Police never mentioned using Taser on man who died, mother says

September 6, 2006
CBC News

The mother of a man who died following a struggle with Vancouver police in June 2004 has told a coroner's inquest she only learned that officers used a Taser on her son when she saw the story on television in P.E.I.

Robert Bagnell, 44, died in police custody after officers jolted him with a Taser and dragged him from the bathroom of a rooming house hotel in downtown Vancouver where he had barricaded himself.

Riki Bagnell told a Vancouver coroner's jury Wednesday that police never told her that a Taser had been used on her son.

Riki Bagnell, who travelled to B.C. from P.E.I. for this week's inquest, told the five-member jury on Wednesday that in the days following her son's death, police were helpful and even helped arrange to get her son's remains back to P.E.I.

But she says that in at least five conversations with police, no one mentioned that officers had used a Taser to subdue him.

She says she only learned that when her daughter called from Ontario and told her to turn on the TV.

Robert Bagnell, 44, had large amounts of cocaine in his system when he died, a pathologist testified on Tuesday.

Long history of drug abuse

Bagnell also told the inquest she wasn't surprised when she received the first phone call from police telling her that her son was dead. She said he had started using drugs at age 18, and he chose a lifestyle that was a "one-way street" that he could never come back from.

Post-mortem toxicology reports showed Bagnell had a large amount of cocaine, along with other illicit drugs, in his system. A pathologist told the inquest on Tuesday it was likely cocaine-induced psychosis and not the Taser that caused his cardiac arrest. The jury was also told that Bagnell had had open heart surgery several years before his death.

The Bagnell family has launched legal action against the Vancouver Police Department, the officers involved and the company that manfactures and distributes Taser stun guns.