No recommendations from Taser death inquiry

May 25, 2007
Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun

An inquest jury that spent 10 days hearing evidence about the 2004 death of a Vancouver man who was zapped by a police Taser made no recommendations today.

The five-man jury concluded Robert Wayne Bagnell died on June 23, 2004 of a "restraint-associated cardiac arrest" due to acute cocaine intoxication and psychosis.

Bagnell's mother, Riki Bagnell of Prince Edward Island, and his sister, Patti Gillman of Ontario, were disappointed by the lack of recommendations, considering much of the testimony focused on the police use of Tasers.

Gillman said she hoped the inquest jury would recommend police shouldn't investigate themselves when an officer is involved in a fatal incident.

"They should move to the SIU [Special Investigation Unit] model in Ontario," said the Ontario resident.

Riki Bagnell agreed, saying she had discussed the issue with the mother of Ian Bush, the 22-year-old millworker from Houston, B.C., who was fatally shot by an officer in 2005, which is currently being probed by another inquest jury.

"We're certainly in solidarity with the Bush family," she said.

Gillman also hoped the jury would recommend Amnesty International's call for a moratorium on the use of Tasers until independent research can be conducted on risk factors that have led to so many deaths.

She pointed out 267 people have died after they were zapped with Tasers in North America.

"My brother was No. 58," she said. "There have been 51 deaths since the September adjournment of this inquest."

Gillman and her mother, who attended the inquest, had hoped the inquest jury also would heed their urging for the coroner to provide funding for families to pay a lawyer to represent their interests at an inquest.

Gillman credited Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward for working tirelessly on the case. The inquest would've only lasted a few days without Ward asking tough questions, she said.

She pointed out Taser International, which makes the Taser weapon, had two lawyers attending the inquest. Gillman said she was impressed by the testimony of Alan Nakatsu of ETL Semko, the Coquitlam lab that tested the two Tasers used on her brother.

"He testified one Taser was producing two and a half times [the electrical output] the manufacturer's specifications and the other one was 84 times more than spec," Gillman said.

Robert Wayne Bagnell, 44, died after receiving two electrical shocks from Tasers by Vancouver police, who tried to arrest him after receiving a 911 call about a man rampaging in a common washroom of the Continental Hotel on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, where Bagnell lived.

He had locked himself in the bathroom and was smashing things before police arrived. Police stayed outside the washroom, waiting for him to calm down, but a fire began on the ground floor and smoke began filling the building. A Taser-equipped emergency response team was called in. Bagnell was zapped by two separate Tasers, which incapacitate a person by discharging 50,000 volts of electricity.

The inquest heard that Bagnell's heart was enlarged to one-and-a-half times normal size, an indication of a chronic cocaine use. He also had undergone open-heart surgery to repair a heart valve.

A toxicologist testified Bagnell's blood sample results were 4.2 milligrams of cocaine per litre of blood. The minimum lethal level is one mg per litre if cocaine is injected or smoked as crack cocaine, but 10 times that if snorted.

The probable cause of death was a "restraint-associated cardiac arrest due to acute cocaine intoxication," Dr. Laurel Gray, a pathologist, testified at the inquest.

She said it was unlikely Taser use would've contributed to his death. The Vancouver police department stated earlier that Tasers are an effective tool to save lives and prevent injuries during dangerous encounters.

The Taser is designed as a non-lethal weapon designed to subdue people. The pistol-shaped device uses compressed nitrogen to propel a pair of electrically-charged barbs.