Jeff Nagel - BC Local News Published: July 23, 2009 2:13 PM
Tough restrictions on the use of Tasers by police in B.C. are being recommended by former Justice Thomas Braidwood.But the head of the public inquiry into the use of the stun guns rejected calls for a complete moratorium on police Taser use."Our society is better off with these weapons in use than without them," Braidwood said Thursday.
"It's less lethal than firearms. Sometimes just producing it is enough."
The inquiry had been launched after the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, who was tasered five times by RCMP officers at at Vancouver International Airport in 2007.Braidwood handed down 19 recommendations into the use of Tasers.Key among them is that police not simply taser suspects who are "actively resistant" but only those who are causing or are about to cause bodily harm."It would embarrass me as a Canadian," Braidwood said, to see an officer Taser a suspect "for merely walking or running away."Tasers should be used only in truly criminal incidents, he added, not to stop fare evaders – as has been done by Transit Police.Taser use should only happen if no lesser force option would be effective, he added, and if crisis de-escalation techniques prove ineffective.The decision to continue to allow restricted Taser use comes despite Braidwood's finding that the stun guns can kill by causing heart failure.
"The risk of serious injury or death increases if the weapon is deployed across the chest of the subject, or is deployed against medically vulnerable people or is deployed multiple times against a subject," he said. Tasering a mentally disturbed person is "in most cases the worst possible response," he added.
Among the recommendations:
• Tasers not be fired for more than five seconds in most cases.
• Officers carrying them should also have an external heart defibrillator.
• Crisis intervention techniques must be used before tasering emotionally disturbed people.
• Paramedics should be called when tasering those at high medical risk, including the elderly, pregnant women, and emotionally disturbed people.
• The province set B.C.-wide standards for conducted energy weapon use, training and reporting.
Braidwood took direct aim at the provincial government for allowing various forces in B.C. to develop a "patchwork" of policies on Taser use. "It has been left to each police department," he said. "The provincial government has abdicated its responsibility to establish province-wide standards." Police forces relied too heavily on the claims and training materials of manufacturer Taser International, he ruled.Improved procedures are critical to rebuilding confidence in police, he said."The most important weapon in the arsenal of the police force is public support," Braidwood said.His findings apply only to municipal police, sheriffs and corrections officers, although it's expected the RCMP would voluntarily comply and Braidwood recommended compliance be a pre-condition for renewing the RCMP contract in 2012.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association had called for a complete moratorium on Taser use pending rigorous independent studies into possible health risks.
Braidwood's separate inquiry into Dziekanski's death is to resume submissions in the fall.B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed said the province will accept all the recommendations.
"We have this higher threshold in place as of one o'clock today," he said, adding he expects all law enforcement agencies, including the RCMP, to follow the regulations.
"These recommendations will take us further in preventing this kind of tragic incident from happening again," Heed said, referring to the death of Dziekanski.
The province previously pulled older model Tasers that weren't delivering the correct jolt and all Tasers in B.C. will be subject to ongoing testing, he said.
Tasers had been fired 1,400 times in B.C. as of 2007, eight years after their use here was first allowed.
The full 556-page report can be found at www.braidwoodinquiry.ca.
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