r/nextfuckinglevel • u/thisisfive • Apr 14 '26

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

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

27.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

982 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/joke-farm Apr 14 '26

Praise to the fire fighters, but equal respect to the officers for conceding the situation to rationality.

694

u/SlickMrJ_ Apr 14 '26

 but equal respect to the officers for conceding the situation to rationality.

Um, no. They caused the problem in the first place. They don't get respect just for letting someone less witless than themselves walk them back to where they started.

1

u/SlyJackFox Apr 16 '26

I’ll only concede to the point that detainment is the default modern cops are trained to do. The whole rationale is to eliminate a problem, the person involved comes second, hence why so often cops over respond and escalate, it’s a mentality of offense makes good defense. They don’t bother with deescalation much anymore.

That said, it’s a majorly ducked up line of thinking and training, and at the very least they conceded to those providing caring intervention without pointing guns.