Court asked to force Taser death inquest

August 10, 2005
JONATHAN WOODWARD, Globe & Mail

VANCOUVER -- More than a year after a man died after being shocked with a Taser-brand stun gun by Vancouver police, his family is asking the B.C. Supreme Court to force a coroner's inquest into his death.

Patti Gillman said she wants to see for herself reports describing why her brother Robert Bagnell died, and she wants the police to finish their investigation.

"We want closure," she said. "We want to be able to see what happened the night my brother died. That's been really hard on us.

"The legal costs are rising with all of the delays that have occurred in the last several months. I don't know how much longer we can afford to wait without any results."

Mr. Bagnell died on June 23, 2004, high on cocaine and barricaded in a bathroom on the fifth floor of a Granville Street hotel.

While trying to remove him, two officers shocked the struggling 54-year-old twice with the 50,000-volt device. His heart stopped.

At the time, the man's family was told he died of a cocaine overdose. A month later, police told them of the stun gun's use, and seven weeks after the death, police said the situation was "urgent" because there was a fire in the building.

In the petition, Ms. Gillman's lawyer, Cameron Ward, claims that the Coroners Service has neglected or refused to schedule an inquest.

Chief Coroner Terry Smith said a coroner's inquest is mandatory when there is a death in police custody, but it can't begin during an investigation that could lead to criminal charges.

"If these things are being concurrently evaluated, it makes obvious good sense to hold the criminal stuff first so as not to taint it by holding an inquest prematurely."

On Aug. 5, 2004, the police complaint commissioner ordered an investigation by the Victoria police department into stun gun use and into the death.

They released recommendations on stun gun use on June 14, but the investigation into Mr. Bagnell's death has been extended three times from its original Feb. 5 deadline. It's now set to finish Sept. 15.

On top of that, the Crown has requested more information from the police departments to assess whether any police officers should be criminally charged.

That investigation has no time limit.

"If that was all completed, we'd move right now," Mr. Smith said.

"[Mr. Bagnell's family's] efforts would be better focused on letting these processes finish rather than filing petitions in court. I don't think it's particularly productive."

Coroner's inquests are fact-finding hearings that neither assign blame nor lay criminal charges, but rather determine the circumstances of a death.

Mr. Ward said it's time for a coroner's inquest.

He said he wants to look at documents related to Mr. Bagnell's death to investigate the family's questions.

"We've got to look at the results of the autopsy and consult experts . . . to try and determine what it all means," he said. "The family has been completely in the dark for the last 14 months."

In North America, 147 people have died since 1999 after being struck with a stun gun.

"We need a moratorium on taser use until we can figure out what is killing these people," Ms. Gillman said. "I feel for those families as well if they're going through anything we've gone through over the past year. I hope they have some idea of what they're in for."