The Law is Not Your Friend – Part II
A while back I was talking with a person of similar age to me, a person who, like me, has letters after their name – PhD. I had mentioned my concerns about what was going on in downtown London in recent years, the open drug use, people sleeping or just lying in store doorways, and the too-frequent occurrences of violence. I had in particular described what happened on a Monday evening when a friend and I were sitting at the bar of a rather upscale restaurant. A guy had come in who was by appearance one of the street haunters, but his behavior at the outset was unexceptional as he sat on a stool at the other end of the bar from us. The bartender took his order and delivered it, but something went awry as his visit ended, he started getting loud, then belligerent, finally throwing the stool on which he had been sitting around the bar.
Three staff tried to talk him down and ease him out the door without touching him. He did not go easily or quietly, but eventually they succeeded, at which point the belligerent started pounding on the restaurant’s large plate glass window. Eventually it cracked. The bartender had called 911 when things first got heated, but no police showed up. Ultimately one of the staff followed the asshole for a couple of blocks while another waiter stood on the corner watching them, hoping to direct the police if/when they showed up. By the time I left the bar, no police had appeared.
I recounted this tale to PhD-guy, along with what a friend of mine who owns a retail store in the same area had told me. One of her staff had tangled with a shoplifter, physically pulling the stolen merchandise out of the asshole’s hands. A cop she spoke to days later warned against that, saying the staffer could find himself charged with assault.
So, I fumed about all this, and the PhD-guy I was talking to said two things.
One, he noted he had been walking about in that same area (known as ‘Richmond Row’) the previous week, and found it quite pleasant.
Two, he went to a website of some local lawyer on his laptop as we sat there, and read to me from it. Said law firm claimed that Canadians have a perfect right under the law to defend themselves and their property.
‘See’, he said, ‘your concern is founded in misinformation’. Those restaurant people could have physically thrown the troublemaker out once he got violent, and the store staffer was within their rights, too’.
My thought at the time was that PhD-guy was a typical member of that class. Living in a bubble, essentially never going anywhere and certainly not living anywhere where they have to face the reality of contemporary London. Thus, of course you believe what you read on a website written by other people with letters after their name.
I was right about how people from that demographic see the world, and about the reality Canadians actually face in defending their lives and property from criminals.
CBC carried a story this week, which you can read here. The headline reads ‘Man charged after allegedly assaulting home intruder in Lindsay, Ont., police say’
It states that a man confronted an intruder in his home at 3am, and responded with force. Police responded, and the CBC reports that:
The alleged intruder, 41, is also facing charges, including breaking and entering and possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes. Police say the man was also already wanted for unrelated offences.
However the resident is being charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. An update on the CBC website today says that the tenant in the apartment used a knife against the intruder, and that the police have – finally – identified both men. The police have not indicated whether the two knew each other previously.
You can also go here and read a CBC story on what a defence lawyer has to say about the ‘limits’ to the right of self-defence in Canada.
So, here’s the thing, as far as I am concerned. It is important to know if these two men knew each other previously. If they did, then it is certainly possible that this all was not the result of a random break-in to an apartment at 3am. It is possible that some settling of scores was involved, or some recovery of disputed property between two acquaintances is going on. Fair enough, that needs to be determined and the police need to tell the public if that is the case.
However, if this was a thief breaking into the apartment of someone he did not know at 3am, then I do not care what weapon the tenant used, and I do not care how badly injured was the thief. The tenant should not face charges. Period. If someone breaks into your home with a weapon at 3am, you should not be put in a position by our laws of having to decide how much you can do to defend yourself. Hit him with a baseball bat, slice him with a kitchen knife, kick his nuts up into his throat, I don’t care, no citizen should have to make a calculation about how much force is ‘reasonable’ in that situation.
I basically never agree with Premier Doug Ford, but I am right behind his quote about this: “You should be able to protect your family when someone is going in there to harm your family and your kids. You should use all resources you possibly can to protect your family.”
Ok, so Ford is not very articulate, but I agree with the sentiment completely.
However, our laws are written by and for people with letters after their names. People whose chances of facing a home intruder at 3am or a violent restaurant patron are nil. People who simply avoid the sewer that downtown London is becoming. As I wrote in a long-ago post, quoting a friend of mine: ‘The law is not your friend’.
Particularly in the 21st century in Canada.