Vancouver police use Tasers less often: Study
September 14, 2009
Metro News Vancouver
Vancouver police officers use stun guns less frequently than other large Canadian jurisdictions. A report to the police board Wednesday ranks Vancouver as eighth out of 12 jurisdictions in terms of Taser use.
In 2008, VPD used the Taser only 33 times, about once every 11 days. They also showed the weapon, but did not deploy it, another 67 times. By comparison, Toronto police used Tasers 367 times in 2008. Edmonton police used the stun guns 91 times, Calgary 73 times and Winnipeg 68 times.
At the bottom of the scale, Halifax police used Tasers only five times. Victoria police used theirs 20 times and Hamilton police 25 times.
The report also notes that five jurisdictions, including Montreal and Surrey RCMP, did not return the survey.
2 comments:
That's very interesting. I would like to know the death count for each of these cities. I know of one tasering death in Vancouver...my son Robert Bagnell. Nice to know that they are using more restraint in Vancouver...must be awful for them when all these non criminal types die after being tasered.
I'll betcha that they (police in Canada) are not only using the taser less often, they're also using them with far more restraint. Fewer long duration and repeated taserings. This sort of detail is typically missing from such data sets as are made public.
The taser-associated death rate in Canada has shown a sudden decline coincident with public and media reaction.
What's missing to date has been the corporate liability.
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