My submission to the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security

Here is what I said to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in Ottawa (Canada) on April 16, 2008:

Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the committee.

I'm relieved to be here today. For me and my family, this is an extremely important destination in what has been a very, very long journey.

As I'm sure you know, my brother, Robert Bagnell, died on June 23, 2004, moments after he was tasered by Vancouver police. Two days after his death, the Vancouver Police Department contacted my family to inform us that Bob died of an apparent drug overdose.

I know you won't be able to answer these questions, but my questions have always been as follows: If using tasers on my brother was the right thing to do, would the police not have disclosed the fact of their use immediately? Would they have concealed the fact that they used tasers, for an entire four weeks, before announcing to the media, not to us, that they used tasers the night my brother died? Would they have waited a further three weeks before coming up with a burning building from which Bob needed to be rescued?

No, I believe the police knew immediately that the force they used on my brother was excessive. They needed those seven weeks to pull together a plausible explanation to justify their use of the weapon whose manufacturer had aggressively marketed it to them, misleading them into believing that the taser could cause no harm.

More than two years after Bob died, a coroner's inquest was finally convened in September 2006. The inquest, in our opinion, was about saving the taser, not about the changes that might be made to prevent similar deaths in the future. No one, least of all the lawyer for the police and the two lawyers who had standing at the inquest for Taser International, was prepared to conceive of the possibility that the taser may not be the perfect weapon, that there may even exist the possibility that the taser could cause or in some way contribute to death.

We learned some interesting facts at the inquest. We learned that the four ERT members who were in physical contact with Bob when he stopped breathing delivered their mostly identical statements to investigators 17 days after the incident, after seeking legal advice. We learned from the advanced life support staff who attended to Bob right after he stopped breathing that every muscle in his body was spasmed. They said they had only ever seen that in rigor mortis, which they normally would not see until hours later.

We learned that it was possible that Bob had less than half the lethal amount of narcotics in his system, not nearly enough in and of themselves to kill him. We learned that the data download feature on both tasers that were used on Bob conveniently failed, so that the number, duration, and mode of uses were impossible to verify. We learned that police attended the autopsy. The pathologist testified that the cause of death was partly determined by information she was given. The cause of several taser-like marks on Bob's body were inconclusive and the pathologist was unable to determine whether Bob's heart underwent any electrical arrhythmia.

That's the thing about death that occurs after tasering. Even Dr. Butt testified recently to this committee that very uncommonly is there specific pathology with the taser. And I don't begin to understand the science behind the taser or how it affects the human body.

Coroners and medical examiners often choose to mention a condition they call “excited delirium” as the cause of death. They are influenced by Taser International to specifically not mention the taser. The manufacturer's aggressive approach against coroners and medical examiners explains why relatively few deaths have been found to be caused by tasers. Both so-called excited delirium and the taser are undetectable on autopsy, and therefore unprovable. However, as a friend of mine says, “Excited delirium doesn't sue coroners, Taser International does.” So drugs, psychosis, and excited delirium take the blame for these deaths despite the lack of any evidence to show that the taser did not cause or contribute to them in any way.

Tasers have not been safety-tested in this country, and nobody knows whether individual weapons match the manufacturer's specifications. The only truly independent testing I am aware of is what was done on the two tasers that were used on my brother the night he died. One of those two tasers was found to be 84.5 times more powerful than the manufacturer's specifications. Of course, Taser International reacted to those findings in its usual hostile manner, and the company that tested the tasers was made to resile from its findings. However, the author of the report, the man who tested the tasers, testified at my brother's inquest and stood steadfastly behind his methodology and his conclusions.

At this time the two tasers are still awaiting new testing protocols, protocols that are being developed by police. Today I learned that the two tasers used on my brother arrived in Ottawa this week.

Tasers urgently require expert and truly independent testing for safety on humans. Every time a police officer uses a taser they engage in a deadly game of Russian roulette with a potentially lethal weapon. Not so long ago, the past president of the Canada Safety Council urged that minimum standards for the efficacy and use of tasers be developed and noted that relying completely on specifications provided by the manufacturer of the taser is completely unacceptable. Since we are dealing with possible electrocution, it seems the Canadian Standards Association would be the most logical place to start. And if after the taser has been tested it is to remain in the police arsenal, then a much higher standard of necessity must be imposed upon its use in Canada so that police officers can better predict the potential for severe, unintended, and possibly deadly effects, and therefore consider their force options more carefully.

There has been a great deal of reluctance by law enforcement officials and coroners in Canada to admit that the taser may not be as safe as the manufacturer originally misled them to believe. This has only been exacerbated by the fact that the manufacturer has ingratiated itself into our law enforcement community by, for example, compensating individual police officers and at least one coroner, and spending thousands of dollars in sponsorship of Canadian law enforcement events. They have even recently announced that they'd like to be part of any inquests and reviews in Canada.

My brother Bob's death was the 58th in North America. According to my research, the number of dead now stands at 337. It's no coincidence that the taser is the common denominator in all of these deaths.

Canadians witnessed the last horrifying moments of Mr. Dziekanski's life as it was stolen from him. Had the events leading up to my brother's death been captured on video, Canadians would have been outraged in 2004, and perhaps many of those who have since died in Canada, including Mr. Dziekanski, might still be alive today.

What would we learn if we could bear witness to the last moments of the lives of Terry Hanna, Clayton Willey, Clark Whitehouse, Ronald Perry, Roman Andreichikov, Peter Lamonday, Robert Bagnell, Jerry Knight, Samuel Truscott, Kevin Geldart, Gurmeet Sandhu, James Foldi, Paul Saulnier, Alesandro Fiacco, Jason Dean, Claudio Castagnetta, Quilem Registre, Howard Hyde, and Robert Knipstrom?

Would we agree that taser use was justified during Clayton Willey's "altercation" at the mall? Were three taser jolts justified when Clark Whitehouse "tried to flee" from police on foot? What about when police arrived, tasers already drawn, to find Roman Andreichikov sitting on a couch rocking back and forth mumbling to himself? Was it okay to shock Peter Lamonday several times when he was already on the ground? How about Alesandro Fiacco, who "refused to cooperate" with police? These are but a few Canadian examples where the lives of these men and their loved ones went sideways in a heartbeat.

Would we agree that taser use was justified as my brother, all 136 pounds of him, lay on his back on a bathroom floor alone, unarmed, in extreme medical distress, resisting police attempts to drag him out by his feet by holding on to inanimate objects for dear life while 13 highly trained police officers stood by as the only witnesses to the last moments of Bob's life, watching as he was subdued to death?

No, I believe that if Canadians could see with their own eyes what really happened--not the police's tidy version of events, but what really happened when these 20 people died in this country--they would be outraged.

In the days leading up to today, I have wracked my brain trying to conjure up the words that might help you look at the issue of tasers from a different perspective: that of a person who has been deeply affected by the loss of a family member to this deadly weapon. I am but one grieving family member. Somewhere out there are thousands of other family members left behind to mourn the other 336 people who have died.

I know that the eyes of the world are on Canada at this pivotal point. They watch, and they wait. Those who know us know that we will do the right thing. Canada will take the lead and see these weapons finally and independently tested. Canada will set the standard and impose strict regulations that will not allow police unfettered access to this technology. And finally, they know that Canada will impose a much-needed moratorium on tasers until we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether or not their use on human beings is safe. Canada will pay special attention to the studies that have found problems with tasers.

As the father of one taser victim said, "The issue is not whether or not the taser can be used in a high percentage of cases to reduce death and/or physical trauma to officers and civilians alike. The issue is whether or not it's OK to kill the rest through ignorance and rationalization just because it's a small percentage.... The successes aren't the problem--the failures are."

Thank you.