Was police use of a C-8 carbine here justified? Policing expert thinks so

A large gun — specifically, a C-8 carbine — was seen in the hands of a regional police officer responding to a call at the Kitchener encampment on Saturday. Waterloo Regional police said they were there because they had received reports of a firearm used in the area.

A part of the incident was recorded on video by a bystander. It raised questions from the community on whether such a large weapon was necessary.

"You can't take a knife to a gunfight," said Scott Blandford, a policing expert with 30 years in the field.

Blandford is an assistant professor and program coordinator for public safety and policing programs at Wilfrid Laurier University.

He said after looking at the video and considering the limited details, it seems police used a standard approach on Saturday.

In a statement, regional police said they were responding to reports of a firearm used during a disturbance in the area.

"Taking into consideration what's been happening not just in the 'States but in Canada recently with firearms incidents, there's been a couple of cases where police officers are basically outgunned, going to some of these. So the introduction of the C-8 carbine is perfectly appropriate for the situation."

"It was very intense," said James Davis, an encampment resident.

He said the police officer pointed the C-8 carbine at him for a brief moment.

It was out of the blue. I'll be honest, I was absolutely terrified... Within a blink of an eye... it was all of a sudden the cops taking us down for whatever reason."

Locate threat

Blandford said the first priority in a densely packed area like the encampment is to find out where the threat is located.

"Where do you evacuate people to, if you're not sure where the threat is? So that's what they were doing ... And as they're moving forward, they are probably telling people to move out of the way to to leave the area."

He said carbines are replacing shotguns that used to be carried by police.

"The problem with the shotgun is, it's a short-range weapon. I would say it's more dangerous than having a precision rifle ... So there's been a transition to those weapons over the past number of years, not just for emergency response units, but also for patrol officers," he said.

"In this situation, they had to advance a fair distance to get to. It looked like a tent that they were approaching. So if a threat were to present itself, a handgun would not be appropriate because it's it's beyond the accurate range of that weapon."

Police found no gun 

Encampment resident Shawn King said the treatment of encampment members by officers felt unfair.

"Everybody here was telling them in the very beginning that there was no guns here. And when they come and search and and find no guns, I think they kind of felt like a bunch of idiots."

He said it felt dehumanizing.

"The way they come in and handled things. It's just not right ... if it was a permanent building, they would have evacuated the whole building. But here, because there is a bunch of tents, I don't think they really cared... it's because we're homeless. It's not right."

The investigation found no firearm.