toronto why kids are getting stray rounds in the head with such a justice system.
This judge certainly doesnt represent me or the majority of Canadians I would argue!
I consider myself in the centre politically but I must agree with some of the other posts here on this excuse for a blog. Time for the author to get a life!
I also suggest that you reread the newspaper story that I have a link to. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms isn't there just for the white collar, white skinned folks in Canada. It's there for all of us. I agree this particular character is an unfortunate example but I'm willing to bet this particular cop is now paying a lot more attention to the training he received in the first place. Racial profiling (the suspect was black) combined with arrest first, look for evidence later is and should be unconstitutional. I also hope that drug dealers get arrested but only if there's good evidence that can make the charges stick.
ReplyDeleteI love how you hippies are so proud of the charter. Go to any federal court house and watch a drug trial. A great deal of drug cases are lost because of charter arguments. The charter protects criminals. Wake up!!!!!! I have been a law abiding citizen all my life and therefore have never had to rely on the charter. With the way the charter is deafted, it almost makes it legal to carry drugs. Humour me here. Pretend your a cop. Your parked in a high drug area. You see 2 guys do what you think is a hand to hand drug transaction. You walk over to investigate. Keeping in mind you have no authority to search them for drugs, even if you detain them. How would you handle the situation there
DeleteThe simple answer is "legally". I'm not a cop but they are trained as to what they can and cannot do. As in this particular case the cop behaved stupidly and then cheerfully admitted his "investigative" style in court. Drugs harder than marijuana can be a very nasty business. So too however can police abuses. Police have and are used by politicians and authorities for sometimes sketchy motives. I've personally been on the receiving end of police stopping legitimate , peaceful demonstrations/dissent. Arresting first then going on a fishing expedition looking for justification for the arrest is both wrong and illegal as it should be. I've personally been held in custody without being charged while an idiot cop spent fourty-five minutes desperately trying to flick open the blade of my pocket knife while holding the handle. The knife was a perfectly legal pocketknife but he needed something to charge me with. After his wrist got sore he let me and the pocketknife go. Do you think that his behaviour endeared me to police who essentially are ignoring their training and doing their own thing? Obviously not.
ReplyDeleteComment #9 written by "Proud Canadian" was deleted. Clearly there are a lot of folks who legitimately don't agree with my opinion on this matter which is fine. Now that being said rudeness and or rants won't be tolerated. "Proud Canadian" while making a few good points nevertheless lost it including name calling and ranting about welfare cheques, free housing and my not being hugged enough by my mother. Out of line. I also suggest that there are many more postings here on the Advocate that are much more current regarding our police than this one done last April. It's August now and if you've got a reasonably poite opinion we'd all like to hear it.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled across this blog entry while doing some open source research for a paper on the role law enforcement in today’s society (as it pertains to prevention, enforcement, and successful prosecution on all three levels of government).
ReplyDeleteI found it to be very pertinent to what I am studying as after reading the ruling, the article, and the comments posted here I have made some observations that may perhaps add some value to this discussion.
First I can see and appreciate both sides of the story.
Prevention: The officer was in the area as part of a prevention strategy.
Enforcement: He then acted on what he believed to be reasonable grounds which according to the ruling resulted in full convictions first time around during the first prosecution stage.
Prosecution (Cont.): The appealing judge however found the grounds not to be reasonable (which he certainly had the right to given his position) and overturned the convictions.
What makes this a particularly good example is the fact that although the convictions were overturned citing charter breaches, the judge made a point to say that the officer acted in good faith. This demonstrates to me the balancing act the role of law enforcement plays in our present day society and the question of what is considered doing the job while not overstepping in the eyes of the of the judiciary.
I think discussions such as the one on this blog are very important and I thank the author for bringing forward a medium to have it in. What I don’t agree with is its title “Unbelievable Police arrogance and stupidity” and the tone of attack (i.e. including the “rascism” angle as ethnicity never to be an issue during the process). I believe this really detracts from the honourable thing the author is doing by giving readers a place to discuss.
For what my two cents are worth, the changing of some of the aforementioned issues (the title to something more conducive of fair discussion, changing the tone of attack to include facts and opinions etc. - which I believe can been easily done on a blog although I am not sure as I have never authored one!) would lead to more meaningful discussion and allow it to serve not only as a place of discussion but a very good reference as well.
Thanks
B.M.
Excellent comment Brian! While I was scrolling through my archives to get back here (it's now Nov. 2012) I was pretty much in agreement and wondering why I had chosen such an inflammatory title. Upon refreshing my mind with the facts I think what had offended me at the time was the officer's cavalier attitude regarding arresting citizens, as expressed in the newspaper article. Nevertheless you raise some excellent points and thank you for sharing them with us.
ReplyDeleteIt was really my pleasure Alan, and your response confirmed to me your intentions to educate and provide a medium for discussion on such an interesting topic. Who knows, perhaps if those aforementioned things are changed in the not too distant future in order to add that necessary unbiased platform I may even be able to use this page as one of my sources and suggest this site to the rest of the class!
ReplyDeleteThanks Again.
B.M.
Brian you may also be interested in this:
Deletehttp://www2.macleans.ca/2011/10/24/evaluating-our-bench-strengths/
The appeal judge in this case, David Doherty, appears to be a reject that has an axe to grind after being dismissed by his peers and those responsible for choosing judges for the superior court. It appears tha he is more interested in getting his name in the paper then providing a humble and fair ruling. You may want to factor that into your study. The name calling by the author of this blog as you so intuitvely observed was also done on a lesser level in the ruling. To me this undermines everything that said thereafter.
Hope it helps
Wow we're still making comments on a posting that is seven months old. O.K. Anyhow I would be very reluctant to leave up a comment taking a direct verbal shot at a Judge by name if it were done anonymously. That being said it was written by Mr. Regan and this is not his first posting here in which he has used his name and more credit to him for so doing. I am much more willing to be flexible if the commenter has the courage of his convictions as Mr. Regan does. That being said I have zero knowledge as to the Judge's past history and can neither confirm nor deny Mr. Regan's claim. I will say this however: Judges are human beings and thus subject to all kinds of human foibles and weaknesses. I hope that most overcome these weaknesses in the courtroom and approach their work respectfully and with an open mind. I can also say however that here in Waterloo Region there have been instances where Judges failed to achieve that high standard. I repeat that I am not referring to the same Judge as Mr. Regan did.
ReplyDeleteGreat reply Alan, and I give you the utmost respect for seeing the human and sometimes fallible nature of judges even though I'm sure they are for the most part acting in good faith. And thanks Tom for the link as I never looked into that and it may actually give my research another dimension in the long run.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I now question is if judge's are fallible then can one assume that everyone in the "justice system" can be fallible as well even though they may be acting in the best of faiths seeing as that our law is really up to the interpretation of those involved?
Where I am going with this is that pehaps the officer was acting in good faith (as the ruling indicated) even though it was determined through interpretation (as the accused actually was convicted on the first time around) that the arrest was a breach of the charter. Not saying that makes it right but it certainly gives justification to see this from a neutral standpoint and not attack those involved. (That includes attacking the judge Tom)
With this in mind, I don't think it's fair Alan that this post calls the officer names. You have brought such a great topic to the forefront and interacting with you through these last couple of posts its actually hard to believe that you are the same person that put that title in or wrote that opening paragraph.
Unfortunately I stil can't use this blog as a reference due to it's somewhat biased title and beginning but who knows, mabye that will change with all the interesting points that are coming across here:)
Hope it helps your research Brian...I don't think you will have any luck with the author of this blog with regards to changing the title of this post or rewording its opening narative to provide a more unbiased view. But it looks like even from the negative view point displayed here you were able to make something positive out of it and that in itself is worth much more than name calling ever will be. Best of luck with your studies.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the constructive words Tom. As for making this post a little less bias in reflection what appears ti have actually occurred, I guess we will have to wait and see if it will ever happen. I mean if we are going to afford the judge some leeway (if indeed he is acting in the best interests of the people), why should we not afford the officer the same? And for what it's worth, I agree with the fact that name calling undermines the issue and frankly comes across as a little childish.
ReplyDeleteI digress.
Until then, Cheers.
B.M.
I read a post this morning right on this page from someone named Maryanne or Marsha possibly...I am not quite sure so please forgive me if I got your name wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like your post dissapeared or has been deleted and although I am not sure why, it brought up some very good points regarding this discussion.
Although I don't recall all the of them, it stressed how it appears that the majority of postings online regarding this ruling were in favour of the officers decision and took a look at how pages like these sometimes serve as a way to be inflammatory and paint those involved in a biased and one dimensional way much to the detriment of our society.
I am really interested in taking to you regarding your points of how the drug dealer seems to have gotten off unscathed (no forums created to malign him), the possible double standard of those who create such posts, and what they mean for us as Canadians as opposed to our US counterparts.
If you are still reading this forum I would be grateful to pick your brain on it for some research I am doing.
Cheers!
B.M.
Time to move on folks. This posting is now over ten months old. We including I have beaten it to death. There are many more postings that are much more current dealing with problem police forces, police officers etc. If you have a serious comment feel free on one of the more recent postings. Comments here are closed and thank you I've gotten the message that many of you disagree with me. Fine.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the reason readers continue to post here specifically is not the fact they disagree with your right to have an opinion and voice it Alan, but it has to do more with the perceived hatred and sense of personal hurt you portray between the lines.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, the discussion has been beaten to death. The facts remain however that although in good faith and with convictions on the charges the first time around, an appeal judge for whatever reason has decided to overturn the convictions in a dramatic fashion which ultimately lead to an article being written.
I have read your story about being investigated by police for your knife, and for all the good our law enforcement officers do on a daily basis they most certainly are not perfect and tend to make mistakes now and again. However do your personal feelings on that justify what some would interpret as a personal attack on this officer for his actions? I could see if this officer was accused of committing criminal offences for personal gain as we have seen officers convicted of over the last couple of years (assaults, drugs etc.) but does arresting someone in good faith for poisoning our communities not to mention all the hurt it brings to families justify such a toxic and biased response? You have to understand that a close family member of ours has had his life destroyed by drugs so please excuse any personal feelings I may have on this.
It is unfortunate that you chose this blog which for the most part appears to try and rectify issues in our community of Waterloo and the surrounding region to malign this officer. I wont copy what other posters have said but the power is truly in your hands to do with you wish with this post. Whether it be to modify it or in my humble opinion deleted it all together. Either way I would never attempt to impose my beliefs on you. However if the tables were turned and people personally attacked you for something you did in good faith in such a public forum do you think it would be right? I for one would be one of the first to stand up for you as well.
Thank you for letting me have my say.
Sincerely,
Anne Eckhardt.