Cocaine not stun gun killed man

June 7, 2006
By ELIZA BARLOW, EDMONTON SUN

A cocaine overdose -- not a police stun gun - is to blame for the death of a 33-year-old city man last Christmas Eve, a medical examiner has found.

Alesandro Fiacco died on the way to hospital after he was shocked with a stun gun by police trying to subdue him.

Witnesses to the bizarre Dec. 24, 2005, incident said Fiacco was behaving erratically and had wandered into traffic near 113 Street and 76 Avenue.

Police said officers made several attempts to bring Fiacco, who was unarmed, under control before the stun gun was used. A senior cop at the scene told the Sun that Fiacco was shocked four times.

Assistant chief medical examiner Dr. Bernard Bannach said yesterday that neither the stun gun nor a condition called excited delirium killed Fiacco.

Excited delirium - known to hit drug and alcohol abusers and some psychiatric patients - has been blamed for four city deaths since 2001 involving men who police had to subdue because of violent behaviour.

Bannach said the condition doesn't occur when the amount of cocaine in the body is at overdose levels.

"Although (Fiacco) may have been exhibiting symptoms of psychotic behaviour, it was the overdose that killed him."

An Amnesty International report earlier this year cited 156 deaths related to stun guns in the U.S. and 14 in Canada since April 2003, two of which were in Edmonton.

But Bannach said there's no convincing medical evidence that a stun gun has ever killed anyone.

He said even if the device malfunctioned and the person it was being used on was electrocuted, death would occur almost instantly.

"In the Fiacco case, he died at least 12 minutes after the last time he was shocked, if not longer."

Staff Sgt. Peter Ratcliff, president of the Edmonton Police Association, said the cop who used the stun gun on Fiacco will be relieved to hear the device didn't kill the man.

A fatality inquiry will be held in the case because Fiacco died in police custody. No date has been set.