Oregon Group Gathers Signatures for Taser Restrictions

April 10, 2010
By Stacia Kalinoski, kezi.com

EUGENE, Ore.--Outrage over E-P-D's use of taser guns has spurred one man to try and change the policy.

Randy Prince wants a city ordinance that classifies tasers as deadly weapons. He brought the idea before the public at the Saturday Market, recruiting others to help him gather signatures. He's hoping to find enough names to put the proposal on the November ballot.

Though no one has died from being stunned by EPD, Prince says it has happened elsewhere, and therefore says it makes sense to place it under the same restrictions as a firearm.

He wants to limit taser use to the very serious cases, and says an ordinance will help decrease potential abuse of the weapon by officers.

"We think by carrying this petition that it's not enough to advise the police chief through some city council committees.

We want the principal established that people shouldn't be killed over lesser offenses, and the problem is, is that the taser does kill," he said.

Prince needs more than 12,000 registered Eugene voters in the next three months to get this on the November ballot.

Saturday, he recruited nearly 20 others to help him, and he plans to hit the campus area hard the next few weeks to gather signatures.

Prince said this measure could also regulate civilian use. While not putting a ban on tasers, he said new rules could change how residents use tasers for self defense.

Taser backer persists

April 9, 2010
By Edward Russo, The Register-Guard

Eugene attorney Jeff Salisbury understands why some residents want to curtail police use of Tasers. The electric stun guns are “powerful and painful,” he said.

But Salisbury, who played an influential role in Eugene’s decision to equip the city’s police with Tasers, disagrees with a possible ballot proposal to restrict the weapons’ use by officers.

Proponents are organizing a petition drive to ask Eugene voters to pass an ordinance classifying Tasers as deadly weapons, the same as firearms.

The signature-gathering drive for the petition could start Saturday in downtown. Proponents will need to gather 12,062 signatures of Eugene voters by July 15 to place the proposal on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Since Eugene police began carrying Tasers two years ago, officers frequently have used the stun guns, which have replaced pepper spray as the weapon of choice by officers when confronting resistant people. If successful, the ballot measure could prompt police to curb or even eliminate their Taser use.

Salisbury said the ballot measure doesn’t make sense.

“Tasers are not lethal; they are a non-lethal alternative to deadly force,” he said. The ordinance “would stand truth and logic on its head.”

Salisbury’s role in Eugene’s Taser debate came about through tragic circumstances.

His 19-year old, Ryan, had struggled with bipolar disorder for more than a year and had attempted suicide before the early morning of Nov. 14, 2006, when he suffered a psychotic break and lost control.

Jeff and Denise Salisbury had called police for help while they were barricaded inside a bedroom at their south hills home with their two younger sons and another child.

After police arrived, Ryan Salisbury walked toward officers with a kitchen knife in his hand, ignoring their orders to stop. He wasn’t halted by several hits from beanbag rounds. An officer then shot him five times as his parents watched from a bedroom window.

Afterward, Jeff and Denise Salisbury and others urged the police department to equip officers with Tasers so they would have an alternative to shooting someone in similar life-and-death situations.

The police department agreed. Since 40 officers started carrying them in 2008, the stun guns have been used mostly without controversy to subdue and control people that officers believe could injure other people, officers or themselves.

But two high-profile incidents involving the same officer focused public attention on the weapons and prompted the likely petition drive by south Eugene resident Randy Prince.

The proposed ordinance would allow police to use Tasers only in situations where firearms, or deadly force, would be justified.

A police officer, therefore, could use a Taser when dealing with a mentally troubled person who posed a deadly threat, as Ryan Salisbury did, Prince said.

“A Tasering would have been much more effective and could have been used in that situation, where a team of officers was dispatched to deal with a mentally ill, knife-wielding subject,” he said.

But people have died in other cities after being stunned by Tasers, Prince said, so it’s reasonable to put the weapons under the same deadly force rules as firearms.

Under Eugene Police Department rules, officers use Tasers to get people to comply with officers’ orders, Prince said. That creates the chance for officers to abuse the weapons and use them on people who shouldn’t be shocked, he said.

But Salisbury said the classification of Tasers as deadly weapons would hamstring police.

He’s concerned that police officials would take Tasers away from officers if the weapons had to be operated like firearms, eliminating them as an option.

On the other hand, if police are allowed to keep Tasers but only are permitted to use them in life-and-death situations, officers “may opt for the gun instead of the Taser since both are classified as deadly,” Salisbury said. “So why not use the gun anyway?”

“Having the Taser keep its non-lethal status will make it easier and more clear to the officers that they should try to use it before resorting to their .45 (caliber pistol), a truly lethal weapon,” he said.

Salisbury does, however, favor changing how the city disciplines officers who violate the department’s Taser rules. Under department policy, the police chief decides if an officer has violated the rules, and the chief imposes discipline.

Instead of the petition drive to restrict the use of Tasers, Salisbury said, concerned citizens should ask city officials to institute “clear and well-defined sanctions” for officers who violate Taser guidelines. And instead of the police chief handling discipline, the task should be given to a “quasi-independent authority comprised of police and nonpolice representatives,” Salisbury said.

NEW RCMP POLICY SAYS TASERS POTENTIALLY LETHAL, RESTRICTS USE

February 12, 2009
The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — New RCMP policy recognizes that Taser stun guns can cause death - especially in "acutely agitated" suspects - and restricts their use to defuse threats.

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott outlined the policy shift as he spoke to the Commons public-safety committee. Elliott says the Mounties will no longer use the painful stun guns against suspects who are merely resistant.

Taser use must be reported with each firing or threat to fire, and must be justified as a reasonable and necessary response to a threat to an officer or public safety.

Elliott says the contentious weapons save lives, and officers will now refresh Taser training each year instead of every two years.

The RCMP did not adopt the all-party committee's call to reclassify the Taser as an impact weapon.

Elliott says that's because it's already considered a prohibited firearm with clear policy restrictions for its use.

Canada needs standards on use of tasers: Therien

September 22, 2008
The Hill Times
CANADA'S POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT NEWSWEEKLY

The report, prepared by John Kiedrowski, of the University of Ottawa's Criminology Department, ordered by RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott into the use of tasers following the death of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver airport last October urges the federal government to set national standards for taser use by all police services in Canada, under its power in the Criminal Code to regulate firearms. The Canada Safety Council has long advocated and fully agrees that standards for the efficacy and use of tasers must be developed. This is a position shared by many concerned organizations. Without question, establishing standards would be a huge step in the right direction.

Emile Therien
Past president, Canada Safety Council
Ottawa, Ont.

RCMP, Toronto police treat tasers differently

September 13, 2008
Betsy Powell, Toronto Star

The RCMP are facing criticism over their use of Tasers as a less-than-lethal weapon but Toronto police treat the stun gun as a prohibited firearm.

And while the Mounties have been told to stop using "excited delirium" to describe combative, resistant suspects whose behaviour justifies firing the 50,000-volt charge, the term doesn't show up anywhere in Toronto police procedures relating to the use of Tasers.

"Excited delirium" is not a recognized medical diagnosis, but a term sometimes used by emergency room doctors or coroners, an Ottawa-based independent review panel said in a report obtained this week by the Star under Access to Information.

RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott ordered the review after the death last October of a Polish man shot with a Taser by RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport.

The report urges the federal government to set national standards for Taser use by all police forces in Canada, under its power in the Criminal Code to regulate firearms.

Elliott received the report in June but it had not been made public until this week.

The review concluded, among other things, that the RCMP did not do "due diligence" when it approved the Taser stun gun for widespread use within the force and relied too much on the advice of the Taser's American manufacturer in developing its policies and training.

Across Canada, 170 police agencies use stun guns and 22 people have died after being hit by stun guns, although the deaths have not been linked directly to their use.

Toronto police will not comment on the report since officials have yet to read the document, spokesperson Mark Pugash said yesterday.

But he noted that the Toronto Police Service's approach to Tasers was favourably cited in another Taser report released earlier this year by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP in British Columbia.

That report found Toronto has provided "a good example of operational use and guidance around CEW (conducted energy weapon). "The authorization of CEW deployments in situations where the subject is displaying assaultive behaviour is similar to where the commission has argued that the RCMP should be situating this weapon."

That report also concluded that in contrast to other police services, including Toronto, "which took the precaution of restricting CEW use to supervisors, the RCMP's position was that all of its officers should be trained to deploy a CEW."

While Toronto police have restricted Taser use to tactical units and qualified front-line supervisors, Chief Bill Blair has and continues to call for their use to be broadened to about 3,000 of 5,500 officers, Pugash said.

Taser use could put police under fire

June 28, 2008

Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau, Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Evidence at British Columbia's Taser inquiry may mean police forces across Canada, including the Ontario Provincial Police officers who zapped a suspect in Norfolk County near Simcoe this week, could be slapped with Criminal Code charges and wrongful death lawsuits.

B.C. police complaints commissioner Dirk Ryneveld revealed new information first unearthed by an Ontario consultant that shows most police agencies in Canada are wrongly operating, likely illegally, under the assumption that the Taser is not a "prohibited firearm."

In fact, research by Ottawa-based consultant John Kiedrowski indicates Taser guns are actually explicitly defined in Canadian criminal law as "prohibited firearms" – a designation that brings much stiffer rules around storage, training, certification and usage.

Likewise, any offence with a firearm, such as unauthorized use, would bring harsher mandatory minimum jail penalties.

Kiedrowski, who was unavailable to comment, recently completed an independent report for RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott on Tasers and the rules governing their use. The RCMP says it cannot release the report because it is not fully translated.

Ryneveld told the inquiry Kiedrowski briefed him on his concerns about Tasers, and Ryneveld said he believes Kiedrowski's concerns warrant a closer look.

Until now, the debate in Canada has centred on whether the Taser is an "intermediate" or "less-than-lethal" weapon, and whether officers are too quick on the draw when faced with a person resisting arrest.

Taser stun guns, or conducted energy weapons, are hand-held devices that can be either fired by pressing the barrel against a suspect and discharging an electrical shock, or fired from a distance, shooting out darts that penetrate clothing and attach to a suspect.

The officer then conducts an electrical charge via the propelled wires to jolt the individual into submission either through pain or muscle incapacitation.

Kiedrowski says the definition of a firearm, in law, means "a barrelled weapon from which any shot, bullet or other projectile can be discharged and that is capable of causing serious bodily injury or death to a person."

Regulations passed in 1998 when the federal Firearms Act came into effect define a "prohibited firearm" as "any firearm capable of discharging a dart or other object carrying an electrical current or substance, including the firearm of the design commonly known as the Taser Public Defender and any variant or modified version of it."

Kiedrowski discovered that provincial policing codes that authorize officers to carry firearms are required to list, by name, the firearms in use. None listed the Taser stun gun – theoretically making any discharge of a Taser, by definition, "unauthorized."

Instead, Tasers are treated as "prohibited weapons" and on the "use of force" spectrum, most police forces in Canada, including the RCMP and the OPP, classified them as "intermediate weapons."

"If this is a prohibited firearm, it must be authorized for use," said Ryneveld.

"And if their paperwork is misclassified as a prohibited weapon, then the restrictions on its use, and the reporting and the training and the certification don't apply to the Taser, whereas perhaps it should."

Ryneveld suggested while many police regulations allow officers to use firearms "for a special purpose," arming officers on general patrol with Tasers would have a hard time qualifying as a "special purpose."

RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Sylvie Tremblay admitted in an interview yesterday the RCMP "has been aware that the CEW (conducted energy weapon) is classified as a prohibited firearm" and has included that recognition in its operational policy. It appears that occurred sometime in 2007.

Tremblay said the RCMP policy recognizes that "carrying the CEW requires the same use and care practices as with all firearms used by the RCMP."

But RCMP public complaints commissioner Paul Kennedy, who last week urged the RCMP to tighten its rules on Taser use, has slammed the force for relaxing its own rules on Tasers.

Kennedy said in an interview yesterday he learned of the new information during his own limited review of RCMP protocols on Tasers, but did not include it in his report last week because it was beyond the scope of his mandate.

Asked what concerns the OPP has about legal implications its officers may face, OPP spokesperson Insp. Dave Ross sent an email to the Star that sidestepped the question.

"The OPP is reviewing the recommendations from the Kennedy report and looks forward to recommendations that may arise from any inquiry to evaluate if any of them will improve the safe and effective use of conducted energy weapons."

British Columbia's Police Complaints Commissioner wants tasers classified as firearms

June 25, 2008
CBC News

B.C.'s police complaints commissioner, Dirk Ryneveld, has told the Braidwood Inquiry that Tasers may be misclassified as prohibited weapons, as opposed to prohibited firearms, as defined under Canada's criminal code.

Ryneveld told the public inquiry on Wednesday the distinction is important because the classification determines how police use the controversial stun guns.

"If this is a prohibited firearm, it must be authorized for use. And if their paperwork is misclassified as a prohibited weapon, then the restrictions on its use, and the reporting and the training and the certification don’t apply to the Taser, whereas perhaps it should," said Ryneveld.

He also told the inquiry police need to use Tasers with an appreciation that they could be lethal, not with the belief that they are a safe, non-lethal alternative to a gun.

The inquiry heard Reyneveld’s opinion that Tasers have become a 'tool of convenience' and although the stun guns shouldn't be banned outright, they do require more study and training.

Reyneveld said he's had a long-standing concern with how stun guns are used by police forces, adding that issues about the weapon that were raised several years ago still haven't been resolved.

While he didn't recommend a moratorium, Ryneveld said the Taser needs to be placed higher on the use-of-force scale than it currently is. A national protocol should be devised to help all users understand when a stun gun should be used, he said.

The public inquiry was called in the wake of the death of Robert Dziekanski after he was shocked with an RCMP Taser at Vancouver International Airport last October. A report on the general use of Tasers by police is expected this fall.