Toronto police call for public debate/broader public discussion on arming more officers with Tasers

April 20, 2012
Natalie Alcoba, Postmedia News

TORONTO — Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is calling for a public debate about equipping officers responding to situations involving emotionally disturbed people with Tasers.

The chief made his comments following a police services board meeting Thursday in which residents, activists and people who have suffered from mental illnesses pleaded for changes to the way officers handle such incidents.

The death of Michael Eligon, who was shot by Toronto police after leaving the psychiatric ward of Toronto East General Hospital, has roused public outrage — to the point where one physician said she will now think twice about calling officers for someone in an agitated state.

Eligon, 29, was carrying two pairs of scissors at the time of the shooting in February.

"I can't say with some certainty — or any certainty — that Taser was the answer (in the Eligon case), I don't know," Blair said. "But I think it's worthwhile to have the broader public discussion about the use of conductive energy devices" or any technology that "would enable us to resolve these very difficult, very dangerous situations, as safely as possible."

Peter Cuthbert, executive director of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said he's in favour of such a debate taking place.

"The CACP would welcome the opportunity to participate in that discussion," he said.

Cuthbert declined to comment on the operational policy of a specific police force, and said the organization would have its committee debate the issue before going public with a position on the matter.

In Toronto, only tactical officers and supervisors are equipped with Tasers. Cuthbert said the policy is similar for most police forces across the country.

An investigation into the death of Eligon, who had been roaming the neighbourhood in a hospital gown, socks and a toque, cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, but a coroner's inquest has since been called.

Police reported that of the two million calls officers responded to last year, 17,000 were for emotionally distressed people.

In all, 6,664 people were apprehended under the Mental Health Act.

The topic of Tasers did not come up during Thursday's board meeting. Speakers mainly called on Toronto police to move away from a "control" approach to one that "de-escalates" the situation and demanded better training.

Former Toronto mayor John Sewell, head of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, also urged police to expand its mobile crisis intervention teams, which pair nurses with police, so that they operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, instead of just part-time and in select divisions.

"Toronto police need to pay more than just lip service to de-escalation," said Douglas Pritchard, a witness to the shooting of Eligon, who has joined a group called Never Again. "Why are people still dying in Toronto for lack of appropriate crisis response?"

The board asked Blair to report back on recommendations by a mental-health subcommittee, and to review procedures used to respond to incidents involving the mentally ill.

Alberta judge suggests database for excited delirium

WHO substaniates ED as being anything, beyond a wide list of symptoms? (Dr. Christine Hall?!) The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) doesn't recognize it. And Braidwood concluded ED is hokum. Who's right? Where is the definitive science on the subject?

WHY do you only hear of ED in the wake of CEW-related deaths?

WAS the output of the CEW 'measured'? If not, the ME acted without full information. In other words his conclusion is flawed.

Even if the CEW was measured, there would still be the little problem of protocol. The CPRC, RCMP, BC Solicitor General's Office and probably the Alberta government, have accepted the 600 Ohms test protocol from TI. This is exactly the same mistake made over a decade ago- no one in government verifying the scientific or medical claims. In this case it is a mode of measurement that is flawed: it is admitted by the developers from Carleton/MPB/Datrends that their test is 'uncomprehensive' and NOT independent. An inflated resistance value in the protocol IS, however, a good way to cover the tracks of past mistakes, as now virtually all CEWs will pass!

And if Gordon Bowe WAS suffering a truly psychotic episode (from cocaine or anything else) this is exactly the worst thing an officer could do. When in a state of fear, pain, high stress and agitation, your PH level in the blood is already plummetting; to add the pain and fibrillation of lactic-acid-producing muscles to the mix can be enough to take a vulnerable person over the edge.

January 3, 2012
CBC News

A fatality inquiry into the death of a man during an encounter with Calgary police recommends a national database on excited delirium.

It’s just one of nine recommendations released Tuesday into the man’s death after Calgary police used a stun gun to arrest him three years ago.

Officers found Gordon Bowe from Castlegar, B.C., behaving erratically in the basement of a vacant house in the southeast community of Fonda Park in 2008.

Police described Bowe as jumping and diving off walls, saying he fought against officers for several minutes during the arrest then was "very still and did not look like he was doing well."

Bowe was being restrained by four city police officers who had been called to investigate a possible break and enter. The 30-year-old had also been shocked with a Taser, although the stun gun did not appear to work according to officers.

The medical examiner's report said Bowe's death was caused by excited delirium due to high levels of cocaine, not the use of a Taser.

At the time, Bowe's family said the arresting officers should have recognized the state he was in and treated him accordingly.

Provincial court Judge Heather Lamoureux had nine recommendations, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police create a database to record and share details about deaths due to excited delirium.

"For the same rationale as a provincial system is required, similar reporting on a national scale would provide an enormous amount of data upon which the Canadian police chiefs could conduct research," wrote Lamoureux.

Officials with the organization were unavailable for comment.

More training needed

Another key recommendation is that all police agencies in Alberta train their officers annually in the identification and management of excited delirium incidents, and that training should involve real case studies and scenario-based training.

Lamoureux noted Calgary police are already training officers about the condition, but it's not being done throughout the province.

The report also suggests that all 911 call takers and dispatchers providing services to police agencies receive updated training on excited delirium.

Excited delirium, also known as autonomic hyper-arousal, is characterized by increased strength, paranoia and suddenly violent behaviour. It is further marked by profuse sweating and an elevated heart rate.

Dr. Christine Hall, an expert on excited delirium from Victoria, is attempting to document all excited delirium cases across the country which involved police restraint.

Hall testified last year at the inquiry there is insufficient data to determine whether all cases of excited delirium lead to death. But she said the risk of death increases with physiologic stress, such as a physical encounter with officers.

She suggested police need to better recognize the symptoms of the condition and try to reduce the stress of people they are placing under arrest.

"It was Dr. Hall's observation that more time must be taken to teach police that individuals who 'give up' suddenly during a physical interaction with police may in fact be in need of urgent emergency care," said the judge's report.

Controversial diagnosis

Two years ago, a judge examining the death of a man Tasered by Halifax-area jail guards ruled out the cause of death as excited delirium. The judge in that case, Anne Derrick, ruled Howard Hyde died because jail guards applied restraint techniques that interfered with his breathing. Hyde was a longtime paranoid schizophrenic.

Derrick noted there is considerable controversy within the medical community as to whether excited delirium is a legitimate condition.

The issue came under scrutiny during the public inquiry into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, who died in 2007 after he was Tasered by a Mountie at Vancouver International Airport.

A subsequent independent report commissioned by the RCMP also criticized the use of the term excited delirium. It said the condition is sometimes used as an excuse to justify firing stun guns.

In 2009, the RCMP restricted the use of stun guns to cases involving threats to officers or public safety, because officers had been instructed to use the weapons to subdue suspects thought to be in a state of excited delirium.

That term no longer appears in RCMP operational manuals, because the force believes officers can't be expected to diagnose it.

Excessive force a rarity for police: study

July 16, 2011
Tom Blackwell, National Post

Christine Hall witnessed a lot of drama during five years of emergency-medicine training, but one incident near the end of her residency left the young physician stunned. A patient had arrived at her Calgary emergency department violently agitated and incoherent, was restrained by security guards and injected with a sedative. And, within 2 ½ minutes, was dead.

The precise cause of the patient’s demise remains a mystery 10 years later, yet it stuck with Dr. Hall, inspiring her to launch an unprecedented and provocative study of what happens when police meet face to face with the public, apply force and, sometimes, cause serious or even fatal injuries. Her initial findings and analysis, part of which were published this month, offer a surprising — and controversial — counterpoint to the repeated allegations recently of excessive police violence.

From the Taser-related death of Robert Dzienskanski at Vancouver airport to the apparent sexual assault on a woman held by Ottawa police, the handling of suspects by Canadian law-enforcement has drawn frequent censure of late.

Dr. Hall says her study, in which officers at major forces in two provinces have been documenting hundreds of thousands of encounters with the public over the last four years, paints a different picture, however. She has identified fewer than 1,200 incidents of use of force among almost 1.8 million significant police-public interactions, and says most of the targets of the strong-arming were drunk, mentally distressed or violent, at least according to standardized reports filled in by the officers involved. One death was recorded.

What is more, Dr. Hall suspects people like her former emergency patient and others in police custody end up dead largely because of their own, out-of-control condition — not necessarily law-enforcement weapons like the Taser.

“There is a huge public misconception that every time a police officer is in a room with someone, someone is getting wounded. And in fact, when you do the data, it’s remarkably small,” said the physician, now based in Victoria.

“I think that harm is done when the public is exposed to a notion that use of force is rampant and it always turns out negatively … If the average member of the population knew that use of force represents far less than a 10th of a per cent of what police do, would we really want to spend a lot of tax money on sending every police officer to crisis intervention school?”

The physician hopes at the same time that her findings will eventually identify what type of person is most at risk of ending up dead or severely injured at the hands of police, and help officers deal with those people in a safer fashion.

Dr. Hall’s perspective on the emotional issue is not exactly embraced by everyone, though. She debated U.S. colleagues this month who believe emergency physicians like her should report suspected cases of police brutality, just as they now blow the whistle on possible domestic abuse. And she has taken flak for her focus on the victims of police use of force, rather than police actions and weapons.

The independent inquiry report on the death of Mr. Dzienskanski at Vancouver airport in 2007 concluded police officers had acted inappropriately in their handling of the Polish man, and lacked proper training in Taser use.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association released a report last October that suggested there had been more than 400 deaths in police custody over a 15-year period in the six provinces and territories for which it could obtain statistics.

Dr. Hall’s research, funded by the federal government’s Canadian Police Research Centre, which is closely tied with the RCMP and Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, seems designed to deflect attention from any police wrongdoing, charged David Eby, executive director of the civil liberties group.

“The problem is that no question is going to be asked of this researcher that will potentially embarrass a police force,” he said. “It’s frustrating for me to see this sort of political research coming out … The real questions that need to be asked are not being asked, and that is frankly putting the public at risk.”

Dr. Hall, however, says her study is designed to avoid any bias and empirically get to the bottom of what happens when officers and the public meet. She has already involved police in two major Western Canadian cities and is about to bring a third online. Two other cities have tentatively agreed to be part of the research.

Whenever officers interact with the public they must fill out a form she developed that records the nature of any use of force, including the behaviour of the subject and police weapons used. Information is cross checked with medical and coroner’s records. The RCMP, though a subject of many of the recent charges of police excesses, has so far not gotten involved in the study.

The first full-blown report on the findings is being submitted for publication to a medical journal now, and details cannot be released until the paper comes out, Dr. Hall said. In a letter to the editor of the Annals of Emergency Medicine this month, however, she did divulge her finding that force was employed in just .07% of interactions. She also noted that police reported that 60% of recipients of that force were violent or very violent, and 86% seemed affected by drug or alcohol abuse, emotional distress or both.

The letter criticized a group of American emergency doctors who advocated in an earlier editorial that ER specialists report to internal-affairs departments or other authorities cases where they suspect police went overboard in their treatment of suspects. The group cited a 2009 survey of emergency specialists where 97% reported having seen patients who may have been victims of excessive force by officers. Dr. Hall called that research “seriously flawed,” arguing that few emergency doctors are qualified to gauge whether force was excessive, and cited her findings as evidence the issue is overblown.

Dr. Jared Strout, a Seattle emergency physician and one of the editorial’s authors, said in an interview, however, that emergency doctors have a duty to their patients to report suspicions, even if they cannot determine on their own if force was actually excessive.

He also acknowledged that the use of force is rare and excessive force very rare — despite the intense media coverage given some cases of police brutality. It is crucial, though, to keep an eye on those outlier cases and find out why they occur, Dr. Strout said.

“Police have a unique relationship with society, in that they are the only group that can legally use lethal force or any kind of force,” he said. “That kind of very protected status needs to be monitored extremely closely, because of the potential for abuse.”

Perhaps Dr. Hall’s most controversial assertion, though, is that the core cause of in-custody deaths may not be Tasers or other police tools, but a pattern of behaviour on the part of the victim that seems to be repeated over and over again in such cases. Like that patient in her emergency department, they tend to be violently agitated, sweaty, exhibit seeming superhuman strength and are oblivious to the police presence, she said.

Others, though, are skeptical about focusing on the individual, suggesting it is the police who must be doing something wrong. Dr. Strout said staff at his Seattle emergency department encounter and manage to subdue out-of-control patients “all the time,” with death and other complications being “exquisitely rare.”

“We don’t have weapons to use, we have medicines instead and we have different techniques and ways of dealing with these things,” he said.

“The interaction of the police and these subjects is why they’re dying and there very well may be ways the police can decrease that risk of death from their interactions.”

On that last point, at least, Dr. Hall is in agreement, suggesting that the result of her research may be some kind of protocol where police first subdue such suspects, call in paramedics to administer a sedative, then have them taken to hospital, not the police station.

“Of course,” she said, “if one believes it is all a worldwide giant police cover-up, then there is no need to investigate anything and people will continue to die while we spend our resources investigating the last police officer who came into physical contact with him or her.”

Tom Kaye a national figure in policing circles

See also Police chief wants tasers for all frontline officers

February 9, 2011
The Sun Times, Owen Sound

Outgoing Owen Sound Police Chief Tom Kaye is well known in policing circles provincially and nationally from his work, and sometimes controversial opinions, as an executive with both the Ontario and Canadian associations of chiefs of police.

Kaye was vice president of the CACP and the spokesperson on the issue when the organization released a policy paper in February 2009 backing the use of Tasers. He argued then that "to date there is no evidence, either scientific or medical, that a conducted energy weapon, has been the direct cause of death, anywhere, at any time, on any person."

Kaye was asked to chair the CACP committee on use of Tasers after "a major meeting in Orillia" that looked at the issue after the widely reported death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died in October 2007 after RCMP officers Tasered him several times at the Vancouver airport, and several other deaths in Canada.

"Because of his knowledge on it, his interest in the subject, that's why he was appointed as chair of the special purpose committee in order to guide and direct all policing across Canada," Peter Cuthbert, the executive director of the CACP, said Wednesday.

"He's been very, very active and well respected on the board. I mean he's not an individual who comes to the table and stays quiet and mute, I'll tell you that," Cuthbert added.

Kaye said in January he looked forward to the day when every front-line police officer would carry a Taser.

During his time on the executive of the OACP, "Chief Kaye dealt with a lot of really important issues," said Jim Couto, the director of government relations and communications with the Ontario association.

"For instance, issues of diversity and the issue of racial profiling in policing, those were issues I know during his time were very prominent and he played a really key role in developing policing to a position where we acknowledge the unfortunate existence of that particular issue, racial profiling, and working with communities to move forward," he said.

"This is going to become a growth industry," Kaye was quoted as saying in 2001 about accusations of racial profiling by police. "That's what we've seen in the United States. It's become a multimillion-dollar business for consultants to come in and try and rid your organization of racism."

He was also quoted as saying that racism in police services is "certainly not something that we're that concerned about, because we don't believe it exists."

"Chief Kaye has always been very passionate about policing and what it can do in terms of community building and the role it plays in communities, in everyday lives of people," Couto said.

"Coming from a middle-sized service like Owen Sound, Chief Kaye had a really unique impact on OACP and certainly policing in the province. He was very well respected and his work at the CACP has been phenomenal . . . He's not a guy who shies away from tackling tough issues. I think he's done a fantastic job representing us not only in Ontario but across Canada."

Owen Sound Police Chief, Tom Kaye, Appointed to the Parole Board of Canada

February 9, 2011

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, ONTARIO – Larry Miller, MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, would like to extend congratulations to Owen Sound police chief, Tom Kaye, on his appointment as a full-time member to the Parole Board of Canada.

Tom Kaye has had a distinguished career serving the Owen Sound community. In 1995 he joined the Owen Sound police as deputy-chief. He was soon made acting chief in 1997 and was confirmed to that position in May of 1998.

From 2002-2003 he served as president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, and for the past seven years has been on the executive of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Commenting on the appointment, Miller said “Mr. Kaye has been a great leader in both our community and the policing community. I would like to thank him for his years of dedicated public service.” Miller concluded, saying “I wish him all the best in his new post.”

Police chief wants Tasers for all frontline officers

To think that Tom Kaye (Owen Sound, Ontario Chief of Police) continues to hold any credibility as the chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police committee on tasers just boggles the mind. It's embarrassing. Where do I register a no-confidence vote? "Hadn't read up on the Firman case?" Hullo!! Dr. Michael Pollanen attributed Firman's death to "cardiac arrhythmia PRECIPITATED BY ELECTRONIC CONTROL DEVICE DEPLOYMENT in an agitated man." Could it get any clearer? A coroner's inquest isn't going to change that outcome Tom. How can the chair of a taser committee in Canada NOT have "read up on" such a significant case? That's only one of your major gaffes in this interview (see below) - anyone whose been following along can identify all of them.

Tom, you're either a) TERRIBLY misinformed or b) you think the Canadian public is REALLY stupid. If you manage to push your agenda through, the Canadian public is in grave danger. How about doing the right thing and inviting some PUBLIC DISCOURSE/CONSULTATION? I know of several very well informed people who would be delighted to participate.

See also Excited-Delirium's post from February 2009 (some of us are keeping track of this crap): Look what we have to deal with

January 26, 2011
Scott Dunn, Owen Sound Sun Times

Owen Sound Police Chief Tom Kaye said he looks forward to the day when all frontline officers carry a Taser.

Kaye made the comments to reporters after presenting a report summarizing use-of-force incidents to the police services board Wednesday.

In 2010 there were 20 incidents, generating 27 reports, when force was used by city officers to a degree that met provincial reporting requirements. Such circumstances include drawing a gun with the public present, using any weapon on a person and using physical force causing an injury requiring medical attention.

A Taser was fired twice and displayed eight times in 2010, Kaye said. Sometimes officers used a mode that shows electricity crackling in the device, Kaye said.

Tasers were never used in the "push/stun" mode, in which the weapon was physically jabbed into someone, he said.

Kaye also chairs the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police committee concerning the controversial conducted-energy weapons, which an SIU official said caused a Collingwood man's death last June.

"It's our hope that every frontline officer at some point in time gets issued with a Taser," Kaye said.

Kaye's department is now tracking the use of the Taser both when it is fired, as required by the provincial government, but whenever it is drawn, which isn't a provincial requirement.

Officers started tracking where on the subject's body the Taser's metal probes strike, "so that we can use that to refine our deployment of Tasers in the future," he said.

"So we're looking to build our business case for government by tracking all of that information."

Special Investigations Unit director Ian Scott attributed the death of Aron Firman outside a Collingwood group home June 24 to the use of a Taser by and OPP officer. The officer was cleared.

He cited Ontario's chief forensic pathologist, Michael Pollanen, who attributed Firman's death to "cardiac arrhythmia precipitated by electronic control device deployment in an agitated man." He had underlying health issues which may have predisposed him to arrhythmia, Pollanen found.

Kaye downplayed any conclusion that Tasers kill people. He said he didn't know how that diagnosis could be made because Mr. Firman was found, Kaye understands, with vital signs absent.

"It's my understanding that if someone is already down and vital signs absent, you cannot tell in any subsequent medical examination or autopsy," that the Taser caused the death, "because there are no telltale signs on the heart muscle."

Kaye also said he hadn't read up on the Firman case and it remains to be seen what conclusions an inquest draws.

He said he knows more than six Ontario inquest juries, and six or eight others across Canada, have recommended all frontline police officers be issued a conducted energy weapon.

"I know that in the United States there are a number of their medical examiners that have made the same pronouncements.

"And in every particular case they've had to withdraw their cause of death as having been that because it's unsubstantiated."

Kaye said the national police chiefs' association position on Tasers is to wait and see what conclusion the Firman inquest produces.

Other Owen Sound Police Services use-of-force details Kaye provided:

• Guns were drawn and pointed at a subject four times, including one case in which two guns were pointed during the same arrest. Police did not fire their guns at a person last year.

• Twice a gun was drawn to deal with a vicious or dangerous animal, and twice a firearm was discharged to destroy an injured or sick animal.

• Hands were laid on subjects to gain control three times, a baton and pepper spray were used once each.

• There were 19 times no injury resulted to the subject or officer.

• None of the times force was used resulted in serious injury requiring reports to the Special Investigations Unit, the civilian arms-length police oversight agency.

Police chiefs' links with Taser sniffy

See also: August 15, 2008 Globe and Mail Editorial - More than a perception

See also: August 12, 2008 - Taser International a major sponsor of the 2008 Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Conference

See also: November 2, 2007 - Taser International a major sponsor of the 2007 Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police conference

October 18, 2009
Robert Marshall , Winnipeg Free Press

Maybe a conflict is only in the eye of the beholder -- even if it's the eye of an ethics adviser. Still, will an alleged relationship between the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and Taser International affect an unsuspecting street cop?

I fully get the Taser manufacturer's product -- stun guns -- and the advantage they can give an officer in difficult circumstances. I also get that they are the most controversial piece of equipment in the police arsenal with a sobering fact becoming increasingly clear: The danger of a Taser's 50,000 volts increases with the target's abnormal increases in blood pressure, heart rate, exhaustion and so on. In other words, in the heightened and volatile situations for which the weapon is designed.

The chiefs of police support of Taser International's product has been unwavering since being introduced. In 2007, the president of the police chiefs' association, Steven Chabot, said that Tasers have "a solid track record for safety." The same communiqué reported that the chiefs would continue to look at new developments in directed energy technologies. And, in February 2009, the chiefs' association released its position paper, offering its continued endorsement.

But the status quo changed recently, only when Taser International made new recommendations that Canadian police brass couldn't adopt fast enough.

Officers are now being instructed to aim for areas such as the gut or legs (but not the groin) and to avoid the traditional, easier to hit, centre-mass. While police administrators write Taser International's corporate guidance into policy, the cop on the street might consider enrolling in Calamity Jane's school of trick shots.

Most striking in the new guidelines is Taser International's self-admitted attempt to avoid "the controversy" while "increasing safety margins and enhancing the ability to defend such cases in post-event legal proceedings."

I can't imagine average cops from across the country being anything other than disappointed with their agencies subscribing to the same source of corporate tutelage that at one time promoted the weapon as a near risk-free implement. Or at least safe enough to use real live officers as targets and training aids.

The new guidelines may well increase the danger for the street officer who uses the weapon -- physically, if the two separate electrical probes miss the now-more-difficult mark and legally, should the charge land in the chest area, contravening manufacturer and department edicts.

There will be legal chop-licking in the aftermath of the next Taser-related death. And it will be the front-line cop -- the lowest wrung on the ladder -- on which all eyes will focus.

Why, in the last few years, have Tasers become the must-have tool? There's a long list of legitimate reasons, but it's one of the not-so-good possibilities that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Each year, the police chiefs hold a national meeting that goes beyond issues of public safety. For sure, the meeting's a perk. And every year corporate sponsors donate cash to keep the chiefs and their parties entertained.

Last spring, according to the Globe and Mail's pro-cop columnist, Christie Blatchford, one sponsor picked up most of the tab for $215,000 worth of Celine Dion tickets for the six-figure-salaried police executives and their entourages. Meals for the 2008 conference were taken care of, too.

Taser International had been a top, platinum sponsor (meaning a minimum donation of $25,000) for a number of years. Rumour had it that the company made a $200,000 donation to the 2008 meeting in Montreal, something that was denied by the chiefs.

The country's senior cops who attend these million-dollar meetings are the ones that swing the big sticks when deciding with whom to do business. That would include Taser International. That didn't sit well with John Jones, the chiefs' former ethics adviser who quit earlier this year when he couldn't convince the highfalutin' board of directors that the incestuous relationship between big businesses and police decision-makers (and the freebies) "didn't pass the smell test." The chiefs, perhaps realizing they were on some pretty thin ice, dropped Taser International from their listed sponsors for its 2009 Charlottetown gathering.

But was it too late? Is there anything to the allegation of conflict? Is there a perception that Taser International has undue sway with the police chiefs and with the new rules? Will the next cop involved in an awry stun gun matter be left holding more than his fair share of the legal bag?

Sounds like an expensive free lunch.

Robert Marshall is a security adviser and former Winnipeg police detective.

rm112800@hotmail.com

EDITORIAL: Braidwood means a whole new start

July 30, 2009
Globe and Mail

Everything known about tasers – everything the provinces and police forces think they know – should now be treated as junk. Canada has a state-of-the-art manual that says the taser can kill, and its use by police forces needs to be severely limited. But have the provinces noticed? The silence of most of them on last week's 556-page Braidwood report has been, well, stunning.

Among the most egregious and most influential pieces of junk is the “research” report of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on the supposed safety of the taser, notwithstanding the 25 people who have died in this country, and 300 in the United States, after being tasered. That report can now be tossed in the garbage bin where it belongs. The chiefs, who were hardly impartial anyway, undermined any claim to independence by accepting roughly $100,000 in sponsorship money from the taser's manufacturer. The chiefs' report contributed to the prevailing view among police in this country that people don't die from tasers, they die from excited delirium: overheating.

Thomas Braidwood, a retired appeal court judge in British Columbia, after a public inquiry, has dismissed that as plain wrong. Mr. Braidwood looked at the best evidence, and heard from experts in a variety of fields: emergency medicine, cardiology, electrophysiology, pathology, epidemiology, psychology and psychiatry. Unlike the Canadian police chiefs, he had both eyes open when he reviewed the evidence. He was impartial.

Police guidelines in much of Canada allow for tasers to be used at very low levels of threat – even, in some jurisdictions, when people who are not dangerous are merely walking away from an officer (even a Vancouver transit officer). Mr. Braidwood would limit their use to truly dangerous, though not life-threatening situations. If the provinces follow B.C.'s lead and accept his ideas, they would develop uniform policies, rather than leaving matters in the hands of local forces. They would insist that, where mentally ill people are involved, the police try first, where possible, to de-escalate. Any officer with a taser would also have a defibrillator. Tasers should be used for only one five-second cycle, not several.

The Braidwood recommendations should also be embraced by the RCMP. The national police force appears to have accepted them for its B.C. detachments, but has yet to say whether it does for the rest of the country. RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, unlike the police chiefs, had already publicly conceded that tasers can kill, but Mr. Braidwood said his policy revisions did not go far enough.

It would be unconscionable if most provinces sat on their hands and pretended Mr. Braidwood's report is relevant only to B.C. The truths he uncovered apply everywhere, even if his jurisdiction was limited to B.C. If the taser can kill in B.C., it can kill in New Brunswick or Ontario. Its use should be drastically curtailed, everywhere.

EDITORIAL: Sponsorship conflict

Dear John Jones, former ETHICS ADVISOR to the CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE, who resigned earlier this year - in part - over the conflict of interest posed by Taser International's sponsorship of the CACP conference:

Although Taser International has been a PLATINUM (the most generous and prestigious sponsorship level of all) sponsor of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police's annual conference over many years - and, in fact I have highlighted the conflict of interest this poses here on my blog every year since it first came to my attention - I am VERY pleased to advise you that your personal decision to resign may in fact have FINALLY had an impact. As of today, less than a month away from the conference (August 9-12, 2009) Taser International is nowhere to be found on the list of sponsors for the 2009 CACP conference in Charlottetown, PEI. Nor do they show up anywhere on the Exhibitors' List.

Thank you, John Jones - it's still early days, but you were already on my list of heroes and that will never change. This can't have been an easy decision for you, but here's living proof that your decision to resign was the right one.

I repost the Globe and Mail editorial from April (see below), for those who aren't already in the know.

Sincerely,
Reality Chick (owner of this blog)

April 13, 2009
Globe and Mail

The foundation of taser use in this country rests on an obvious conflict of interest, and involves a group that should know better: the police chiefs of Canada. The resignation of an ethics adviser to the chiefs over that conflict speaks volumes about the rotten state of police discourse on the 50,000-volt stun guns.

"Doesn't pass the smell test," John Jones said of the chiefs' corporate sponsorships, including one from Taser International, of their annual conferences. The chiefs' board of directors was so dismissive it wouldn't even hear from the ethics committee when it asked formally for a meeting about the conflict.

Why do police in Canada - with the notable exception of the RCMP Commissioner William Elliott - have the chutzpah to insist that the taser is safe, even though more than 20 people have died in the past five years after being tasered? Because the Canadian Police Research Centre, an arm of the chiefs' association, says that research indicates it is safe. The chiefs do not directly set policy for the 170 forces across Canada that use the taser, but the association's research is in practice the basis for many of the country's taser policies.

Taking sponsorship money from a weapons manufacturer is a direct, not merely a perceived, conflict. The chiefs have received $75,000 over the past three years from Taser International, according to the chiefs' executive director, Peter Cuthbert. Everything the chiefs say about the taser is tainted by their acceptance of that money. More than that, the policies of all the police forces that rely on the chiefs' research are tainted.

The truth about the taser's potential harm is far from settled, except in the minds of the chiefs. Yet most police policies allow for taser use where no serious risk of physical harm to anyone is involved. (It is emphatically not used instead of guns, as many people think, including Canada's Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan.) Only the RCMP acknowledges a risk of death, especially for agitated individuals.

Six weeks ago, as a judicial review in British Columbia probed the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, a distressed, unarmed man who had been waiting 10 hours at the Vancouver International Airport for his mother, the police chiefs and the Canadian Police Association released a position statement on tasers: Not one of the 13 points raised a safety concern. Nothing about multiple taserings. Nothing about uses on the mentally ill or youth or people with heart problems or taking drugs. Then the chiefs called for a vast expansion of taser use.

John Jones is right. Something stinks about the chiefs' coziness with Taser International.

Police freebies spark resignation - Ethics adviser to chiefs' association quits over free Dion tickets, Taser sponsorship of conference

April 9, 2009
Noor Javed, Toronto Star

John Jones has spent his professional life lecturing on the ethical conduct of police. The retired professor never thought he would one day become part of the lesson plan.

Last week, Jones resigned as technical adviser for the ethics committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police over corporate sponsorship practices at the association's annual conference.

For three years, Taser International acted as a platinum sponsor for the police chiefs' conference, contributing a total of $75,000 to the increasingly "lavish" event.

At the 2008 conference in Montreal, Jones said he was further dismayed to learn delegates were being given free Céline Dion concert tickets, with half the aggregate cost of the tickets covered by a joint Bell Mobility-CGI-Group Techna donation of $115,000.

"The rank and file in a police organization are warned about accepting any freebies, that in fact (it) could be subject to discipline," said Jones.

He was therefore "shocked" that chiefs of police "who invoke that expectation ... would then avail themselves of $215 Céline Dion tickets," Jones said. "There's an embedded hypocrisy there."

The ethics committee relayed its "serious concerns" to the association's board of directors during the conference, and again at a November meeting.

The response by executive director Peter Cuthbert was read out last week at the ethics committee's first 2009 meeting.

"Essentially the memo said, `We are going to continue business as usual, and we don't see any conflicts of interest,'" Jones said.

"When I heard the memo being read, I really felt I was personally being compromised." He resigned immediately.

Cuthbert says he sees nothing wrong with the police chiefs accepting sponsorship money, which is needed to fund a conference that costs $800,000 to stage yearly.

Other sponsors include Canadian Bankers Association, Loto-Quebec, Microsoft and the RCMP, which sponsors the professional development part of the conference.

"The board deals with this debate every year," Cuthbert said.

Since the directors do not recommend or endorse Tasers, "at the end of the day, (they) believed it was ethical to continue our relationship," said Cuthbert.

However the police chiefs' group recently joined the Canadian Police Association in releasing a "position document" backing the use of conducted energy weapons (the technical name for Tasers).

Cuthbert says there is no link between the Taser sponsorship and the position paper.

But that's where the ethical line gets blurry, said Jones. "Once you're into sponsorship, you're into tricky territory.

"Generally, commercial enterprises do not operate altruistically. When they donate money, they expect there is something in return."

Police ethics adviser quits over sponsors

April 8, 2009
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Globe and Mail

The technical adviser to the ethics committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has resigned over corporate sponsorship - including that of Taser International - of the group's annual conference.

John Jones, an expert on police ethics who has advised the committee for three years, quit Thursday after the committee's efforts to stop the practice was rebuffed by the board of directors.

"I said in that case, I can't remain a member," a saddened Dr. Jones, the author of Reputable Conduct: Ethical Issues in Policing and Corrections, told The Globe and Mail in a phone interview yesterday from his Ottawa home. "[Such sponsorship] doesn't pass the smell test."

The CACP is composed of police chiefs and senior police executives from across Canada and represents most of the country's 220-plus forces.

Dr. Jones and the members of the ethics committee were in Montreal in August for two days of meetings around the CACP's annual conference when they learned about Taser's sponsorship and that of others, including a joint Bell Mobility-CGI-Group Techna donation of $115,000, which went toward the purchase of 1,000 tickets at $215 each to a Celine Dion concert on Aug. 25.

Each registered CACP delegate received one ticket as part of his $595 registration package; if his spouse was also registered for the spouses' program, she or he received another. Virtually all meals were also sponsored.

The ethics members raised the sponsorship issue with the CACP executive committee in mid-conference - "expressed our surprise and dismay" is how the genteel Dr. Jones put it - but later followed up with a formal request for the committee co-chairs to speak to the full board of directors.

That meeting happened in November, and by December the CACP's executive director, Peter Cuthbert, replied by memo on behalf of the board, basically thanking the committee members for their concerns, but repeating that the board was satisfied the association was abiding by its sponsorship guidelines.

It was at the committee's first meeting of the new year last week in Ottawa that Mr. Cuthbert's memo was read aloud, prompting Dr. Jones to walk away from his voluntary position.

While he said he was told by senior members of the committee that Taser gave $200,000 to the 2008 conference, Mr. Cuthbert is adamant the manufacturers of the controversial "conducted energy weapons," as the CACP prefers to call them, contributed only $25,000.

But he also said that over the past three years, Taser has kicked in a total of $75,000 for conference sponsorship.

Mr. Cuthbert was insistent there is nothing wrong with the sponsorship practice, and said that part of the association's job is to bring to the attention of the chiefs "the products and tools that are available to a police service." He then suggested that Taser was only one maker of "conducted energy weapons," but, when pressed, admitted he knew of no other and said, "I guess Taser is the only name out there."

According to Mr. Cuthbert, the total corporate sponsorship of last year's conference - by, among others, Power Corporation, the Canadian Bankers Association, Loto-Québec, Microsoft, Motorola and the RCMP, ironic given that it means the Mounties shared the platform with the very product whose use has brought the force into such disrepute in the Robert Dziekanski incident - topped $500,000.

The RCMP sponsors only the professional development part of the conference program.

One of Mr. Cuthbert's defences for the association accepting sponsorships is the CACP does "no buying, no endorsement, no promotion" of any products, including sponsors', and makes no "binding recommendations."

But in fact, just six weeks ago the CACP held a press conference in Ottawa with the Canadian Police Association to announce what they called "the police position on Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs)" and issued both a position document and a press release.

The groups said they were acting out of concern that "inaccurate and incomplete" media reporting about the weapons may have led to public misunderstanding and in effect gave CEWs their blessing.

In January, Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino, a CACP member, spoke at an association workshop on CEWs and gave the weapon an even more ringing endorsement, and denounced the "irresponsible journalism" surrounding the issue.

Mr. Fantino was at least more direct: he called a spade a spade and used both terms, CEWs and tasers, to describe the weapon.

When Mr. Cuthbert was asked if it wouldn't have been better for the CACP to have publicly praised tasers with clean hands, he disagreed, and said, "Other than that, I tell you, with the board, it was not an issue ... the board was very, very comfortable with this."

But Dr. Jones told The Globe that most of the ethics committee members had concerns about the sponsorships, not just Taser's, which is why it sent committee co-chairs, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Sandra Conlin, her force's ethics adviser, and Edmonton Deputy Chief Norm Lipinski, to the board meeting. That, he said, was a measure of the committee's concern.

Mr. Conlin referred The Globe to Mr. Lipinski, saying he was the ethics committee spokesman. He was out of town and didn't return The Globe's call.

Dr. Jones, who at 66 has spent several decades of his career lecturing and consulting about ethical conduct, particularly in policing, also recently resigned as an adviser to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

He rued how the CACP conferences have become increasingly "gaudy" affairs, with each host city trying to outdo the other, with members expecting bigger and better freebies. Indeed, Mr. Cuthbert's own figures - he said it now costs between $800,000 and $1-million to hold such conferences - back up Dr. Jones' perception.

Asked why the chiefs and senior police executives don't just finance their own conferences, Dr. Jones replied, "That's what we'd like."

He said there was "a shocking disconnect" between the lavish conferences for senior police and their increasing demands upon their rank-and-file that they refuse even a free coffee from the local doughnut store. "People now want their leaders to walk the talk," he said.

- 30 -

See also the 2009 Sponsor and Exhibitor Prospectus, which promises sponsors "prominent recognition during the conference and unmatched opportunity to reach out to conference delegates from the outset of the conference and inform them of your commitment to CACP."

Taser International has been a Platinum Level Sponsor for at least the past two years. Here's what they get:

PLATINUMLEVEL - $25,000+

Conference Banner and Signage
• Your company name and logo on a banner and signs prominently displayed at the conference.
Promotional Opportunities
• Providing one promotional item to be included in the delegates’ registration kit.
Marketing Profile
• Your company name and logo will appear prominently in the Conference Program and the Exhibitor Show Guide;
• Your company logo and level of sponsorship will be included on the conference website’s front page and sponsor page (www.cacpconference.ca);
• Sponsor recognition on name badges;
• Opening and Closing Plenary acknowledgement with logo;
• A complimentary 1/4 page black and white advertisement (premium location) in the Program (must be received by July 17, 2009);
• Daily on-site newsletter recognition.

Other Benefits
• Three (3) complimentary conference registrations for selected members of your staff;
• Reserved seating at the Gala Evening;
• Invitation to the VIP Reception, Sunday August 9, 2009;
• Two (2) complimentary booth personnel with the purchase of a booth;NEW!
• One-time access to the early bird Delegate List in advance of the conference.

See also: August 15, 2008 Globe and Mail Editorial - More than a perception

See also: August 12, 2008 - Taser International a major sponsor of the 2008 Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Conference

See also: November 2, 2007 - Taser International a major sponsor of the 2007 Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police conference

Norfolk County : PSB Debates Across-The-Board Tasers

March 19, 2009
CD98.9 FM - Posted by Adam Liefl

The Norfolk County Police Services Board doesn't seem to be completely sold on a Canadian Police Association position of giving every officer on-duty a taser. While the issue has become a contentious one across Canada, it's that much more heated in areas where there occurred deaths in cases involving tasers, like Norfolk. The Board discussed the report yesterday at their monthly meeting but were not all in agreement on either their power level or on just how many officers should be allowed to carry them. Chair Peter Hellyer says unanimous deployment may not be a good thing for relatively young detachments like Norfolk's. The CPA is suggesting that all officers be authorized to carry one, though Hellyer and others on the board think that they should be reserved for senior or supervisory officers. Also debated was the power level of a taser. Inspector Zvonko Horvat agrees with the the CPA stance, that a taser should be labelled an "intermediate weapon" like a baton or pepper spray. Though Hellyer says they're borderline lethal, which would put it a shade below the category of a gun. Cost would also be an issue, as each unit runs for about $1500. Hellyer says the Board will challenge the idea and bring the issue up to the senior OPP ranks and even Attorney General Chris Bentley when he makes a local stop in a couple of weeks.

EDITORIAL: Officials too dismissive of Taser's dangers

March 7, 2009
Kingston Whig Standard

For the purposes of discussion, let's give the benefit of doubt to the four Mounties involved in the Tasering and death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport.

Let's agree that the stapler Mr. Dziekanski held in his hand was a potential threat to the officers' safety and it could have been used as a "weapon."

Let's also agree that Tasering -shocking him with 50,000 volts -was the best course of action the Mounties could have taken.

And let's take the testimony of Const. Kwesi Millington, the officer who fired the Taser, at face value when he told the Braidwood inquiry, "I feared for the safety of the officers so I acted to stop the threat."

After all of this, a nagging question remains: Why Taser Mr. Dziekanski five times when the first jolt had already knocked him to the floor, writhing in pain?

Mr. Dziekanski died on the spot. Yet no one is directly attributing his death to the Taser shocks.

In part, this is due to the fact that Taser International, the U. S. company that makes the weapons, is quick to sue any person or organization making such a claim.

Second, the science is unclear as to the lethality of Tasers, the potential harm they may do and, as Millington's testimony attests, their efficacy.

The constable overused his Taser because he did not understand the potential effect that 50,000 volts -issued five times -might have on Mr. Dziekanski.

Millington stated that he didn't know if the voltage was having the desired effect. Yet by the second, third, fourth and fifth jolts, Mr. Dziekanski had already been pinned to the floor.

Of course, none of the officers' claims are valid. The stapler did not compromise, however, the safety of four fit officers standing shoulder to shoulder. And Mr. Dziekanski was no dangerous criminal.

The recent news conference held by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association, at which police leaders reprimanded those who dare criticize Taser use, was an insult to the intelligence and concerns of Canadians and to the memory of Mr. Dziekanski.

Tasers create more risk than police officials, those who set the policies around use, are acknowledging.

EDITORIAL: RCMP attempts to deflect blame hurt all officers

March 6, 2009
The Star Phoenix

In a 1970s satire, the Monty Python group demonstrated how one goes about protecting oneself when attacked by someone wielding a banana.

John Cleese, playing the role of the sergeant major, orders Graham Chapman to attack him with a banana, only to shoot the assailant with a revolver before he is struck by the fruit. "That was self-defence," Mr. Cleese insists when challenged for his excessive response.

It is funny because it is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it appears the RCMP in British Columbia didn't get the joke.

This week, the inquiry being conducted by B.C. Supreme Court justice Thomas Braidwood into the death of Robert Dziekanski was told on more than one occasion that the Polish immigrant had to be shot by a police officer repeatedly with a conducted energy weapon for fear that an office stapler Mr. Dziekanski was holding could be a dangerous weapon.

It's safe to say Mr. Dziekanski, who died after being shot five times with a Taser and then was pounced upon by four large RCMP officers, also didn't get the joke.

But many in the audience who openly scoffed at Const. Kwesi Millington when he attempted to brandish the office tool in a threatening manner, had no difficulty seeing how ridiculous was his and other officers' testimony that a stapler would frighten four large, well-armed and trained men wearing bullet-proof vests.

The tragedy isn't so much that Const. Millington was trying to justify his actions of Oct. 14, 2007. It would only be natural that he would look for some reasonable explanation as to why Mr. Dziekanski, who was confused and angry after being left alone in a reception area of the Vancouver airport for more than 10 hours following a 24-hour flight from Poland, should be left dead only seconds after RCMP arrived to calm him down.

What isn't natural -- and is a much greater insult to those police officers who diligently put themselves in harm's way almost daily to protect the public -- is that it took lawyers representing Mr. Dziekanski and the Polish government to push Const. Millington toward the truth while government solicitors ignored the obvious.

Almost from the moment the public heard about Mr. Dziekanski's death, the RCMP establishment went into high gear to justify the actions of its officers rather than strive to find out how such a seemingly innocent situation turned so deadly.

Until bystander Paul Pritchard went public with his concerns that the RCMP had confiscated a video he had shot of the event, the police service stuck to a story that was impossible to reconcile either with what witnesses alleged happened, or what was clearly seen on the video.

RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre initially suggested there were only three officers involved, that Mr. Dziekanski was "pounding on the glass windows that were there," and that the jolts from the Taser "didn't seem to have any kind of effect on him."

The police force then tried to prevent the release of the tapes, and later tried unsuccessfully to shift its story in an effort to reconcile its version of events with what's seen in the video.

This didn't do any favours for those officers involved in the incident. Time and again Const. Millington was caught out during his testimony.

What is most distressing, however, is that not one government lawyer or one member of the RCMP saw fit to hold the officers to account.

The opposite was the case.

The RCMP investigated itself over this incident and found, to no great surprise, that there was not enough evidence to pursue charges.

Similarly the B.C. attorney general's office examined the RCMP evidence and found no reason for charges.

One shouldn't be surprised by this lack of ability to recognize the difference. In the midst of the controversy over the death and the subsequent release of the tape, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott e-mailed the four officers involved, offering his personal support.

It isn't just the RCMP that's unwilling or unable to vigorously examine the evidence.

Last month, both the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association put out a position paper to suggest there is no evidence of any deaths being linked to use of a Taser.

Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Julian Fantino took it one step further, suggesting all of the deaths that have occurred in the wake of the stun guns being used on persons reflect nothing more than the poor work by journalists and a public who "just don't get it" and who couldn't even pass recruitment training.

It is no wonder that frontline officers are left exposed, as Const. Millington was this week.

The RCMP is staffed primarily by brave and dedicated officers concerned about the well-being of the public they serve. As we have seen in Saskatoon this week, with the trial over the deaths of Constables Robin Cameron and Marc Bourdages, these officers put their lives on the line for us every day.

They deserve to be treated like professionals and the public deserves to have a national police service it can trust -- not one whose attempts to deflect blame simply mock the good efforts of the majority.

EDITORIAL: RCMP's reputation takes a beating at Braidwood inquiry

March 5, 2009
Vancouver Sun

You'll remember that shortly after Robert Dziekanski was Tasered and died in Vancouver International Airport, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it would not be returning a videotape of the incident to its rightful owner for one or two years, because it might taint witness testimony.

Well, the tape has certainly had a negative effect, but what it has tainted is the reputation of the RCMP. And it, along with other evidence from the Braidwood inquiry into Dziekanski's death, reveals that the RCMP and police forces across the country have a lot of work to do to regain the public's trust.

In fact, the tape reveals what could be construed as a practice of using Tasers first and asking questions later, and worse, it reveals that the attending officers couldn't even trust the notes they made shortly after the incident.

This week, Const. Kwesi Millington, the officer who fired the Taser, testified before the inquiry, stating that he feared for the officers' safety after Dziekanski picked up a stapler.

His comments prompted snickers from spectators who watched the tape, and who obviously questioned how four officers, clad in Kevlar vests, carrying guns and pepper spray and trained in self-defence, could fear a lone man with a stapler.

Clearly, if the officers' actions were in keeping with RCMP policy at the time, then the policy permitted the Tasering of suspects upon even the slightest provocation.

Worse, Millington Tasered Dziekanski a total of five times, even after Dziekanski had fallen to the ground and after the officers had applied pressure to his back.

Now it's awfully hard to understand how the officers could still have been frightened of Dziekanski, but that's still not the worst of it. No, the worst thing is that if the videotape didn't exist, one would have to rely on Millington's notes about the incident, notes that Millington was forced to repeatedly admit were wrong.

In fact, confronted by videotape evidence about the number of times Dziekanski was Tasered, Millington had to confess that one would get a "distorted view" of the incident by reading his notes.

This is a devastating admission because, in most cases of Tasering, the officer's testimony is all we have to rely on.

And police forces have repeatedly defended their use of Tasers, and have even taken shots at critics -- witness the recent press conference held by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association, where representatives questioned the fitness of those who criticize Taser use.

Given that the police must have the trust and respect of the public if they are to function adequately, this is an attitude that must change, particularly in light of the evidence from the Braidwood inquiry.

That means that police forces across the country must be open to reconsidering their Taser policies in the face of honest concern -- the RCMP's recent modest changes to its policy are good first steps, but only first steps -- and must be willing to admit that they made mistakes.

And not just when they're called before a commission of inquiry.

Letter to the editor from Julian Fantino: Police have right to speak out about Tasers

What a silly letter, Mr. Fantino! Next you'll be sticking out your tongue, with your hands on your hips, yelling "I KNOW YOU ARE...BUT WHAT AM I?" Isn't this conduct unbecoming of Ontario's top police officer?

If YOU and the rest of your old-boy's club at the CACP/CPA were to have taken the trouble to DO YOUR HOMEWORK before the recent news conference to which you refer, then you and they might have in fact been able to, as you say, "articulate well researched, factually based and reasonable conclusions", for example, about the # of times tasers have proven to be NOT so less-lethal.

It's time for you, as the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, to stop wasting dwindling Ontario taxpayer dollars on such drivel and get started on your HOMEWORK because this just may come up again. And, just as you refused to do the media's homework, I'm not going to do yours, but I WILL give you a "hint" - Robert Dziekanski, Robert C. Heston, Henry O. Bryant, Kevin Piskura, and the list goes on ... if you spend even just a few moments either browsing through this website or Googling taser+cause of death and/or taser+contributing factor, you will be amazed to see that the taser has been identified as the CAUSE of death or a CONTRIBUTING FACTOR of death in many cases.

Once you have all completed your homework, then the next time you open your mouth on this subject intending to sound intelligent, you *might* actually be accused of conduct more becoming of someone in your position.

Oh, and my fellow blogger Excited-Delirium had this to add:

Fantino needs to pull the Taser Spokespuppet arm out of his ass. He's spounting obsolete nonsense.

Even Taser International has been forced to limit the geographical scope of these outrageous claims - they used to claim worldwide coverage until the inevitable leakage of escaped statistics caught up with them. Recently they claimed Canada, until the Dziekanski autopsy report listed the taser as a cause of death.

Tasers have been linked (by coroners) to about 69 deaths so far (including Mr. Dziekanski's). And this is just in the cases studied, where the researchers were able to obtain the autopsy reports. It's running 37% of the taser-death cases studied.

Tasers have been identified as a contributing CAUSE of death in many autopsy reports. Not to mention that most people would agree that "contributed to" means exactly the same thing as "partially caused".

Taser International has been found partially liable for at least one death. It won't be the last.

Even the RCMP now has acknowledged that tasers carry a "risk of death" ESPECIALLY if the subject is agitated. And there is nothing taken out of context about that clear admission.

This attitude is clear and compelling evidence that a moratorium is REQUIRED to allow time for such misleading rubbish propaganda to be removed from Police Leadership - one way or the other.


Julian Fantino responds to FANTINO'S ACT GROWS TIRESOME

Editor:

At the outset I wish to express my sense of personal pride to have Mr. Den Tandt compare me to Don Cherry, who I regard as a modern day Canadian icon.

I suppose that in the views of the author, those of us who have come to this country as immigrants, who have honourably served the apprentice of becoming Canadian citizens and who in my case have dedicated some 40 years to public service should be unceremoniously dismissed as an increasing embarrassment simply because it appears that I don't happen to fit the stereotypical views held by some that I am not entitled to express my views and do so about a subject I have intimate knowledge and experience.

Unlike the author, I am not confused, lost in the weeds or otherwise puffed up about a minute quantity of instantly acquired knowledge regarding the relevance and true value of Conducted Energy Weapons (Tasers) in modern-day policing. Nor would I ever attack the author on a personal level asking that his employer fire him for being devoid of journalistic integrity about a profession he seems to know very little about. I am, however very comfortable knowing as I do that I happen to have all the right enemies! I am also not deterred about standing up for what I believe and feel that as a Canadian citizen I am well entitled to express my views, speak the truth, state facts and dispel the kind of misinformation to which the public has been exposed about the Tasers, now further amplified by the author.

If the author were to have taken the trouble to be present at the recent news conference at which representatives of both the Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association articulated well researched, factually based and reasonable conclusions about the importance of Tasers as a less lethal force option available to police officers in the execution of their mandated duties, he might have understood far better the context and the relevance of the position taken by two professional associations that are truly representative of most police officers working in police agencies across the country.

Regardless of the uninformed views of some, including the author, and no matter the personal cheap shots on his part, the irrefutable bottom line is that there have been no studies, no research, no factual evidence to date that prove that the use of a Taser by a police officers in the lawful execution of their duty has ever been found to have been the direct cause of a fatality. Admittedly, the use of any force option by a police officer including the Taser as with all other use of force equipment; must be lawful, there must be proper policies in place along with appropriate training and accountability. We said all that and want to move forward towards a national model for the use of Tasers.

As much as public debate about significant public and officer safety issues is helpful, what is not helpful is personal attacks and the ssemination of misinformation, mischaracterization and uninformed rhetoric about the police use of Tasers that seems to be masqueraded as the legitimate freedom of the press. If the writer can, as he should, feel that he has the constitutional entitlement to free speech, he also needs to realize that my rights and those of police officers in this country are no less and he needs to come to terms with the fact that when we picked up our badge to serve the citizens of Canada, we did not at the same time surrender our rights to speak and be heard about issues that not only impact on our safety as police officers, but equally so on the safety of all Canadians.

Julian Fantino Commissioner Ontario Provincial Police

Mounties looking like Keystone Cops

February 28, 2009
By Don Martin, Calgary Herald

Police officers have three primary serve-and-protect obligations--investigate threats to civilian safety immediately, use their weapons responsibly and tell the truth faithfully under oath.

While the vast majority do their dangerous duty professionally, elements of the RCMP struck out on all three fronts this week to create the unfortunate optics of Dudley Do-Right joining the Keystone Cops.

In a strange series of random events, RCMP failed to perform due diligence in investigating reports of two SOS-signalling skiers lost for 10 days in the Rockies, police representatives staged a bizarre defence of Taser safety while refusing to produce the studies to bolster their case and several RCMP officers were clearly nose-stretching, if not engaging in a conspiracy of fabrication, while testifying at the Robert Dziekanski fatality inquiry.

The force's public relations hell dawned Tuesday when a parade of police association representatives arrived in Ottawa to "demystify" the Taser for national media, arguing it's a weapon that deserves a spot on every police belt.

The timing was awful. Three hours away, the Dziekanski inquiry was watching slow-motion footage of the Polish immigrant's multiple Taser-zapping and sudden death.

Yet the officers in Ottawa were adamant. Pay no attention to the video of that man twitching behind the glass, they basically argued. The Taser is an essential enforcement tool and totally safe--and they've got 150 studies to support that. Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Julian Fantino spun the purpose of their publicity campaign this way: "We decided it was time to set the record straight to give you and the public accurate information as best as we can and to demystify and bring some honesty and integrity into reporting."

But with respect, one reporter wondered, what studies have the RCMP used to prove the Taser poses all the takedown risk of a knuckle-wrapping? "Do your own homework," Chief Fantino fumed. "We've looked at them, consulted and validated them."

(This denied request for information is apparently part of RCMP culture. The federal information commissioner this week gave the force failing grades in meeting its information access obligations, listing it as one of the worst federal offenders for denying requests.) The only greater mystification than those alleged studies was the date they picked for their campaign kickoff.

To be hailing the Taser miracle at the precise moment an RCMP officer was squirming under Dziekanski inquiry fire in Vancouver was a publicity juxtaposition only a fiendish enemy of the technology could've arranged. Police testimony started changing on the fly as amateur video put the fib to facts which clearly seemed to have been negotiated in secret by responding officers seeking cover from their actions.

Add this discomfort to the RCMP's admitted failure to order a search for a missing couple in the B. C. backcountry last week, which resulted in a woman's tragic death, and you have a humiliating one-week triple whammy of lousy news for an RCMP that supposedly cleaned up its act after changing commissioners in 2006.

The lousy optics didn't have to gush forth this way.

There are a number of studies clearing the Taser of killer capabilities, which police representatives should've produced on demand, and police do support national rules governing Taser use to reduce risks to police or public safety.

And while the infamous Taser video suggests the inquiry will eventually find Dziekanski was the victim of aggressive police deploying Tasers excessively, contrite admissions of this ugly reality would've salvaged police reputations better than their apparent falsehoods of desperation.

RCMP might also want to update mountain rescue manuals to insist multiple SOS signals in snow-covered backcountry are reasonable signs of somebody in distress and thus search-worthy. After all, the force should be with us, not putting Canadians at risk of injury or neglect.

EDITORIAL: Show us that tasers save lives

February 28, 2009
The Province

The canadian association of chiefs of police and the canadian police association called on all officers nationwide to be authorized and trained in the use of this weapon, calling tasers "A valuable use-of-force option available to police to reduce the risk of injury or death."

Julian Fantino, the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, told reporters that "Tasers save lives," and that 150 studies worldwide prove "there is no direct link in any case" between the use of a Taser and a death. When asked to reveal the studies, Chief Fantino offered the glib response that he had no intention of doing the media's homework.

Here are some questions for the nation's police departments to consider: If Tasers save lives and if Tasers are safe, then why are they so controversial? What evidence is there to support the argument that Tasering someone saves lives? And finally, why would the two largest police organizations in this country come out with guns blazing on the Taser issue at the same time as the Braidwood Inquiry is looking into the weapons's safety?

There probably is a place for Tasers in the law-enforcement arsenal, but more study has to be done to determine what that place might be.

The Braidwood inquiry is a big part of that study.

For the police to come out now and boldly suggest more Tasers are needed is, at once, bullying, egregious and insensitive.

Policing the use of tasers

February 28, 2009
GREG DIONNE
Globe and Mail

Your editorial calling for civilian authorities "to follow the lead of the RCMP and write narrower rules for taser use" (Dangerously Blank Slates - editorial, Feb. 25) did not acknowledge the position of the Canadian Association of Police Boards.

CAPB is the national association for civilian oversight bodies of municipal police services. Public interest and confidence requires that police leaders, civilian and uniform, set a high standard for the use of conducted energy weapons. Police authority derives from, and is legitimate because civilian authority empowers policing authority, including the use of force. It does not work the other way around.

We've called for a national working group of stakeholders to review best practices with a view to developing national standards, including clear policies, internal reporting mechanisms and public accountability for the use of such weapons by municipal police services.

Standard reporting is needed regarding the various types of uses of force, any serious consequences, circumstances in which force was used, complaints, and disposition of conduct issues. This would be a useful tool for police services, boards and commissions to hold themselves accountable to the public in regard to an aspect of policing that has drawn much public scrutiny.

president, Canadian Association of Police Boards

Dude, don't Tase me for this one

Well, it's nice to see that someone at The Belleville Intelligencer is making a little more sense today than the editor was yesterday. I must say, though, that yesterday's editorial and today's viewpoint from City Editor Chris Malette makes the paper appear more than a little schizophrenic. Can they really have it both ways?

February 27, 2009
CHRIS MALETTE
City Editor, The Intelligencer

Not sure about you, but I always thought Mounties were a rough and ready bunch who always got their man -- not some bunch of two-bit rent-a-cops who Taser some poor schmuck to death so they can get back to their Tim's before it cools.

A simple request -- for any of my cop pals, cops who don't know me and would rather see me Tasered or any cop who may pull me over in the next little bit, please don't take any of this personally. I get along pretty well with most coppers, but this Taser business has still got me stumped.

I've followed coverage of the public inquiry into the 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport and have determined the four hapless Mounties had better not represent standard operating procedure for Tasering someone. If a few seconds of shouted commands prompts a dose of buzz juice from a ray gun, someone has to rewrite the manual.

I had a cop friend explain how you have split seconds to decide to deploy the Taser. Some are quicker than others to use it, he said. But think about the training these coppers have -- they are given instructions on how to do a quick mental checklist of the perp's behaviour before they use any manner of restraint or submission methods at their disposal.

Of course, the 9 mm deterrent is the biggie, but every-one's pretty much in agreement we don't draw on or shoot at suspects like the blue-suited pistoleros in the lower 48. But we sure have taken a shine to their handheld bug zappers, eh?

In the Dziekanski case, last December, Crown prosecutors announced that the use of force in this case was "reasonable in the circumstances" and that none of the officers would face criminal charges.

The four cops in this case gave non-English-speaking Dziekanski a few seconds to obey their English commands and when he didn't comply, they stunned him like a slaughterhouse veal calf. Swell.

One of the Mounties, Const. Gerry Rundel, said at the time, Tasers were considered safe and were on the lower end of the use-of-force guidelines, below pepper spray and batons.

He told the inquiry that he and his three fellow horsemen were called from their dinner break to deal with the unruly Polish traveller -- who'd been in transit for more than a day and trapped at the airport, confused as hell, for more than 10 hours -- and that, when Dziekanski became agitated, they felt "threatened" and feared for their safety.

Apparently, the big Pole picked up a stapler. Yes, a stapler. You know, the classic weapon of movie thugs everywhere -- a Bostich model A-200 Cop Whacker.

'Tase him, he's got office supplies!'

Crikey. It'd be laughable if it wasn't so damned tragic.

Here's a suggested game plan for this incident -- calm him down after determining if someone could communicate with him and, after the four officers working together couldn't calm him, bull rush the guy, bring him to ground, cuff him and then see if he's a little more compliant? Was that considered in this case? Nah.

Tase the guy -- not once, but twice -- and then stand around with your faces hanging out for, oh, nine or 10 minutes before medical help arrives?

The Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police came out in defence of Tasers Tuesday, declaring that every officer in the country should be authorized to carry one.

But the top cops also admitted that officers have used Tasers too often, stunned peaceful suspects, and not been transparent enough in reporting how they've used the weapon.

This all comes at an unfortunate coincidence of the trail of a Saskatchewan man into the murders of RCMP constables Robin Cameron and Marc Bourdages and the attempted murder of Const. Michelle Knopp.

No one denies cops have a tough job, have to make life and death decisions on occasion and have a variety of tools at their disposal.

But, in this case, the Mounties chose the easy, hassle-free way to bring an unruly man to heel and it cost a stranger from a strange land his life.