From: dragog@bmerh92.bnr.ca (Drago Goricanec)
Subject: Takedown (was re: Regulation 790)
Summary: Witness to an arrest with drawn guns
Keywords: guns cops arrest
Reply-To: dragog@bnr.ca
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Distribution: ont
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 20:58:37 GMT

With all this discussion about Regulation 790, I have one simple question?
If four cops each draw a gun on a suspect, do they fill out four forms, or
fill our one form, with four signatures ? ;-)

Actually, this post is about an event I witnessed yesterday that will
remain with me for as long as I live.

I was driving back to work at 3 pm (I had a doctor's appointment), here in
Ottawa, going north on Fisher, getting into the left turn lane to turn
west onto Baseline.  I passed a Nepean Police R.I.D.E. van in the lane to
my right.  I was curious, but thought nothing of it, why the driver had
left 20 feet of space in front of him.  I pulled in behind a large cube
van, which obscured my vision of the intersection.

I heard a police siren, and a police cruiser entered the intersection
eastbound on Baseline, cutting of my line, and the next lane over.  Another
few seconds passed, when another police siren was heard.  Before I could
assess the situation, I looked in my passenger's side rear view mirror to
see two police officers leave the van, come running forward towards the
intersection, pulling their guns out of their holsters.  My adrenaline
started to flow.  I put my car into neutral, applied the parking brake, and
ducked (I kept my head up enough to see what was going on.)  I thought
there was a problem in the intersection.

I looked around, and an unmarked police car (blue Grand Am), jumped a
nearby curb, with another cop running out with his gun drawn (the car had
a dashbord flashing light.)  He blocked a southbound lane.

One of the cops from the van gets in front of my car, hides behind the cube
van, and points his gun to the station wagon to my front right!!!  Only
a couple of feet away.  The cop starts yelling to the driver to leave
his car.

I looked around, and another cop was hiding behind a police cruiser in the
intersection, with his gun pointed in my general direction, I assume to
cover the expected exiting suspect.  I was in that cop's direct line of
fire.  I took a closer look at the cop in front of my car, and I saw
he was nervous, but his finger was not on the trigger, instead it was
over the round semi-circular part that protects the trigger.  Both his
hands were on the gun, and the gun was pointed directly at the suspect.

Very slowly, the suspect opened the door of his car, was extremely scared
(he was shaking very visibly), was flushed, and obeyed the officer.  He
lifted his hands as high as the stress would allow, got on his knees, and
lay face down on the ground.  He was about 6' 2"; quite a big fellow.

Two cops, converged on him, while a third provided cover.  One pulled
out a pair of handcuffs.  It took about 2 minutes for them to cuff him.
He did not resist.

I looked around again, saw other people left their cars behind me, and
I tried to do the same, to get some fresh air.  As soon as I popped my
head over my car, a cop on the ground, holding the suspect, yelled for
me to get back in the car.  I complied.

Later, a cop went by and explained to me and the driver behind me that
the suspect was wanted for a robbery.  The cop looked relieved.  I was
still in shock, as some friends can attest, when I returned to work, my
mouth would not cease describing the events.

The whole episode took less than 7 minutes.  It was very real and scary,
yet somehow, it was not strange.  It was no different that what you would
see on any docu-drama about cops on TV these days.

--
Drago Goricanec, +1 613 763-8957,   Internet:  dragog@bnr.ca
Communications Systems, Software Development (OSI Protocols)
Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of BNR.
Newsgroups: ont.general,ott.general