Vancouver man's death renews Taser debate

July 24, 2004
ROBERT MATAS, Globe & Mail

Police defend their use as second person in two months dies after being shocked

VANCOUVER -- Robert Bagnell was an artist involved in what he described as the dark arts. He did tattoos with threatening dragons, sketches and oil paintings.

The 54-year old man, known on the street as Riff Raff, was also a drug addict. He told people he was dying from AIDS. He had red sores on his body, and would say he needed hard drugs to cope with the pain.

Mark Clermont saw Mr. Bagnell about an hour before a confrontation with police who tried to subdue him with a Taser high-voltage gun. The weapon fires 50,000 volts of electric current through two barbs for about five seconds. Mr. Bagnell died shortly after.

It was Mr. Bagnell's birthday.

"He seemed all right," Mr. Clermont said yesterday. "He had done a lot of drugs, but he was easygoing."

He died on June 23, police revealed yesterday, after the confrontation at the Continental Hotel, a city-owned residential hotel on the edge of downtown Vancouver where he lived. The residents are all over 40 years old and most of them are on government support or pensions. Some are mentally ill. The rent is $325 a month.

Mr. Bagnell had locked himself in the washroom across the hall from his fifth-floor room. Mr. Clermont said he heard that police found lots of blood smeared around the bathroom when they went in.

Details were sketchy yesterday about exactly what happened in the bathroom. Vancouver police spokeswoman Constable Sarah Bloor said patrol officers and emergency response team members had been called to the hotel to deal with a violent man. Mr. Bagnell was screaming and destroying bathroom fixtures.

An officer used the Taser gun to calm him down, she said. While being handcuffed and arrested, Mr. Bagnell stopped breathing. Emergency services were called in but could not revive him.

The cause of death has not yet been determined. Police waited a month before announcing the death so they could obtain the toxicology report, Constable Bloor said.

The report indicated that Mr. Bagnell's blood contained lethal levels of cocaine and other drugs, she said. Neither the coroner's service nor the police would make the toxicology report public yesterday.

Mr. Bagnell was the second person in Vancouver to die in the past two months after being subdued by the high-voltage gun. As well, 29-year-old boxer Jerry Knight died last week in a Mississauga, Ont., motel after police used a Taser during a violent confrontation.

The announcement of Mr. Bagnell's death reignited the debate over police use of the gun.

Vancouver police vigorously defend the use of the Taser as an effective, measured response to combative individuals. No coroner in North America has ever identified a shot from a Taser as a cause of death, Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham said at a news conference.

"We know that the Taser saves lives and reduces injuries. We also know it is safe and it works," he said, adding that the Taser gun is one of the most effective non-lethal tools ever used by police.

"When an officer is faced with deadly force or grievous bodily harm to himself or others, they really have only one option, the use of their gun," Chief Graham said. However, Tasers prevent incidents from escalating to the point where a gun may be required.

"By preventing that escalation, lives of suspects, police officers and innocent people are saved and the number of injuries are reduced," he said. Having a Taser means that police do not have to resort to deadly force when dealing with people who cannot think straight because of alcohol, drugs or mental illness.

The use of the Taser was endorsed yesterday as an alternative to fatal force by Fred Dawe, president of the British Columbia Schizophrenia Society and past president of the Canadian Schizophrenia Society, and Richard Dolman, a widely published advocate of proper treatment of the mentally ill.

"Taser gives police a non-lethal alternative to firearms when attempting to subdue a person," Mr. Dawe said.

The B.C. Schizophrenia Society has been urging police to use Tasers since 1999, Mr. Dolman said. "We could see the tremendous advantage it would have in avoiding death through the use of firearms in extreme circumstances."

This week, civil-rights lawyer Julian Falconer called for federal monitoring of the use of Tasers. Critics say the stun guns are overused and their safety questionable.

The police have few personal details about Mr. Bagnell. Chief Graham said he had not met with Mr. Bagnell's family, although some officers from the Vancouver Police Department had.

Residents of the Continental Hotel said they thought Mr. Bagnell was from Cape Breton or Newfoundland, but they were not sure. They said he supplemented his government cheque with "bottling" and dumpster diving. They did not know when he came to Vancouver or where his family lived.

Mr. Clermont questioned whether the police were trying to divert attention from the Taser by citing the results of the toxicology report. He said police told hotel residents that Mr. Bagnell died of an overdose, "but maybe it was a combination of things."

The Taser alone may not have caused his death, he said, but neither did the cocaine.