When Toronto Suspect Said ‘Kill Me,’ an Officer Put Away His Gun

He pointed an object threateningly at Constable Ken Lam, the Toronto police officer who was the first to encounter him as he stepped outside of his rental van.

Lam pulled out his gun and commanded the man, 25-year-old Alek Minassian, identified by the police as the driver who had plowed down dozens of pedestrians on a busy Toronto street on Monday, to get down.

But before rushing toward him, or firing his gun, Lam did something else: He paused, walked briskly back to his car and turned off its blaring siren.

Policing experts cited that as the first sign not only of Lam’s calm-under-fire composure, but also, and more important, of the training he had in de-escalation tactics. There were many more.

“This is going to be a great training video in the future,” said Ronal Serpas, who led police departments in New Orleans and Nashville, Tennessee, and is now a professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. “It almost gives you chills how well he handled himself.”

The man who helped devise the police training in Toronto agreed.

“These are all the lessons we teach in our training,” said Mike Federico, a deputy chief of the Toronto police who retired last September after 45 years with the force. “This is a great visual.”

Lam is a traffic officer in the north end of Toronto and a seven-year veteran of the force, the local police union said. Each year, he would have received one day of de-escalation and mental health training, drafted under Federico’s supervision and put in place by the Toronto police in 2016.

The training was created partly in response to several high-profile confrontations between the Toronto police and civilians in crisis that ended in death.

Minassian drove the white Ryder van down Toronto’s main street, hitting pedestrians along a one-mile stretch. Ten people were killed and 14 were injured. On Tuesday, Minassian was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder. Another charge is expected.

After Minassian stopped the van, he was encountered by Lam. Video recordings of that high-stress confrontation, captured by a number of bystanders and stitched together by The New York Times, tell a story that can be dissected, step by step.

First, Lam turned off the siren blaring from his car. This immediately lowered the temperature, experts said, making it easier for him to communicate with the suspect. Also, by leaning into the car, the officer is indicating that he is not in a rush.

“It is about slowing things down, using time and distance to de-escalate the situation,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, which develops best policing practices. “The most important thing at a time like this is time and communications.”

Lam continues to shout, loudly but calmly, “Get down.” The suspect replies, “Kill me.”

“No, get down,” Lam repeats.

When the suspect yells that he has a gun in his pocket, Lam replies: “I don’t care. Get down.”

Learning how to handle situations like this — known as suicide-by-cop — is part of the training, Federico said.

“It’s clear the officer is listening and is not worried,” he said. “He’s not going to act out of fear. We train police officers to not in any way be provoked.”

Next, the video shows, Lam steps out and away from the cover of his car, indicating perhaps that he has assessed that the object in Minassian’s hand was not a gun.

Lam then issues his first warning: “Get down or you’ll get shot.” Throughout the encounter, the officer repeats the same simple command to get down. Yasmeen Krameddine, director of research and development at ProTraining, an Alberta, Canada, organization that trains police forces in how to de-escalate confrontations involving people with mental health illness, said that it might have been better if he had varied his language.

“We train officers to offer step-by-step instructions, and when they see a person is not responding to their commands, to use different words,” she said.

But, she added, “In this situation, there was no time for that.”

Lam then backs away from Minassian, who walks toward him, threatening object in hand. In response, the officer appears to replace his gun with a baton, visibly de-escalating the threat to Minassian.

Federico said the officer was applying his training, to weigh the necessity of force deemed reasonable and choose the option best for the situation.

“Sometimes officers put themselves in a position where they have no other choice but to use force,” said Denise Rodriguez, a Washington-based researcher with CNA Analysis Solutions who has spent years delving into how police departments in the United States use force.

Then, Lam confidently and slowly approaches the suspect with his baton in hand. By the time the officer reaches him, Minassian has dropped the object in his hand, raised his hands in surrender, turned and laid down on his stomach with his hands behind his back.

Lam doesn’t even use his baton. He merely handcuffs him.

“Clearly the guy driving the van was on the edge; he knows what he just did. But by the way the officer handled himself, he ends up becoming docile and submits to an arrest,” said Serpas, the former New Orleans police chief. “It was a great outcome in a horrible situation.”

The video, in Canada and the United States, might seem to be a rare one because of its ending. In both countries, bystander videos involving police interactions often go viral for the opposite reason — someone is killed. In Toronto, an amateur video that surfaced in 2013 captured the sounds of a police officer, James Forcillo, shooting an 18-year-old man wielding a knife. The officer’s first volley of three shots, which felled the suspect, was followed by six more, when the man was already on the ground.

Forcillo was found guilty of attempted murder for the second round of shots, and sentenced to six years in prison. He has appealed the verdict.

But many experts say the video of Lam and Minassian is more typical of high-stress encounters between police and civilians, ones that end without death.

“Most of the time, these examples don’t generate interest because they are not sensational,” Federico said.