British Columbia man dies after being tasered by Burnaby (BC) RCMP

CTV Vancouver
Published Thursday, June 5, 2014 2:52AM PDT Last Updated Thursday, June 5, 2014 7:35PM PDT

The Independent Investigations Office has taken over the case involving the death of a man tasered by police in Burnaby.

The RCMP were investigating a call about an unwanted person at an apartment building at Walker Avenue and Elwell Street Wednesday afternoon.

Police say the man acted aggressively and the confrontation led to the decision to use a taser, but it didn't seem to affect the man and a brief struggle occurred before the man collapsed.

The IIO will now investigate to determine whether police handled the situation appropriately.

"I actually say instead of taser related death I say a death subsequent to the deployment of a taser because that's one of the things we look at in these instances," said Chief Civilian Director Richard Rosenthal of the IIO. 

"Can we establish in fact that the taser was in fact a cause of death or there were other factors that may be involved."

The name of the man who died has not be released.

The IIO says this is the second death involving the use of a police taser since the office opened in 2012.