Fantino gets taser issue revived

December 17, 2004
Catherine Porter, The Toronto Star

The Toronto Police Services Board will reconsider arming more officers with stun guns after a top forensics expert insisted Tasers can save lives.

Ontario's Deputy Chief Coroner James Cairns told board members that Tasers are typically used to subdue delirious people who could die if not taken to hospital and treated.

Without access to Tasers, police are forced to use guns, as people in such a state are almost superhuman and impervious to pepper spray and clubbing with batons, Cairns said.

"There is evidence that the Taser has definitely saved lives," Cairns told the board, which only last month voted against equipping about 500 more officers with stun guns until further medical research is done.

Board member Alok Mukherjee said he had been "almost convinced" to change his vote on the stun guns, and the board unanimously decideed to readdress the issue again next month, rather than in the spring.

"We all want to save lives," Mukherjee said.

Three months before he's being forced to leave his command, Fantino said he was so shocked by the board's decision on Tasers last month that he was raising the issue again and had asked Cairns to address the board.

"I do not want to have the unnecessary death of a mentally ill or emotionally disturbed person on my conscience," Fantino said. "Nor do I want one of our police officers to have to live with the knowledge that he or she had to kill someone whose life could have been saved."

The Toronto Police Service currently has 24 Tasers, limited to the tactical and emergency-response units. Fantino has requested the board buy 539 more for his front-line supervisors, at a $1.1 million price tag.

The guns are used by police forces across North America to disable aggressive people by shocking them with a current of up to 50,000 volts.

Cairns dismissed Amnesty International Canada's contention that the stun guns have precipitated the deaths of nine Canadians over the past year and a half.

Going one by one through each fatal case, Cairns said they all had been caused by cocaine overdoses. Although the subjects had been shocked with a Taser, the weapon didn't cause the deaths, he said. All nine would have died anyway, he maintained, and in two cases they were almost saved by Tasers, as police could quickly get them to hospital.

"Tasers give a person an electrical shock. People who die from an electrical shock do so immediately," he said, adding that in all cases the victims died hours after being hit with a Taser.
Cairns' report will go to the city's medical officer of health, who has been asked to report back to the board in January. If approved then, Fantino said he was sure he could find $1.1 million in next year's already tight police budget proposal.