Victim's wife, daughter testify at Taser inquest

November 14, 2006
CBC News

The widow of a 41-year-old Surrey man who died in RCMP custody last year said officers did nothing to try to calm her husband down before using a Taser gun on him.

Harjit Sundhu told a coroner's inquest on Tuesday that police shot her husband, Gurmit Singh Sundhu, four times in the chest with the Taser, pepper sprayed him and that one officer even kicked him while he was lying on his bathroom floor.

She testified that her husband had been a gentle man, but admitted his behaviour had begun to change before the incident, and that his daughter suspected he had been using cocaine before his death on June 30, 2005.

She told the five-person jury that her husband had woken up in a panic at about 3 a.m. and was having trouble breathing.

Sundhu said she called for an ambulance, but it was the Surrey RCMP who showed up instead.

She said her husband had begun to calm down — until the officers began to arrive at their home.

The victim's 17-year-old daughter, Natasha, testified her father said he was seeing snakes and rats shortly before police arrived and Tasered him.

The father of four became unresponsive while being taken into custody. Efforts were made to revive him, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at Surrey Memorial Hospital.