March 11, 2010
See Edmonton
British prime minister William Gladstone famously said: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Gladstone may well have been speaking of the case of Randy Fryingpan, and Const. Mike Wasylyshen.
In October 2002, Const. Wasylyshen and four other officers were investigating a complaint of the attempted theft of a car. When they arrived on the scene, they found four people in the suspect vehicle.
Three of them left the car when ordered, but 16-year-old Fryingpan didn’t. He had passed out.
Wasylyshen unholstered his handy Taser and gave the unresponsive Fryingpan not one, not two, but EIGHT zaps in 68 seconds.
This is where Wasylyshen and Fryingpan entered the netherworld of complaints against police. Fryingpan registered a complaint, which was dismissed by the police when they arrived at the quite amazing conclusion that Wasylyshen was justified in Tasering an unresponsive man. Fryingpan’s lawyer appealed to the Law Enforcement Review Board in 2005. It took two more years before a decision was made to charge Wasylyshen with unlawful exercise of authority and insubordination. The internal disciplinary hearing on Wasylyshen will be held on Aug. 9 of this year.
Why the delay? According to Tony Simioni, head of the police union, if an appeal request is made, it must be heard, unlike a court of law where a judge decides if there is cause of hearing. This has resulted in cases dragging out for years.
This is absurd. No one — neither the alleged victim nor the accused cop — should have to wait eight years for a resolution.
March 10, 2010
The Canadian Press
VICTORIA, B.C. — The Victoria police department announced Wednesday that two of its officers face criminal assault charges, the same day an audit of the department recommended a review of use of force incidents.
The audit, released Wednesday and written by the provincial Police Services Division, found 13 officers out of about 260 were responsible for one-third of all the department's use-of-force reports.
"Overall, the use of force review reveals that the Victoria Police Department is a well-functioning department with appropriately trained and generally highly motivated individuals who take considerable pride in their job and the work they do for the community," said the review, requested by the solicitor general in January 2009.
It said there were no major areas of concern identified, but the authors did note "one key item of concern."
"It may be that these offices are conscientious about reporting any type of physical interaction or that these officers work in particularly challenging environments," said the audit, dated March 4.
"However, the audit team recommends that the department proactively identify the officers that generate a higher proportion of use of force reports and review these incidents to ensure that the high frequency of use of force is not highlighting any training or management issue that needs to be addressed."
Details of the assault charges against the two officers have not yet been released.
Despite the latest case of Victoria officers facing charges, the audit report, based on data from 2007 and 2008, said the department did not have a pattern of public complaints out of the ordinary compared to other B.C. police departments.
However, the report did find that Victoria police officers were more likely to use Tasers than pepper spray to subdue suspects - in 51 per cent of incidents involving intermediate weapons compared to 40 per cent for spray.
But it notes that things changed after Robert Dziekanski died in Vancouver's airport after he was shocked by an RCMP Taser. "It appears there was a strong effect in the aftermath of the death of Robert Dziekanski," noted the report. The use of force decreased 10 per cent after Dziekanski's October 2007 death, and the use of Tasers dropped 85 per cent.
The authors made dozens of recommendations, for both administration and the use of force, including that the department enact policies for ensuring all weapons are maintained in good working order, annual requalification for intermediate weapons such as Tasers, and that all use of force incidents be reviewed.
The report noted that the Victoria police department has hired a new chief of police, Jamie Graham, since the audit was ordered and the Police Services Division "observed improvement in various aspects of the department as a result."
Former solicitor general John van Dongen ordered the audit after the mayor of Esquimalt, which neighbours Victoria, raised concerns about the level of police service the community received after amalgamating with the Victoria department.
The Victoria department has faced several high-profile controversies in recent years, including a lawsuit by a 15-year-old girl who was left leashed to a cell door in the department's drunk tank for hours and charges against a veteran officer.
March 10, 2010
By FRANK MAIN, Chicago Sun-Times
... The announcement came just hours after the death of a man in the suburbs after he was Tasered by police. Jaesun Ingles, 31, of Riverdale, died after he was Tasered by Midlothian police outside a Dunkin’ Donuts in the south suburb early this morning. Ingles was pronounced dead at 12:31 a.m. at MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, the Cook County medical examiner's office said.
March 8, 2010
Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun
B.C. Police Complaints Commissioner Stan Lowe thinks a public hearing into a West Vancouver police officer's off-duty assault is needed to restore public confidence.
What planet is he living on? The police complaints process in this province is in a shambles.
It doesn't work, it has long been in need of reform and there isn't anyone who disagrees.
Lowe is a prime example of what's wrong with it.
He was appointed to this job after being a longtime prosecutor and the face of the criminal justice branch of the Attorney-General's Ministry.
He was the man who told the world that no charges would be laid in the death of Robert Dziekanski at YVR at the hands of four RCMP officers.
That distasteful December 2008 presentation, more than a year after the tragedy, was an affront to Dziekanski's family and to decency.
The attorney-general's office should be ashamed of its conduct in the case.
Lowe portrayed the Polish immigrant as a chronic alcoholic, the four officers as having done their duty and the investigation as above reproach. He said zapping Dziekanski five times with a Taser was "reasonable and necessary."
A week later, Lowe got his promotion to police complaints commissioner.
We now know Dziekanski wasn't a drunk, the four officers appear to have colluded with each other and to have lied. The glacial RCMP investigation was botched.
At the moment, the cops in this province play musical chairs with each other when police misconduct is alleged.
Abbotsford Chief Bob Rich, a former Vancouver cop, passes judgment on his former colleagues; when his boys are in trouble, well, he calls on someone like Delta Chief Jim Cessford to conduct an inquiry; and the RCMP, well, they've been acting like a law unto themselves.
It was Rich who decided the North Shore cop could keep his job with a demotion and 10-day suspension in spite of drunkenly beating a man on Jan. 21, 2009, while trying to wrongly arrest him.
That Lowe and his group of ex-cops are the oversight body is a $3-million-a-year joke. That is why the public has lost faith.
Lowe thinks a public hearing into the West Vancouver outrage will silence critics of the system and restore faith.
He couldn't be more wrong.
This problem isn't going away and another hearing won't solve anything. We have been wrestling with this problem now for years but the cops just don't seem to get it.
Most recently, a lawsuit was launched over two Vancouver officers who assaulted a man claiming it was a case of mistaken identity -- as if it were okay had they thumped the right guy.
Yao Wei Wu, 44, was dragged out of his house Jan. 21, 2010 and badly beaten, suffering fractures to his face and injuries to his legs and back. His eyes were swollen shut. His wife, Chi Nan Man, says she has suffered serious psychological trauma after witnessing the savage attack.
If you or I did the same thing, we would have been charged almost immediately.
These two thugs are still on the job and Delta police are taking their sweet time with the investigation.
What's worse, Lowe turned up at a press conference to stand beside Chief Jim Chu and defend this law-enforcement legerdemain.
The list of police misconduct in B.C. is already long and getting longer because the consequences for the officers involved is usually slight or non-existent.
That's why confidence in the system has evaporated and why some officers think they can get away with anything.
Faith in the police complaints process in B.C. will only be restored when cops and their insider friends like Lowe are not in control.
We don't need another hearing to tell us the police oversight system is broken; we need it fixed.
March 7, 2010
Jason Bennetto, Mail Online
The smartly dressed sales executive travelling on the number 96 bus across Leeds didn't notice his body descending into a state of severe hypoglycaemia.
He didn't have time to ask his fellow passengers for help, or press the bell. Instead he slumped back in his seat in a diabetic coma, his head lolling from side to side.
This was why he wore a special tag and chain around his neck: it advertised his diabetes. His mother and father, both retired GPs, had encouraged their son to wear it ever since he had started having to take insulin 20 years earlier.
Nicholas Gaubert had been looking forward to a drink with friends in the suburb of Headingley after work. Instead he was critically ill, unconscious on the top deck of a bus continuing its route north through the early evening rush-hour traffic.
Some 40 minutes later, it terminated at the Holt Park depot and the driver checked his vehicle. He was used to turfing drunks off the night bus at weekends, but it was Wednesday and the man apparently fast asleep on the top deck was far from dishevelled.
On another evening, the driver may have reacted differently, but the timing tonight was bad for Gaubert: just six days after the July 7, 2005 London bombings and one week before the fatal shooting of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by police firearms officers. Paranoia and suspicion, especially on public transport, were rife. And Gaubert had a rucksack.
So the driver kept his distance and shouted at him to wake up and leave. When Gaubert failed to stir, the driver climbed off the bus and told his superiors, who cleared the depot and called the police.
The nearby Asda supermarket was evacuated and an armed unit was called. Eight firearms officers were sent; three entered the bus. The white male didn't look like a textbook terrorist and the bus was empty and far from the city centre.
But he was sweating profusely, wouldn't respond to their shouted orders and they couldn't see his hands, so an officer pulled his X26 Taser stun gun out of its holster, flicked on the 50,000-volt electric gun's red dot laser sighter and pointed it at him. It was the first time a West Yorkshire officer had deployed a Taser.
The man was well within the 21ft range so, when he still failed to respond, the officer shouted a final warning and squeezed the trigger.
Two 20mm-long metal barbs attached to plastic-coated copper wires shot instantly and noiselessly from the barrel. The barbs penetrated Gaubert's cotton shirt and embedded themselves in his skin.
For five seconds there was a crackling noise as the electricity shot down the wires and discharged into his body. Gaubert's body went into uncontrollable muscle spasms and he fell from his seat.
He landed face down on the floor with one hand under his body. The police shouted again for him to show his hands but he still didn't move; so the officer pulled the trigger for a second time.
Another wave of electricity surged down the copper wires and tore into him. (At the subsequent inquiry, the officers would claim they had to stun Gaubert again to make sure it was safe to approach him).
Finally they got hold of him, put on handcuffs and put him into the back of a police van - which is when he regained consciousness and was able to shout that he needed urgent medical attention. He was taken to Leeds General Infirmary.
'I shudder to think what could have happened if I hadn't come round,' says Gaubert. 'They would have put me in a cell and I would probably have died. I was in a diabetic coma, and all they were bothered about was whether I was going to blow up an empty, stationary bus.
'I showed no aggression - I was unconscious and unable to respond to their demands. I think they just saw it as an opportunity to try out their toys.'
Gaubert has since become what is believed to be the first person in the UK to obtain compensation for being shot with a Taser.
West Yorkshire Police has confirmed that it made an out-of-court settlement - thought to be tens of thousands of pounds - and an apology, after a civil action brought against them.
No such apology was received by the 89-year-old war veteran who last year became the oldest person in the UK to be stunned with a Taser.
Three weeks before this incident, the retired carpenter had gone into a residential home for the elderly in Llandudno, North Wales. But the confused man, who has not been named, was determined to return to his family home, just a few minutes' walk away.
As the sun rose on a chilly Saturday morning in January he climbed out of a window at the care home and wandered the empty residential streets clutching a shard of glass. At 6.30am a police officer knocked him to the ground with a 50,000-volt Taser charge.
North Wales police later said their officers feared he would commit suicide using the broken glass. But the pensioner's sister-in-law told Live: 'He was frightened to death and was hiding behind cars. He told us that he held a piece of glass to his throat because he was afraid of the police - he wanted to keep them away.
'He said afterwards: "I would never have cut my throat." And that when he was hit by the Taser the pain was terrible.
'He fell to the floor and was handcuffed. It's awful that the police should end up shooting an old gentleman of his age.'
His daughter-in-law adds: 'They treated him like an animal. They should have talked him out of it. That's what they would have done in the past: talked to him, not shot him.' The family complained, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission backed the decision to use the Taser.
In most cases it is enough for an officer to draw the Taser out of its holster or to point the laser red dot at the offender to gain control.
On other occasions officers intimidate a target by switching on the electricity so the end of the weapon sparks - known as 'arcing'.
But Tasers were fired, or as police chiefs prefer to call it 'deployed', 1,765 times between April 2004 and June 2009. Stun gun officers have a less PC term for firing their weapon - they call it 'sparking up'.
Since being introduced in April 2004 Tasers have been used in more than 5,400 incidents in England and Wales.
The number of people being targeted is increasing all the time, and their use can now only rise further since the decision in 2008 by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to fund an extra 10,000 Taser guns.
Up to 30,000 front-line officers will be armed with the new weapons. Some forces will only let fully trained officers use them, but many will give them to officers after 18 hours' training.
Amnesty International says 334 people in the US died between 2001 and 2008 after the stun guns were used on them. Taser International, the Arizona-based manufacturer, dismisses these findings.
A spokesman claims: 'In only a couple of disputed cases has a Taser been listed as the "cause" of death.'
Nonetheless, Taser International issued guidelines last October warning police to avoid shooting a suspect in the chest 'where possible', and acknowledging the heart-attack risk from stun guns, although they still claim the danger is 'extremely low'.
But perhaps of greater concern than increased numbers of X26 guns is the expectation that the police will soon be armed with a new long-range model. The more powerful weapon can immobilise a suspect for 20 seconds from 100ft away and is being tested by Home Office scientists.
The eXtended Range Electronic Projectile (XREP), the size of a shotgun cartridge, is designed to pierce the target's skin and then deliver a 500-volt shock from its battery-powered circuits (the lesser voltage makes no difference to the pain and paralysing effect). Senior officers believe the XREP could be used in riots and other serious public order confrontations.
The Home Office says the new weapon is still under consideration, but a police source told Live: 'It is not a question of if, but when we get the go-ahead on this. This is an extremely useful bit of kit.'
The XREP round has three fins that pop out as it rotates through the air to increase its accuracy. It is fronted by four barbs designed to pierce clothing and skin, securing the projectile to the target's body. Six more electrodes fan out at point of impact, distributing the shock over a greater body area than the X26.
It can be fired from any 12-gauge shotgun, but Taser has developed a custom-designed shotgun, in conjunction with American firearms company Mossberg.
It uses 'ammunition key' technology to prevent accidentally using normal shotgun cartridges, and comes with a distinctive yellow stock and forearm. There is also a special mount that allows a Taser X26 to be attached to the underside of the barrel, so police could carry both weapons at the same time.
The possibility of this very different kind of Taser weapon coming into widespread use has provoked great concern among human rights organisations.
Oliver Sprague, the UK's Arms Programme Director of Amnesty International, says: 'Because it's a projectile weapon it's much more likely to cause injury and damage if it hits someone in the face or head.'
He adds: 'The key concern, however, is instead of Tasers being used in genuinely life-threatening cases, you start to see it creep into mainstream policing. It is disturbing to consider that a Taser could be in the hands of every police officer in a matter of years.'
'I'm walking down a long room in the dark. I know there's a violent thug lurking somewhere in the shadows; I've been warned. It's nerve-racking, even though I'm armed with a Taser.
'Suddenly a huge man wearing a motorcycle helmet leaps out in front of me. He starts slamming a baseball bat on the ground and shouting threats. My heart goes into overdrive.
'I manage to pull my stun gun out of its holster and turn it on, all without electrocuting myself. The red target dot is pointed at the centre of the hooligan's chest, and I shout a warning. I'm ignored. So I pull the trigger.
'What happens next reminds me of firing an old-fashioned spud gun; there is hardly any resistance or noise. The lightweight weapon looks and feels like an item from Lego's Star Wars range, but the comparisons with child's play end there.
'The metal prongs shoot out too fast to see. Amazingly, they are on target and lodge into my target's chest. For five seconds there's a crackling noise as the electricity flows and I yell 'Taser! Taser! Taser!'
The burst of 50,000 volts is automatically sent down the wires, but this shock can be repeated at the pull of the trigger. The Taser can also be held against a person and the electric charge activated. This is known by officers as a 'drive-stun'.
Because this is a Metropolitan Police Taser refresher training day in west London, my would-be assailant, who is now lying flat on his back, is heavily padded and wearing a protective vest.
Pulling the trigger felt like a no-brainer, but in real life most encounters involving Tasers are nowhere near as straightforward, and require officers to think fast under pressure.
Critics do acknowledge that, when used properly, the Taser provides the police with an invaluable addition to their arsenal.
The weapon has undoubtedly saved lives, prevented hundreds of serious injuries to both the police and suspects and reduced the number of times officers have had to open fire with more deadly conventional handguns and semi-automatic rifles. They have also proved an effective deterrent against violent offenders.
Sergeant Andy Harding is the Met's Territorial Support Group's lead Taser instructor and a national police stun gun adviser.
He says, 'A few years ago you would have had doors being splintered, hand-to-hand fighting, and people getting injured.
'The huge difference now is that you don't need to get up close and personal. People are aware of what a Taser can do and are terrified of the red dot.'
But while the Metropolitan Police's TSG public order unit has won plaudits from around the world for their Taser training and deployment, there is growing concern that other British police forces and squads are far less stringent when it comes to using the weapons.
National police guidelines state that a Taser should only be used in situations where an officer is 'facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves or the subject.'
There also appear to be alarming differences between police forces as to how guidelines are interpreted. You might think London's Metropolitan Police, as the biggest force in England and Wales, should logically be the 'Taser capital' of Britain. But the title goes to a force 250 miles north - Northumbria.
Despite having only 4,100 officers (compared with the Met's 32,600) Northumbria comes top of the Taser league table, having used a Taser 797 times from April 2004 to June 2009, compared with 751 by the Met.
Third place goes to West Yorkshire with 378. Comparisons with other forces further highlight this Taser postcode lottery. For example, in Merseyside, whose police force is slightly bigger than Northumbria, Tasers have only been used 80 times since April 2004.
And as Live has discovered, not only are they being used more often, but increasingly police forces are deploying them against children.
Records obtained using Freedom of Information requests show that the police in England and Wales fired or threaten to fire Tasers against at least 142 under-18s in the 20 months up to the end of August 2009.
The youngest case disclosed involved a 12-year-old boy who was threatened with a Taser after West Mercia police were called to a school in Kidderminster in February 2008. The boy had threatened staff with a pair of scissors. After officers with Tasers were deployed he surrendered his weapon and was arrested.
Northumbria officers used Tasers against under-18s 33 times, including stunning four 16-year-olds and a 15-year-old, in the 20 months up to August 2009.
This compares with 24 incidents in the Met during the same period. North Wales Police Tasered three 16-year-olds in the first eight months of 2009; the force will reveal only that the incidents involved boys 'threatening self harm'.
In another incident in North Wales in February 2008 an officer Tasered a 15 year-old boy who was smashing up furniture at his home in Gwynedd.
Experts warn against Taser use on children because of the risk of a heart attack. The Government advisory body, the Defence Scientific Advisory Council, notes 'children and adults of small stature [are] at potentially greater risk from the cardiac effects of Taser currents than normal adults of average or large statue.'
National police guidance stresses that officers should be 'vigilant' in considering whether to stun a child or small person.
But a Home Office spokeswoman counters: 'The latest statement from independent medical advisors states that the risk of death or serious injury from the use of Tasers is very low.'
America, by virtue of its numbers and longer experience, has the most extreme anecdotes about Tasers. One of the most disturbing incidents took place last November, after local police were called to a home in Ozark, near Little Rock, Arkansas, to investigate a reported domestic-disturbance.
According to the report by Sheriff Dustin Bradshaw, when he arrived, a ten-year-old girl was curled up on the floor and screaming.
The officer wrote in his official report: 'Her mother told me to "Tase" her if I needed to.' The officer tried to take the girl, who has emotional problems, into custody. But she was 'violently kicking and verbally combative' and kicked him in the groin.
So Sheriff Bradshaw delivered 'a very brief drive stun to her back,' his report said. The girl's father didn't approve of his daughter being shocked with 50,000 volts.
Anthony Medlock told a local newspaper: 'My daughter doesn't deserve to be Tasered.' No disciplinary action is to be taken against the officer after his boss defended his action.
Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne believes the UK should learn from the US experience of Tasers.
He says: 'Given the serious concerns about the safety of Tasers, which have killed more than 300 people in the US, they should not be used on children.
'Ministers should not be putting Tasers in the hands of any more police officers until they really know how dangerous they are. A full inquiry into their use must be conducted before they are rolled out any further.'
Not all forces agree with the decision to arm nonspecialist officers. Sussex Police and the Metropolitan Police are among those which are refusing to extend the use of Tasers to the rank and file. Northumbria Police, however, defends its use of the weapons.
Assistant Chief Constable Steve Ashman says, 'Far from endangering the public I would contest that such usage of this tool has resulted in less risk to the public and police officers alike.'
This positive view is not one shared by Nicholas Gaubert, who accused police of using him for 'target practice' when they stunned him twice while he was unconscious in a diabetic coma.
Gaubert's solicitor Ifti Manzoor is equally scathing: 'The question remains - why didn't it cross the police's mind that this man might be ill? Instead they opted to hit an innocent man with 50,000 volts. My client believes he is fortunate to still be alive.'
With increasing numbers of guns, the danger of them being used as a first resort and the potential arrival of a powerful new weapon, fears will only grow that too often the response appears to be to stun first, ask questions later.
See also: WWW.EXCITED-DELIRIUM.COM
March 6, 2010
Frank Luba, The Province
Since voluntarily changing the rules in 2008 around when Tasers are used, the transit police have used the conducted energy weapon just once.
The transit police had used Tasers a total of 10 times in 2007 and 2008, which resulted in a complaint from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association to the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner.
The transit police said Friday they have been exonerated in their use of the weapon in nine of the 10 instances, with the disciplinary authority asking for a review of the 10th incident.
The police also released a DVD of videos of the incidents taken by cameras on the Tasers or by cameras in the station where the incidents took place.
The BCCLA was surprised to hear about the exoneration of the police because the group hasn’t seen the decision.
Insp. David Hansen of the transit police said the police complaints commissioner’s report is still not complete but that the force intends to discuss it with the civil liberties group after the investigation is finished.
BCCLA executive director David Eby still wants improvements around the use of Tasers.
“There needs to be a [consistent] policy around when it’s used and how it’s reported,” said Eby.
He conceded the situation has improved, particularly after provincial Solicitor-General Kash Heed directed police, sheriffs and corrections officers in July to severely restrict the use of Tasers.
“It’s a much better situation than it was when transit police were Tasering people for fare evasion,” said Eby.
Heed was not available for comment Friday but a ministry source said the province is working with the federal government as part of ongoing negotiations to incorporate the Braidwood Commission’s recommendations about Tasers into RCMP policy and standards.
The transit police’s use of the Taser plunged after the force voluntarily changed the guidelines for using the weapon from suspects being “non-compliant” to “actively resistant.”
So instead of Tasering someone because they were fleeing after being asked for their ticket, as had happened previously, the last time transit police used the Taser was on an actively resistant suspect armed with a butcher knife.
The subject was later convicted of assaulting a transit police officer.
Despite the reduction, Hansen wouldn’t drop the weapon from his force’s armoury.
“It’s a valuable tool,” he said. “To us, it’s something we need. It’s another step. It’s a less-than-lethal option. I still feel there’s a need even though there’s only been one incident [since the guidelines changed].”
The complaints commissioner’s office did not respond to a request for an interview on Friday.
March 6, 2010
CBC News
Metro Vancouver's Transit Police Service on Friday released video of nine incidents in which its officers deployed Tasers in response to a CBC freedom of information request.
CBC originally requested videos of 10 incidents from 2007 and 2008 in which transit police used stun guns while making arrests.
According to police, an independent investigation by B.C.'s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has since concluded that in nine of the incidents, the person who was hit with the Taser either assaulted or actively resisted the officers before police used the stun gun. The commissioner's finding cleared the way for the police to release videos of those incidents, transit police Insp. David Hansen said.
One other case remained under investigation, so the video of that was not released.
Four of the incidents involved people who were initially stopped for fare evasion, but police say that in each of those cases, the person was resisting arrest or assaulting an officer before the Taser was deployed.
All of the incidents happened in 2007 or 2008, when police policy allowed officers to use stun guns when dealing with "non-compliant" individuals. They were recorded either by cameras on the weapons themselves or transit surveillance cameras.
Transit police policy has since been re-worded to restrict officers to using the stun guns only when dealing with someone who is "actively resistant."
Police also said that since the change, there has only been one incident in which transit officers used a Taser, and that case involved a man armed with a butcher knife.
Public scrutiny of the use of Tasers grew following the death in October 2007 of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being stunned several times by RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport.
March 4, 2010 - Roberto Olivo, 33, Tulare, California
One of the officers used a Taser ... Officers eventually gained control ... Before an ambulance arrived, Olivo began to lose consciousness and had difficulty breathing...
March 5, 2010
NZ TV
Nearly 700 Taser stun guns will be available to 3500 front line police throughout the country by August.
Operator training began in each police district this week and the Tasers will become available from later this month. By August 681 are expected to be available throughout the country.
The electronic stun guns will "not be carried on the hip as a matter of course, but will be readily available to frontline staff," police say.
The guns use a 50,000 volt electric current to stop people and are used in situations where previously police may have used firearms.
They were introduced in small numbers at the end of 2008 and police reported that targeted people were surrendering when the Taser was pointed at them.
The stun guns have been criticised as being able to cause physical harm and possibly death, but police say there have been no known side effects when used in New Zealand.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad says Tasers have been used in the Auckland, Waitemata, Counties Manukau and Wellington police districts for just over a year and 10 people had been tasered.
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"It's pretty clear that in several instances, the person could have been shot with a firearm if Tasers hadn't been available," Broad says on the police website.
He says Tasers are drawn 132 times and 92% of incidents are successfully resolved without them being discharged.
March 5, 2010
Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO -- A day after the San Francisco Police Commission rejected his proposal to arm officers with Tasers, Chief George Gascón said Thursday he is giving up his push for the devices that he billed as a possible alternative to the use of deadly force.
The commission voted 4-3 just before midnight Wednesday not to give Gascón the go-ahead to develop guidelines under which officers could use the electronic stun guns, which would have been a first step toward adopting Tasers.
Opponents pointed to studies suggesting that the devices can kill people with heart conditions or even those who are otherwise healthy, and were skeptical of police promises that officers' use of Tasers would be sharply restricted.
In an interview Thursday, Gascón said he was "extremely disappointed" by the vote and would no longer press the matter.
"The majority of the commission has spoken loud and clear on this issue - they don't want to address it," Gascón said. "So we're going to just back off from it for the time being."
Chief researched incidents
Gascón, who had cited a study finding that as many as a third of 15 officer-involved shootings in a five-year period in San Francisco could have been avoided with Tasers, added: "Hopefully, there will not be any unfortunate incidents."
The Taser proposal was the first major policy initiative that Gascón had brought before the commission, which hired him on a unanimous vote last year on the recommendation of Mayor Gavin Newsom. Some of the commissioners who voted against the plan made it clear they felt the chief had overstepped his authority by not letting the panel be involved in vetting his idea.
Commissioner Petra DeJesus, one of three panel members appointed by the Board of Supervisors, said she refused to be a "rubber stamp" for the Police Department and Gascón, whom she accused of trying to circumvent a full review on whether the devices were safe to use on suspects.
DeJesus and the other commissioners appointed by the supervisors, Vincent Pan and Jim Hammer, joined Newsom appointee Yvonne Lee in rejecting Tasers.
Three backers on panel
All three votes in favor were cast by Newsom's other appointees - panel President Joe Marshall and Commissioners Thomas Mazzucco and David Onek.
During Wednesday's five-hour meeting, Gascón cited research by the Police Executive Research Forum think tank that found that police departments that adopted Tasers had dramatically lower rates of shootings and injuries than other departments.
But the commission also heard from two UCSF cardiology professors whose study of 50 police departments in California found that officer-involved shootings and deaths of suspects actually spiked during the first year of Taser deployment.
Other critics noted that roughly 400 people in the United States have died since 2001 after being hit with Tasers.
Hammer - who had attended a news conference Gascón held last week to push for Tasers - said Wednesday night that the UCSF study data had changed his mind.
He said almost half the department's 2,000 officers have not yet undergone training for dealing with mentally ill suspects, who he said were more likely to resist police orders and thus be hit with Tasers. Until those officers are trained, he said, he won't "rush into" adopting Tasers.
'He is the CEO'
Marshall, the panel's president, said he was bewildered by the vote.
"We brought him in there," Marshall said of Gascón. "He is the CEO, he runs the organization. He should be given the opportunity to try things."
Police union President Gary Delagnes called the commission's vote "political correctness run amok. Four people on the Police Commission obviously think that they know more than the experts in the field, more than the police chief.
"The next time someone in the city is killed, and it could have been prevented because of a use of Taser, the blood is on their hands," Delagnes said.
Gascón has cautioned that Tasers could not be used in lieu of guns in all situations, but he said he could easily envision situations where officers would use a Taser if given the choice. He said the commission's vote eliminated that possibility.
"What we're saying, is, 'You know what? We would rather you use a firearm and forget about the possibility of having this other option,' " Gascón said.
"I don't believe the commission is doing this to send any kind of personal message to me," he said. "But I think they are sending a message to the public and the organization at large. I'm not really sure what that message is.
"In the meantime, we've still got officers encountering situations out there with a tool bag that lacks all the tools that are available today."
March 5, 2010
by Gennady Sheyner, Palo Alto Online
Palo Alto police officers will no longer be allowed to fire Tasers unless the person they use it against poses an immediate physical threat, police officials said this week.
The department has just finished revising its policy for Taser use, Police Chief Dennis Burns said. The revisions, which were several months in the making, establish stricter standards for when officers are allowed to use Tasers.
The department's current policy, which was adopted in 2007, relies on the vague "reasonableness" standard and allows officers to use only the force that "reasonably appears necessary, given the facts and circumstances perceived by the officer at the time of the event, to bring an incident under control."
But a recent court ruling and several controversial incidents on Taser use in Palo Alto prompted the department to raise the standards and clarify the policy.
The new policy specifies, "Absent exigent circumstances, the TASER X26 should only be used against persons who pose an immediate threat of bodily injuries."
The revised policy will be presented to the City Council in the coming weeks, police said.
Palo Alto police began using Tasers almost two-and-a-half years ago and have used or attempted to use them on 12 different suspects over that time period, according to a new report from Independent Police Auditor Michael Gennaco.
Most of these cases involved unruly and uncooperative suspects who attacked officers or refused to leave their vehicles. But Gennaco's newest report, released Wednesday night, also describes one case in which a Palo Alto officer mistakenly applied a Taser against an intoxicated man near a local nightclub. According to the report, the man had been trying to punch the bouncer at the nightclub when officers arrived and asked him to back away.
The man was allegedly swaying in place and mumbling, "What's the problem?" when an officer trained his Taser on him, the report states. The man allegedly moved his hands to his chest area, at which time the officer deployed the Taser.
The man fell to the ground and "failed to put his hands behind his back as ordered." The officer then deployed the Taser in "stun drive" mode against the man's leg, according to the report. The man was then taken to the hospital, received a medical check-up and was released for booking into jail, the report states.
Gennaco, who reviews every case of Taser deployment, said his review prompted him to conclude that this use of Taser "was a mistaken application of the current PAPD policy to the factual situation." After reviewing the reports and video footage of the incident, Gennaco said he believed that the man was "simply gesturing to his own chest while referring to his own experiences in the narrative" when he was shot with a Taser.
The second use of Taser was also questionable, Gennaco wrote, because it was "unclear whether the man had time to comply with commands after his fall to the ground."
Gennaco recommended that the officer who fired the Taser receive more training on Taser deployment and be "debriefed on his failure to give warnings in this case." The officer should also be warned that future questionable Taser uses would likely lead to a formal internal-affairs investigations and possible disciplinary action.
Gennaco has been working with the police department to clarify its Taser policy. The department also considered last December's ruling by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals against a Coronado, Calif., police officer who fired a Taser at a man after pulling him over for not wearing a seatbelt.
The court concluded that stunning a subject with a Taser is only justified when a suspect poses "an immediate threat to the officer or a member of the public."
Burns said the department had been in the process of revising the policy even before the federal court issued its ruling. He said he hopes the new guidelines will reduce instances of misapplied Taser use and clarify the standards for deployment.
"We want to give the officers more defined guidelines about where Taser use is appropriate," Burns said.
The giant south of the border awakens - slowly but surely ...
See an investigation into the potential health dangers of tasers on tonight's "Campbell Brown" on CNN tonight, 8 p.m. ET
By Dan Simon and David Fitzpatrick, CNN Special Investigations Unit
Watsonville, California (CNN) -- Sitting at the kitchen table in his small house, Steven Butler has trouble even with a very simple question. He cannot tell you the day of the week or the month, and he has to have the help of a calendar to tell you the year.
"Once a moment is gone, it's gone," said his brother and caregiver, David Butler says in an interview to air on tonight's "Campbell Brown". "He can't remember any good times, birthday parties, Christmas, any event."
On October 7, 2006, Steven Butler, by his own admission, was drunk and disorderly. He refused an order from a police officer in his hometown to get off a city bus. The officer used his Taser ECD (officially, an "Electronic Control Device") three times.
According to doctors, Butler suffered immediate cardiac arrest. He was revived by emergency medical technicians who happened to be close by, but his attorneys say his brain was deprived of oxygen for as long as 18 minutes. He is now permanently disabled.
Butler and his family have filed a lawsuit -- not against the police, but against the maker of the weapon, Taser International.
John Burton, a lawyer based in Pasadena, California, says he can prove that when the weapons are fired directly over the chest, they can cause and have caused cardiac arrest. In addition, Burton says he can prove Taser knew about that danger.
"Well, we can prove that by early 2006," said Burton, "but we suspect they had all the necessary data since 2005, since they were funding the study."
The study Burton mentions was published in early 2006 by the American College of Cardiology Foundation. Funded by Taser, it focused on pigs struck by Tasers, with the conclusions, according to the study, "generalized to humans."
The authors wrote that being hit by a Taser is unlikely to cause cardiac arrest, but nevertheless recommended Taser darts not be fired near the heart to "greatly reduce any concern for induction of ventricular arrhythmias."
Dr. Douglas Zipes, a cardiologist based outside Indianapolis, Indiana, plans to testify against Taser in any lawsuit regarding what happened to Butler. In plain English, he says, that recommendation is a clear warning.
"I think Taser has been disingenuous and certainly up to 2006 -- the case we are talking about -- Taser said in their educational materials that there was no cardiac risk whatsoever," Zipes said. "That Taser could not produce a heart problem, that there was no long lasting effect from Taser."
Medical experts say that if a person is hit by a Taser dart near the chest, one result is a dramatic increase in the subject's heartbeat -- from a resting 72 beats a minute to as many as 220 beats a minute for a short period of time. In its court filings, the company says the "peak-loaded" voltage from a Taser at impact ranges up to 40,000 volts but it's a 600-volt average for the duration of the firing.
In an e-mail, a spokesman for Taser said the company would not comment on any ongoing litigation. But in a court filing seeking to dismiss the Butler lawsuit, it said Taser devices "are repeatedly proven safe through testing, in human volunteers, in controlled, medically approved studies." There's no evidence, the company says, that being hit with a Taser causes cardiac arrest in humans.
But the company has significantly changed its recommendations for how Tasers should be used. Officers, it said, should no longer aim for the chest when using the device, instead targeting the arms, legs, buttocks.
Why the change?
A company document said "the answer has less to do with safety and more to do with effective risk management for law enforcement agencies."
In other words, say lawyers who have sued Taser, it means police are less likely to be sued if they avoid hitting subjects in the chest. In court papers, Taser says the risk of cardiac arrest is "extremely rare and would be rounded to near zero," but it adds: "However, law enforcement is left defending a lawsuit and disproving a negative, which is difficult to do."
"Out of one side of their mouth, they publish this warning, saying, 'Don't hit people in the chest if you can avoid it,'" said Dana Scruggs, an attorney representing Steven Butler. "And on the other side, in the lawsuit and in their public statements, they deny that their device can affect the human heart."
Nearly every big-city police department in the United States uses a Taser device. According to the company, more than 14,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide employ Tasers and more than 1.8 million people have had the weapon used on them since it was introduced into general law enforcement use in the 1990s. The human rights organization Amnesty International estimates more than 400 people have died as a result of Taser strikes.
Officially, it's not a gun. As an electronic control device, Tasers are not classified as a firearm. The devices are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
"There's one thing that's undeniable -- that if I use my firearm, the chances are that you will suffer extreme injuries or death," said George Gascon, the newly installed police chief in San Francisco, California. "The chances are much greater of reducing injuries with a Taser."
San Francisco is one of three big-city police departments in the United States that don't use Tasers (The others are Detroit, Michigan, and Memphis, Tennessee). Gascon wants to change that. He supports use of the device but says to call it "nonlethal" is inaccurate.
"We have referred to the Tasers for many years as a less-lethal weapon," he said. "In the San Francisco experience, which we have to concentrate on, I have not said once that this is a nonlethal device because I believe it can be a contributing factor in causing death."
Read: Chief's Taser proposal rejected in San Francisco
Taser International is growing. Its latest earnings report says the firm made more than $100 million in profits last year by selling Tasers to both law enforcement and to individual consumers. And the company says even more police and sheriff's departments are lining up to purchase the weapon every day.
The company argues in Steven Butler's case that simply being in a stressful situation with police can bring on heart problems, and there's no link between being being hit with a Taser and the cardiac arrest.
For Steven Butler, greeting the mailman now is a highlight of his day. He doesn't dispute that he was drunk and disorderly when the officer tried to get him off the bus, but he and his family blame Taser for what happened to him. He says he's not frustrated or angry, just resigned to spending the rest of his life trying to remember what happened.
March 4, 2010
Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News
OTTAWA — The Harper government is going ahead with a longstanding promise to create a new independent commission to keep an eye on the RCMP, committing money in this year's budget to establish a strengthened review body.
Without providing details on how the new commission will operate, the government said it would spend $8 million over the next two years on the organization, which it promised will "enhance independent review of RCMP actions."
The existing RCMP public complaints commission has been repeatedly decried as a toothless body that depends on the force's voluntary co-operation for its investigations and has no power to probe whether the force is overstepping its power involving national security and organized crime.
Several reports and advocates have called for the creation of a new oversight body and the government has often stated it was awaiting the pending inquiry report on the 1985 Air India bombing.
"The creation of a new civilian independent complaints commission for the RCMP will contribute to the overall reform and modernization efforts underway at the RCMP," the budget document said.
The Mounties have been under intense public scrutiny in recent years, arising from their use of Taser stun guns, their involvement in the Maher Arar affair, and a pension scandal that rocked the upper echelons of the force, prompting a major federal review and modernization drive.
In December 2006, the judge who led the inquiry into Arar's deportation to Syria from the United States, after the RCMP passed on faulty intelligence to the Americans, recommended that the RCMP public complaints commission be revamped and given the power to review all national security activities by the RCMP.
Arar, a Syrian-Canadian, was put on a plane and sent to Damascus after being arrested during a stopover at a New York airport.
Paul Kennedy, the former head of the RCMP public complaints commission, has said that a stronger review body should have access to all RCMP files and be empowered to subpoena documents and compel people to testify.
The budget also owns the door to the possible privatization of the RCMP's Forensic Laboratories Services.
March 4, 2010
By Andrew Wolfson, Courier-Journal
See also WLKY Investigates: Taser Use By Louisville Police - WLKY Analyzes 18 Months Of Stun Gun Incidents
See also Louisville Police Chief Defends Department's Taser Use - Robert White: 'We'll Continue To Use Them'
See also Judge finds jury misconduct in case on Taser-related death
March 4, 2010
San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Police Commission late Wednesday voted down a proposal by police Chief George Gascon to explore the use of Tasers by the department.
The 4-3 vote denying Gascon that option was accompanied by disagreement among some commissioners about what the agenda item they were voting on actually meant.
The item would authorize Gascon to develop changes to the police department's general order to include the use of conducted energy devices, widely known as Tasers, and to develop policies and training practices to go along with that order.
While Gascon and some commissioners said this merely meant giving him permission to draft a Taser policy that would then later have to be approved by the commission at a future hearing, Commissioner Petra DeJesus, who said she opposes the introduction of Tasers, described it as "vague and ambiguous."
"It's putting Tasers in, it's putting them in tonight," she said.
Commissioner David Onek disagreed.
"We are not voting to approve Tasers tonight," Onek said. He said the vote was to ask the chief to draft a policy about Tasers "and to bring it back to us, where then we would vote for it, or not vote for it."
Onek said he would only approve Taser use for the department under a "very, very, very restrictive" policy introduced by Gascon.
"I think that he deserves the deference to come up with a plan," Onek said.
An apparently exasperated Gascon acknowledged that the agenda item could have been written more clearly, and said he could have begun drafting a Taser policy before bringing it to the commission, but did not do so "out of an abundance of caution."
Gascon added that it was well within the commission's ability to amend the item, but no amendment was offered.
In the end, commissioners Joe Marshall, Thomas Mazzucco and Onek voted for the proposal, and commissioners DeJesus, Vincent Pan, Yvonne Lee and Jim Hammer voted against.
Hammer, who was widely regarded as the swing vote on the commission and who attended a news conference held by Gascon last week in support of Tasers, said tonight, "I remain in favor of changing our use of force policy. I remain in favor of adding something to that, and that may be Tasers."
But the issue needed a "full vetting," Hammer said.
"I will not rush into this tonight," he said.
The commission gave nearly five hours of debate to the issue Wednesday night - mainly from advocates warning of the potential dangers of Taser use - and another several hours two weeks ago, where testimony centered on arguments for their implementation.
The devices, which deliver a powerful electric shock, rendering a person temporarily without muscle control, are controversial. They have been implicated as a contributing factor in some deaths and serious injuries during arrests by police. Opponents also say they are unregulated by any governmental agency.
Gascon has said Tasers represent a "less lethal" addition to the department's arsenal that would decrease the number of injuries and fatalities for both officers and suspects. He has also said that his officers would receive "very in-depth, Fourth Amendment training" on their use, and they would only be employed against aggressive, violent suspects.
Hammer expressed particular concern about the rights of mentally ill suspects who engage in violent encounters with police. Encounters with armed suspects intending to commit "suicide-by-cop" often end with officers defending themselves with a firearm and killing the suspects, police say. In some of those cases, Tasers would present a potentially non-lethal option, they argue.
Hammer did allow room for an "incredibly limited policy that could walk that fine line between reducing deaths and injuries, and not intentionally killing people who don't deserve to die."
Many of Wednesday night's speakers opposed to Tasers also argued community and civil rights groups, as well as mental health advocates, had not been part of the discussion leading up to the vote.
"If we vote this down tonight, then the policy dies," Mazzucco cautioned his fellow commissioners before the vote.
It remained unclear following the vote whether Taser use by the San Francisco Police Department could be revisited in the near future.
"I don't know," said Gascon as he left the hearing room.
March 4, 2010
KCBS
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The San Francisco Police Commission has voted not to allow police officers in the city to have Tasers. In a hearing late Wednesday night, the commission struck down the proposal by a 4-3 vote.
The proposal was backed by San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon and several officer groups, including the Police Officers Association.
Gascon had called for the commission to allow for the use of Tasers, saying it could help save lives.
Gascon called for a study of officer-involved shootings in the city and it found that a third of the 15 incidents over a five-year period might have been avoided had officers been equipped with tasers.
The commission heard from both sides during Wednesday’s hearing, including from members of the American Civil Liberties Union and UCSF researcher Zian Tseng, who cited a major increase in deaths during the first year use of Tasers in California.
Tseng could not say if Tasers played a role in those deaths.
San Francisco, Detroit and Memphis are the only big U.S. police departments who do not use Tasers.
March 4, 2010
Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
Researchers and experts warned the San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday about the lethal risk of Tasers and urged the panel either to strongly limit or reject their use in dealing with unruly suspects.
The seven-member panel, which had already heard a number of experts speak in favor of Tasers as a way to reduce deaths and injuries, was expected to vote late Wednesday on whether to draw up a policy for their use by the San Francisco Police Department.
But Zian Tseng, a UCSF researcher, cited a sixfold increase in deaths in custody during the first year of their use in 50 Taser-fielding agencies surveyed in California. He could not say if Tasers had a role in any of those deaths. Tseng also noted that officer-involved shootings went up as well, but those shootings and in-custody deaths dropped back to previous levels following the first year of Taser use.
"There is a risk, but there's a smart way of using the Tasers," he said. He cautioned that officers should not fire at the chest or multiple times and that they need to keep heart defibrillators at hand to revive suspects. Dr. Byron Lee, a UCSF cardiology professor, warned against "usage creep" by officers, who are more inclined to use a Taser as they see how easily the device stops suspects. "That's where the risk happens, where you don't realize these are potentially lethal and they are used in a haphazard manner."
Most cities use Tasers
San Francisco is one of only a few major cities in the United States whose officers are not equipped with the weapons, which incapacitate suspects by stunning them with an electrical charge.
The seven-member commission, made up of four mayoral appointments and three members appointed by the Board of Supervisors, was considering Chief George Gascón's request to equip officers with Tasers. On Feb. 17, the panel decided unanimously to delay a decision so it could study Taser research after voting 4-3 against moving forward immediately.
After becoming chief in July, Gascón commissioned a study of officer-involved shootings in San Francisco over five years that found that as many as one-third could have been avoided had police been able to use Tasers.
Critics, however, cite studies that indicate a possible connection between the stun guns and the risk of sudden heart attack in people hit with them. They note that manufacturer Taser International warned police last year not to fire the devices at suspects' chests, after one of the company's scientific advisers concluded that at least one fatal heart attack in an otherwise healthy person had been caused by the device.
John Burton, a lawyer who won a $5 million judgment against Taser International in the case of a man who died after being Tased by a police officer in Salinas, urged the commissions to reject Tasers as "very dangerous" and largely untested and unregulated.
"Departments are relying on training and representations of the manufacturer, which has a built-in conflict of interest," he said, adding that Taser had "covered up a real health risk."
Burton said the company has known since 2005 that the devices could stop the hearts of animals and, later, humans, but failed to warn officers until late last year about not firing at the chest and against multiple uses.
"This is a company that simply refuses to sell its product with advice about how it could be used most safely" he said, adding that the "hidden dangers" outweigh the utility of the device.
ACLU weighs in
Kelli Evans, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, urged the panel to reject the proposal as ill conceived and premature. "The first step is to back up," Evans said. "You've got the cart before the horse."
She said the department should first reach out to community groups, particularly mental health experts, before the matter goes to the commission.
"What needs to happen is a community dialogue - does this really make sense in San Francisco right now?" she said, suggesting that the community distrusts the police and the department's use-of-force tracking.
Evans said Memphis has developed an alternative to using Tasers, creating a mental health response team rather than use the device on mentally ill suspects. She said that if the city does deploy Tasers, it is "important not to do it carte blanche."
But 38-year SFPD veteran Vince Repetto, who joined a contingent of officers waiting to speak in favor of Tasers, said before the meeting that the Taser proposal is literally "a life-or-death decision."
"It's not if, but when, a Taser is used to stop a knife-wielding suspect and a life is saved," he said. "Then you will see the results of your decision. Let us hope that same suspect is not shot dead because an officer lacked a valuable option to deadly force."
Roughly 400 people in the United States have died since 2001 after being hit with stun guns, but Taser and its proponents, including Gascón, say most had existing heart conditions or had been using drugs.
An important vote
It appeared the Police Commission's decision could hang on the vote of commissioner Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco prosecutor who was among the majority voting against immediately drawing up a policy Feb. 17. He said then that he supported a delay so fellow commissioners could ponder the issue.
Hammer signaled before the meeting Wednesday that he supported giving Tasers to officers, but only if rules are put in place restricting their use to extreme circumstances.
March 3, 2010
Mercury News Editorial
The decision not to indict the San Jose police officers involved in the videotaped beating of college student Phuong Ho last September was no surprise. But the vehemence of District Attorney Dolores Carr's defense of the officers Wednesday was unexpected and disappointing.
Carr went out of her way to discredit Ho, noting he had been in trouble once before — a fact irrelevant to this case — and pointing out that the city's police manual nowhere says officers should use the lowest level of force necessary to subdue a suspect. The clear implication was that police conduct in this case not only was legal but acceptable.
It was not. Now it's up to Police Chief Rob Davis to make that clear.
What happened to Ho may not have been a crime; the law gives wide latitude to officers subduing suspects. But it was wrong. Davis implied as much when he saw the video last year, calling it "deeply disturbing." He said at the time that officers were supposed to use the "lowest amount of force" needed to make an arrest.
In fact, while two use-of-force experts Carr's office consulted on the Ho incident said the officers committed no crime, a third concluded that they had used excessive force.
On Wednesday, Davis said he couldn't discuss the case because his internal affairs unit is investigating whether the officers violated department policies. But he said the police manual, while not explicitly requiring the lowest level of force, makes it clear that the force used must be reasonable. Officers' training, he said, also makes that plain. But officers themselves seem less certain of the policy.
Police were called to Ho's apartment Sept. 3 after he got into an altercation with a roommate. The beating happened in a hallway, when Ho tried to follow officers into his room. They said he resisted arrest; he said he dropped his glasses and bent over to pick them up when the beating and Tasing began. A roommate captured it all in a cell phone video, which is online at www.mercurynews.com.
At a time when community groups were already raising questions about police conduct, the video struck a nerve, particularly with some Asian-Americans upset by the earlier police shooting of a mentally ill Vietnamese man who had attacked officers.
The Mercury News' Sean Webby has reported extensively on an unusual San Jose pattern of arrests for resisting arrest when no other major charge is involved — indicating that minor incidents seem to escalate to physical confrontation. When defendants fight the charge, it is often dropped or reduced. Charges against Ho were dropped last month, when Carr's office decided no jury seeing the beating video would convict him.
The video makes Ho's case unusual. Without it, he might well have been convicted and deported. But it presents an opportunity for Davis to clarify his expectations of officers when force must be used. We hope he does that when the internal investigation is complete.
Ho's beating may look fine to the district attorney, but it's not conduct that San Jose residents expect from their often-exemplary police department.
See also the Utopia Pictures TAZED website.
March 3, 2010
Lesley Ciarula Taylor, Toronto Star
A Vancouver film company plans to start shooting in June for their $1.5 million movie on the life and death of Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died after being Tasered at Vancouver Airport.
“As Canadian writers, we tend to shy away from really important stories,” said Laurence Keane, the director and writer of the film Tazed.
As a story consultant, Keane has read and analyzed Canadian movie scripts. “A lot of the stuff was entertaining and that’s fine, but they didn’t strike me as being very important.”
“As a real story” the death of Dziekanski on Oct. 14, 2007, “is far more fascinating than anything I could ever imagine.”
Dziekanski, who spoke no English, spent 12 hours wandering in confusion around the airport while his mother, Zofia Cisowski, waited outside and then returned home to Kamloops. He was shot with Tasers five times by RCMP officers 24 seconds after they encountered him, an incident filmed by passenger Paul Pritchard. A two-year inquiry harshly criticized the RCMP, including “considerable and significant discrepancies in the detail and accuracy of the recollection of the event.”
Tazed will take a “non-linear” approach to Dziekanski’s story, said producer Elvira Lount who, with Keane, runs Utopia Pictures.
“It will be a drama based totally on the public record,” said Lount. The only documentary footage will be Pritchard’s video. Cisowski has been “very supportive” of the project.
Telefilm Canada has already financed script drafts. Lount and Keane are hopeful they will also help fund the film, which will include a cast of about 50 actors.
“How could this happen in Canada? Why did it happen? That’s what intrigues me,” said Keane. “As I compiled information and wrote the script, I had a little sticky on my computer with the word, ‘why.’ Everything relates to that.”
Uptopia Films “tends to get involved in social issue films,” said Lount. The story of Robert Dziekanski is one that, “in a security conscious age, people think, “This could happen to me.’ It has a universal resonance.”
As well as Tazed and three other films in development, the company has four feature films in distribution.
March 1, 2010
Canadian Press/Toronto Sun
VANCOUVER — The final report from the public inquiry into Robert Dziekanski’s death won’t be released until at least June.
Commissioner Thomas Braidwood has been compiling his report since the inquiry wrapped up last October, and has agreed to hand it over to British Columbia’s attorney general by May 31.
It will be up to the provincial government to decide when to make the report public, but a commission spokesman notes the report from the first phase of the inquiry took about a month to release.
Braidwood has been examining what happened the night Dziekanski was confronted by four RCMP officers at Vancouver’s airport in October 2007, when he was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and died.
An earlier series of hearings examined Taser use in B.C., with Braidwood’s report from that phase concluding that Tasers can kill and recommending restrictions on their use.
Braidwood’s report won’t be the final chapter however, because Dziekanski’s mother is suing over his death and the American company that makes Tasers has launched a lawsuit challenging the findings in Braidwood’s first report.
February 25, 2010
CARY CASTAGNA, Edmonton Sun
Despite public concern about stun guns sending out more electrical current than specified by the manufacturer, Edmonton police say that most of their small percentage of defective Tasers have registered below-tolerance readings.
And the few deemed to be above tolerance were still within safe parameters, said Const. Olena Fedorovich, of the Edmonton Police Service officer safety unit.
“There’s an assumption that they’re above tolerance. They’re not. They’re below most of the time,” she told the Edmonton Sun.
“There have been a few where either their pulse rate or main phase was slightly above manufacturer’s specifications — but they’re still considered safe.”
Chief Mike Boyd told the Edmonton Police Commission last week that 23 conducted energy weapons (CEWs) were pulled from service in 2009 because they failed independent testing. That amounted to about 6% of the EPS’s stock last year.
Statistics on how many were under or above tolerance weren’t available.
But an April 2009 report made public by the Ottawa-area engineering firm that tests them, MPB Technologies Inc., shows that out of 175 Edmonton police CEWs tested, six were under tolerance, five were above and five others were both under and above.
The under-above results occur because five aspects are tested on each CEW: pulse duration, pulse rate, main phase net charge, main phase peak current and main phase peak voltage.
Of the 23 CEWs taken out of service last year, 17 were returned to Taser International to be replaced under warranty.
The remaining six are being stored for at least two years pending complaints and investigations, according to an EPS report.
The EPS plans to buy 15 new CEWs from Taser International this year at a cost of about $23,000, giving the service a total of 431, said Fedorovich.
Each CEW, including a holster, costs about $1,500 plus GST, Fedorovich added.
“It’s not a cheap program,” she said. “This is a very expensive and important program. We don’t take it lightly and we don’t take our training lightly.”
Fedorovich admitted that some officers have some apprehension about using CEWs stemming from recent controversy.
“The hassle of being questioned regarding your use of force is very stressful,” she explained. “But we do not have droves of members turning in their Tasers. That is not happening. Members are still carrying their Tasers and they’re still using their Tasers.
“It is a very valuable weapon and our operators recognize that. They also have a heightened understanding of the liability and accountability associated to it.”
CEWs are tested every 12 months, as dictated by the Alberta solicitor general. In addition, each EPS stun gun is subject to maintenance up to four times a year, Fedorovich said.
February 25, 2010
Gabrielle Giroday, Winnipeg Free Press
WINNIPEG — For the second time in under a week, police have lost another stun gun cartridge in the city.
The public warning came Thursday after a District 3 member carrying a Taser lost the cartridge overnight.
Last weekend, police reported another stun gun cartridge missing after an officer dropped it. Both cartridges were lost in the north-west corner of the city.
"Our Officer Safety Unit is aware of the loss and it is being taken seriously. We are investigating the circumstances surrounding the loss of the cartridge and attempting to locate the equipment," said a prepared statement by the police.
Police said the lost cartridge poses a risk because it could build up static energy if placed in someone's pocket and then discharge probes.
February 25, 2010
Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star
OTTAWA–Get out of the car with your hands up. You're on candid camera.
Liberal senators recommended this week that individual Mounties be equipped with miniature, uniform-mounted video cameras to enhance "transparency" in the problem-plagued force.
Now, the Star has learned that at least 20 police departments and detachments across Canada are already using the devices.
The RCMP says officers in detachments in Kelowna, B.C., and Moncton, N.B., (Codiac region) have been fitted with the uniform-mounted cameras as part of a pilot project that is also testing Taser-mounted cameras, made by Arizona-based Taser International.
The six-month pilot project was launched in January using VIDMICs, the trademarked name of a body-worn video and audio-recording device, said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Greg Cox.
Magdy Rafla, of MD Charlton Co. Ltd., the Canadian sales representative for VIDMIC, said the device has also been bought by several Canadian municipal forces, military police and private security firms.
Rafla said the device, which costs $850, has been used by nightclub "bouncers" and "they love it."
In all, Rafla estimates 225 devices are in use, and if the RCMP testing approves them for wider distribution to its members, the force has told the company it would acquire them for all Mounties – in what would be a huge contract for the Victoria-based company.
"(The RCMP) are trying 10 of them right now across Canada. Once they go ahead, they'll be for every RCMP officer. ... That's the plan," Rafla said in a telephone interview from Victoria.
Rafla said other buyers include police forces in Provost, Alta., St. Albert, Alta., and Merritt, B.C., as well as the Department of National Defence. His client list also includes B.C. Ferries, Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital security services and some fire departments.
Taser International produces the Taser Cam, and a different ear-mounted video recording system, known as Axon, which looks like a Bluetooth device. That device can record 12 hours of video – in other words, a police officer's shift. But right now, the Axon contract requires the data to be downloaded to a central data storage facility in the U.S., said Rafla.
Using authorized software, the video/audio devices can be downloaded in a police cruiser onto a laptop, or onto a police department computer. It cannot be transmitted wirelessly. Individual police departments set their own guidelines.
Rafla said the very act of cautioning a suspect that "you're being recorded" gives an advantage that works both ways.
February 25, 2010
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón challenged the city's Police Commission on Wednesday to approve Tasers, saying it was inexcusable and "negligent" to deny officers a less-lethal means of dealing with dangerous suspects.
San Francisco is one of the few major U.S. cities that does not arm its officers with the stun guns. Last week, the commission balked at Gascón's proposal to develop a protocol for equipping officers with the devices, with four of the seven members rejecting the idea and the entire panel agreeing to reconsider the matter next Wednesday.
The department has touted an internal study that found that one-third of officer-involved shootings over five years might have been avoided with stun guns. But some commissioners voiced concern about the safety of Tasers, and others said they needed time to review research about suspects who have died after being stunned with the devices.
Gascón, saying he had received numerous supportive phone calls and e-mails after the proposal stalled, summoned three members of the commission to a news conference Wednesday to make his case.
"This is the right tool, at the right time," Gascón said. "It is not a perfect tool. ... It is not nonlethal. We understand that occasionally, the Taser has been found to be a contributing factor in the death of someone during an altercation with police."
But he said in many of those cases, "you have people who are extremely fragile. People who probably, if you were to ask them to run around the block, they would probably suffer cardiac arrest.
"So it's somewhat disingenuous to simply say that Tasers caused this," he said.
Gascón noted that in 2009, 107 officer injuries cost the city an estimated $2.25 million in workers compensation. He said equipping officers with Tasers would reduce the number of injuries, save some suspects' lives and save the city money it now spends on litigation over shootings.
"This is a very critical issue for this community - and we need this community to speak out and speak out loud and clearly on this issue," Gascón said. "It is unexcusable, it's negligent for us not to have the ability to equip our police officers with Tasers."
He said the department will develop a "thoughtful policy" on the devices that will allow officers to use them only when dealing with aggressive, combative suspects.
Three police commissioners, Joe Marshall, Jim Hammer and Thomas Mazzucco, attended the news conference.
Hammer's presence was especially significant, because he voted against the Taser proposal last week. On Wednesday, he said he supported giving Tasers to officers and had voted against the proposal only to give other commissioners time to think it over.
"I do support the chief moving forward with this," Hammer said. He said the chief should come to the panel with "a careful, smart" deployment policy within 60 days, not the 90 days called for in the commission resolution that failed last week.
February 24, 2010
Globe and Mail
A group of Liberal senators opened a can of worms this week when they recommended that RCMP officers be outfitted with video cameras that record their every move while on duty. The recommendation was one of a number aimed at improving the public image of the Mounties. Some of the recommendations are worth considering, but this one isn't.
The technology in question is being pushed aggressively in the United States by the company that developed it: Taser International. That name alone will raise eyebrows. Taser, famous for manufacturing the stun guns involved in the deaths of several suspects at the hands of police officers, has a clearly stated goal: to protect officers' reputations from harm. Its "Axon personal video recorder" does this by sitting in an officer's ear like a Bluetooth headset and recording to a miniature portable computer everything he or she sees and hears. "Destroy the lie" is the Axon's motto; in other words, protect an arresting officer from false charges of abuse, or from unfair allegations of firing his or her weapon unduly, by recording the actions of an alleged suspect. The suspect's rights are not at issue here, it should be noted.
The problem is that the cameras are on all the time, not just during an arrest. Every person an officer looks at and listens to will be caught on videotape, making this a wholesale intrusion into the public's right to privacy. Trampling on that ever-diminishing right in order to protect a police officer's "honour," as Taser International puts it, is a completely unacceptable trade-off.
Furthermore, where are these recordings going? Who has access to them? In the U.S., the recordings are stored on a website owned by Taser International and sold to law enforcement agencies, lawyers and courts. The commercialization of police evidence is an intolerable notion in our justice system.
Yes, the RCMP has problems that need to be dealt with, and there are many potential solutions that could be brought forward. But a quantum leap into a world of constant video surveillance by roving police officers is not one of them. We want our Mounties to be humans, not robocops; wearing such a device would diminish the trust between citizens and their police, not increase it.
February 23, 2010
NADIA MOHARIB, Calgary Sun
Liberal Senator Colin Kenny says RCMP need to use Tasers appropriately, and perhaps more judiciously, or risk losing them.
He said there are examples of Mounties quick to rely on stun guns as first choice and should that continue, public opinion may sway to political pressure to disarm officers of the valuable tools.
“With someone lazy or indifferent, a Taser becomes a substitute for waiting someone out,” he told a Sun editorial board Tuesday.
“Time is on their side, to talk someone out of a situation is always the best solution.”
Kenny was in Calgary Tuesday to talk about a report by him and several fellow senators calling on an independent review of the RCMP, saying it needs stronger oversight, more members recruited and a hike in visible minority and women officers.
Earlier this month, RCMP brass said it plans an overhaul of its Taser policy — an announcement made on the heels of recommendations from inquiries following the death of Robert Dziekanski.
Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died in 2007 after being hit with an RCMP Taser at the Vancouver airport.
A video of the confrontation showing a confused, sweaty Dziekanski repeatedly hit, was seen by millions of people, triggering public outrage and a questions about the use of stun guns.
Kenny said that and others cases where Tasers are used inappropriately threaten public support for the use of force option.
“If you are (using a Taser) for convenience or a sadist, sooner or later ... the only tool left is a handgun,” he said.
“The absence of accountable leadership causes misuse of the tool ... They’re going to take it away.
And that would not be in the best interest of public safety, he said.
“It means someone gets shot with a bullet rather than getting shocked with a conducted emergency device,” Kenny said
RCMP need more oversight on Taser use, adequate training, and should put them in the hands of only those “mature” enough to use them and more defined rules of engagement to dictate when its use is the best option, he said.
Arming New Zealand police with tasers has been hailed as a success, but there is a secret attached to the gun that police aren't happy to share.
Unbeknown to many people, each taser has a camera underneath the handgrip that films the gun being used on offenders.
Steve Tuttle, Vice President of Communications at Taser International, says the footage "helps communities understand what police officers face in the field."
However, New Zealand is unlikely to ever see the footage shot here as police bosses won't release it, suggesting to ONE News that the Taser use should be given positive coverage instead.
The Taser was shown in use in August 2006 when the weapon was unveiled, but that was in strictly controlled conditions and used on police staff with medical staff on stand-by.
In 2008 police installed the Taser-cam saying that it would "assist with accountability" and reassure people the Taser was safe.
When police Tasered a man after a car chase in Auckland in March 2009, ONE News asked police to release the footage under the Official Information Act. Police refused the request, saying that the offender had a right to privacy despite ONE News' assurance that the offender's identity would be concealed.
Tuttle disagrees, saying that "if there's something that controversial, I don't see why law agencies wouldn't want to show that... we did create that Taser-cam to be viewed."
And Green Party MP Keith Locke is questioning what the police have got to hide.
"They've got these cameras on these Tasers, they should let us see the footage," says Locke.
The Taser will be in police hands throughout the country by the end of August.
Watch it HERE.
CBC - Doc Zone
Ten years ago, the Taser® was hailed as the defining breakthrough in modern policing – a weapon that would allow police to subdue “even the largest and scariest people on the planet” without engaging in violent confrontation … a 21st century weapon that would temporarily incapacitate 100% of the time, but never kill.
‘Non-lethal’ declared the company’s promotional material in 1999. The company’s word was enough. Police departments embraced the new and promising technology.
A decade later, more than 400 people have died in North America ‘proximal to Taser use.’ That is raising doubts about those early claims. Human Rights groups clamor for more independent research into the weapon and national standards for its use. Newspaper editorials demand the kind of testing that they say was not done those ten years ago. Today the Taser is described as ‘less-lethal’ and capable of causing of injury.
There have been other setbacks for the Taser. In Canada, three public inquiries have been called into its use. One has already declared the Taser capable of causing serious injury and even death but, paradoxically, also declared society safer with the weapon in use than without it.
The other two inquiries will report in 2010. But will those inquiries make a difference? In the ten years since Tasers were introduced, the weapon has made its way into police departments in almost 45 countries – some 15,000 forces worldwide. Taser International, the weapon’s American manufacturer, boasts that it is the force option most used by police. Each and every day, some 500 people are tasered.
And its use is spreading. In 43 U.S. states, civilians can buy a Taser in retail stores or at sales parties in their own homes.
Tasered takes a comprehensive look at the Taser after ten years. The documentary examines the Taser from within a major Canadian metropolitan police department – the Calgary Police Service (CPS). They have been using Tasers for more than 4 years. And they’ve been keeping what are arguably among the most comprehensive ‘use of force’ statistics in North America since they adopted its use.
We tell the story through the CPS Use-of-Force Officer, Acting Inspector Chris Butler, an internationally recognized expert. Butler is a Master Taser® Instructor, certified by Taser International. He has even published on the topic. He is thoughtful and reasoned. He defends the Taser but is not blind to potential problems. Problems, he says, that can largely be avoided with proper training.
We follow CPS Recruit Class 185 as it undergoes that training. We are there as these soon-to-be officers learn to fire their Tasers – it takes less than an hour. We watch as they line up for what has become a rite of passage in many police forces: to be tasered voluntarily in the back just to experience how it feels.
We show how the probes leave the weapon and embed into a target’s skin. But the slow motion images reveal something else – the little-known, police accountability features built into the weapons: AFIDs – small confetti-like tags – that immediately identify who fired the weapon and the built-in electronic data port that shows how often.
That how often could be the difference between life and death says San Francisco cardiologist and electro-physiologist Dr. Zian Tseng. Tseng says any healthy person can die from even the minimum 5-second jolt of a conducted energy weapon if the shock is directed at the chest and occurs at the most vulnerable point in a heartbeat. But he cautions that prolonged shocking carries significant additional risk because it leads to a buildup of lactic acid that can cause heart failure.
Dr. Christine Hall begs to differ. ‘Excited Delirium’, not the Taser, is the likely explanation for death after tasering. Hall is Canada’s foremost expert on the condition, often cited by coroners and medical examiners to account for deaths for which there is no obvious cause. Many more doctors dismiss it as a convenient excuse for Taser International to explain deaths after tasering.
Dr. Michael Webster is among the skeptics. The police psychologist and former cop is critical of the company that manufactures the weapon. Webster says the company’s propaganda has led to the tasering of sick old men in their hospital beds, jaywalkers and drunks. We will show an abundance of examples of police tasering individuals for traffic violations, for disrespect or simply to save time while making an arrest.
And we visit a Taser Party where the weapons are sold like so much Tupperware. Leigh and Tim McCoy have been selling consumer Tasers in the Atlanta, Georgia area for almost two years now. Taser International says the C2 Model has the same power as the police X-26 with a few important differences. It’s designed to deliver a full 30-second jolt and is capable of being cycled for a full 25 minutes.
That worries Jared Feuer of Amnesty International, USA. Describing the Taser as a “potentially deadly device”, the human rights group’s spokesman also calls the weapon a “potentially perfect domestic abuse tool” because it leaves no marks or scarring. Amnesty International has been lobbying for national standards for Taser use and to stop the selling of the civilian version.
In 2009, a new generation of Taser weaponry® was introduced. The company claims that the devices are safer, pack less of a jolt and self-adjust the current to the lowest effective levels and that the probes diffuse more of the electricity on the skin, not in the muscle tissue.
As of yet no independent testing of these statements is planned.
Tasered is produced, directed and written by Lynn Raineault for CBC’s DOC ZONE. Executive Producers are Matt Gillespie and Joe Novak.
February 20, 2010
CBC News
A piece of Taser equipment fell off an officer's police vest Friday night, and is lost somewhere in northwest Winnipeg. The item, described as a cartridge inside a pouch, is not the electric stun gun's firing unit but does contain the device's probe wires. "The Winnipeg Police Service would like to advise that the cartridge could pose a risk of harm to the public," police said in a media release issued Saturday. "If the cartridge was to be picked up by an unsuspecting person and carried in a pocket, a build-up of static energy could activate the cartridge, causing the probes to be propelled." The release did not say when the officer noticed the cartridge had fallen off, but said police are still looking for it.
"Gary Delagnes, head of the Police Officers Association, said Thursday that he is worried that anti-Taser groups will gather their forces and pack the seven-member commission's meeting March 3. Wednesday night, he said, may have been the chief's best chance to get the panel to agree to Tasers."
February 19, 2010
Lance Iversen, San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Police Commission heard hours of testimony Wednesday night about the many benefits -- with a little about the drawbacks -- of Tasers. In the end, the panel decided to wait at least two weeks before deciding whether to start the process of arming officers with the stun guns.
Chief George Gascón called the delay "unconscionable," given what he called the clear benefits both to officers and suspects of giving police an alternative to firearms.
Commissioner Yvonne Lee said she simply wanted more time for the chief to ask the community about the wisdom of adopting Tasers. Two other commissioners, Petra DeJesus and Vincent Pan, said they needed time to look at studies about the risks involved. Besides, Pan said, he felt "blindsided" that the item had been added to the commission's agenda over a holiday weekend.
Gascón wanted to know what specifically he should ask the community and what could be gleaned from reviewing the studies in two weeks.
Commissioner James Hammer, who appeared to be inclined to equip officers with Tasers, nonetheless voted to delay the issue. He said that if Lee needed two weeks, that was fine by him. Besides, he said, everyone could use the time to consider all the issues.
Gary Delagnes, head of the Police Officers Association, said Thursday that he is worried that anti-Taser groups will gather their forces and pack the seven-member commission's meeting March 3. Wednesday night, he said, may have been the chief's best chance to get the panel to agree to Tasers.
Gascón's puzzlement showed. "I think we're quite frankly doing a disservice to ourselves by continuing to play that process-driven game," he told the commission.
February 19, 2010
LUKE HENDRY, THE INTELLIGENCER
The lawyer for retired boxer Shawn O'Sullivan says his client is "a fine guy" who will get a strong defence in court.
Lawyer Bill Reid told The Intelligencer he is reluctant to comment in detail on the case given its early stage. "We're going to, I would say, proceed cautiously," Reid told The Intelligencer.
O'Sullivan was charged last November with mischief and assault after a west-end scuffle during what he called an attempt to recover his championship rings. The rings were stolen from his Belleville home in 2007.
Police responded and have confirmed they used a Taser-like device on O'Sullivan, whom they said was combative, shows signs of intoxication and resisted officers physically.
O'Sullivan, whose symptoms of being "punch-drunk" from his career leave him with occasionally slurred speech, has said he did not resist. He has claimed he tried to talk to officers and was still trying to co-operate as they Tasered him. He also alleges he was beaten.
The case first came before Belleville court Feb. 11.
Reid said he has received disclosure of the Crown's case against his client, a former Olympic boxing silver medallist and two-time World Cup champion now living in Belleville, but wants more information. "I've asked for some details from the Crown and we're going to have a further discussion on this coming in March," Reid said Wednesday from his Toronto office.
O'Sullivan, who last week carried the Olympic torch in North Vancouver, said he respects the justice system and understands the case must run its course. "That's our system and you've got to abide by it," said O'Sullivan.
Like O'Sullivan, Reid comes from Toronto's Irish community. He attended school with Shawn's brother, Brian O'Sullivan, and said he has known the boxer since before the latter gained his national profile as an athlete. Reid has spent most of his 26- year career in criminal litigation, taking cases ranging from high-profile murder trials to shoplifting. He was a Crown prosecutor in the Greater Toronto Area during the 1990s. He also teaches law and has defended other professional athletes, though he declined to name clients.
O'Sullivan first made public his allegation of police brutality during a January television interview about his career and life afterward. A deluge of media attention and public controversy followed his initial interviews with Global News and The Intelligencer.
The sudden interest in the case was overwhelming, O'Sullivan said. It was just like winning a world title again -- the amount of media it was getting," he said.
But he added he and Reid had yet to discuss the case at length and he, therefore, had little to add, especially given the earlier wide publication of his account. "I know what happened," he said.
Reid, meanwhile, said it isn't his usual style to draw a spotlight onto cases. "I don't think this is the kind of case to take into the media," Reid said. "I don't think Shawn likes these things to be, necessarily, public. I think it's good to deal with them discreetly and see what happens.
"Shawn is a fine guy," Reid said. "He's already said something in the media. I wouldn't purport to say it any better than that. I think it says a lot.
"Let me put it this way: I think it has a ring of truth to it, and we'll see how it stands up."
"His whole family has been supportive through this," he added.
Reid said he would defend O'Sullivan "vigorously."
He said he'll review that information and do further research before commenting in any depth. Reid said his approach to the case will be determined largely by the Crown's intentions. He would not comment on any potential plea O'Sullivan might enter. "At this point truly all his options are open," he said.
O'Sullivan has said he plans to file an official complaint against police. That has not happened yet, but Reid and O'Sullivan said it remains a possibility.
"That will have its day," said O'Sullivan.
But for now, said Reid, he'll await further details from the Crown.
"Let's see what the other side says."
O'Sullivan's pre-trial hearing -- a meeting between a judge, the Crown attorney and defence -- is scheduled for March 11 in Belleville before Justice Stephen Hunter.
