Before I speak about the death of Jean René Junior Olivier, who was killed by Repentigny police in August 2021, I would like to take a detour to Salt Lake City.
Posted at 7:00 am
This is where Sergeant Dennis Tueller invented the 21-foot rule in 1983. This rule is well known to all police officers in North America, whose training is inspired in part by his “Tueller Drill” 1 .
Tueller’s drill was designed to measure the distance a suspect encountering a police officer can travel while the officer draws his gun, takes aim, and shoots the suspect in the chest.
Average reaction time of the police officer: 1.5 seconds.
Average distance covered by a healthy adult in 1.5 seconds during Sergeant Tueller’s experiments: 21 feet (6.4 m).
Translation: When a suspect is more than 21 feet from a police officer, the latter is in a relative safety zone.
However, if the suspect enters the “safe” zone of 6.4 m, then he is 1.5 seconds away from the police officer. I explained this rule in 2011 when a Montreal police officer shot another frantic man with a knife, also killing a bystander2.
The “tulle drill” quickly became gospel and was often interpreted to mean that a knife-armed suspect who comes within 21 feet of a police officer must be “incapacitated.”
That’s why North American law enforcement officers shoot people with knives, whether they’re criminal suspects or people in mental distress.
Two more context items before we continue.
First, it’s never “just a knife” to a cop, it’s a deadly weapon no matter who’s holding it, a thief who’s just robbed a supermarket, or a man in psychosis.
Then the police don’t fire a warning shot, they don’t shoot “in the legs”, they don’t shoot “to disarm”: if they shoot, it’s a matter of killing, by virtue of a risk they consider fatal to themselves or to others.
Jean René Junior Olivier was not a criminal. He was ill.
At 7:30am on August 1, 2021, Mr Olivier’s mother called 911, alarmed by her son’s behavior.
On Thursday, La Presse reported how the drama began: ” [Marie-Mireille Bence] informed the dispatcher [du 911] that his son didn’t sleep anymore, saw people who didn’t exist and had a knife he didn’t want to part with. The lady said she feared for her safety and that of her son. “3
Two police officers arrive at 7:45 am, then two more. The agents negotiate with Mr. Olivier and try to convince him to put his knife on the ground. A fifth agent arrives. He also negotiated with M. Olivier.
Jean René Junior Olivier, he puts his gun on the ground…
To pick it up again right away.
He repeats this trick several times.
The police are some distance away.
At 8 a.m., Jean René Junior Olivier takes his gun and rushes toward the police, who are about five meters away from him.
The police shoot. Mr. Olivier collapses a meter from the officers.
The police officers present immediately began resuscitation maneuvers on Mr. Olivier. Without success.
I quote the Director of Penal and Criminal Prosecutions (DPCP) who justified the decision not to press charges against the officers: “Each of the two police officers involved had reasonable grounds to believe that the violence used on the man was necessary for their protection was facing serious bodily harm or death and that using her firearm was the only way to end that threat. »
I stress here that the scene was filmed by a paramedic who turned the video over to the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI). The video confirms witness statements, according to the DPCP.
Jean René Junior Olivier was black.
And Repentigny police have often been accused of racial profiling. The anecdotes5 compiled paint a disturbing picture6 of the propensity of the Repentigny police force to arrest black people for racial profiling offences.
In this context, the death of Jean René Junior Olivier was equated with racism by the police officers who shot him, and this because of the tragic event.
I quote Pierre Richard Thomas7, President of an organization fighting against racial profiling, during a ceremony marking the death of Jean René Junior Olivier in 2022 in front of Repentigny town hall: “Junior’s death is a continuation of slavery and the slave system, based on racial superiority. »
The death of Jean René Olivier Junior is a tragedy.
But given the facts provided by the DPCP, given the testimonies collected by the BEI – testimonies supported by video – we are a long way from a summary execution motivated by racist Repentance police officers.
On the contrary, the police took the time to negotiate with Mr Olivier. They tried to reason with him for 15 minutes.
And at the end of those 15 minutes, Mr Olivier charged the police with his knife. It cost him his life.
Racial profiling exists, it’s statistical evidence. But to say that “Junior’s death is a legacy of slavery” was a hasty conclusion that has aged very, very badly.
If anti-racism activists have evidence that contradicts the findings of the BEI and DPCP in the case of Mr Olivier’s death, they will be asked to make it public. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I go back to the 21 foot rule. Its validity is disputed for several reasons. In a 2015 interview with The New York Times, Dennis Tueller claimed he simply wanted to signal police in 1983 that they could be in danger in front of a suspect much faster than they thought.
He never wanted to make it an absolute rule, like, as soon as the suspect is 20 feet away, guys, shoot. But it became such a rule as was taught in North America.
I would like to add that a scientific study9 found that the truly safe distance to confront an assailant armed with a knife is 32 feet…
Which is often impractical as a distance from an arrested person.
And in the UK, police are trained to intervene other than with guns when suspects are armed with a knife. Check out this CBC10 video of a suspect who was subdued by police while wielding a machete in 2016.
It was the philosophy behind police training that killed Jean René Junior Olivier, not racism.
If there are any questions to ask, it’s about this training.