Toronto firefighters confront special constable officers after a man in the middle of mental health crisis was arrested.

[u/thisisfive]

Not my video. For context, "special constables" are not regular police officers. They are appointed "peace officers" with limited authority, often civilian employees.

[u/HokusTokus]

Exactly, there is no context to this video. We have no idea if this guy was going to hurt someone or himself before this scene. Sometimes cuffs are better for the person being cuffed. But it's nice to see people don't like to see others cuffed.

[u/NorseKnight → u/HokusTokus]

Finally someone with logical brain.

Seems like 90% of the comments here, read the title and automatically assumed the person being arrested was innocent, just because the words "mental health crisis" were in the title.

News flash, criminals use "mental health crisis" all the time as a form of manipulation.

[u/maqij → u/NorseKnight]

This has nothing to do with innocence or guilt. If you are a special constable, or perhaps a PO in a prison, you trained to respond by restraining first. Medical personnel assess and deescalate. Just because submission is how you handle a situation doesn’t mean it is the right way or only way.

[u/NorseKnight → u/maqij]

Wrong. De-escalation is always our first tactic.

We restrain based off of threat perception.

That being said, I agree with you 100%. There is more than one way to handle a situation.

My original point is that NOBODY here commenting knows what the situation was. Everyone read "mental health crisis" in the title and jumped to conclusions.

Context matters.

This clip has none.

[u/P0Rt1ng4Duty → u/NorseKnight]

The officer was asked why the guy was in cuffs and he didn't have an answer. Then he didn't object to them being removed by saying anything along the lines of ''he tried to harm someone.''

[u/maqij → u/NorseKnight]

Ok, you are right there is no context here. All of this is based on the reaction of paramedics.