Time for tougher controls on police Taser use

The bad thing isn’t necessarily that so many people are dying after being tasered by police.
What’s really worrying is that police forces - at least officially - don’t see any connection between zapping people and their almost immediate deaths.
Robert Dziekanski is the latest victim. His mother, who lives in Kamloops, worked two jobs and saved for years to bring her 40-year-old son to Canada. He flew into in Vancouver, but there were delays in getting into the terminal. She missed him at the airport.
He wandered for 10 hours, unable to get anyone to understand him. Then Dzienkanski started acting aggressively in the airport, alarming people. RCMP officers subdued him with a Taser. He died. His mother is wondering what happened.
The official police position is that Tasers are safe. But at least 17 people have died after being shocked with the devices in Canada in the last five years, six in this province. That seems more than coincidence.
And it’s significant. In B.C., police have only had to shoot more than three people in a year than once in the past decade. Officers are remarkably restrained in their use of weapons, no matter how great the personal risk.
Tasers were proposed in B.C. in 1998 as an alternative to deadly force. They were to be used when officers were ready to draw their guns.
That seemed a very good idea. Anything that gives police an alternative to shooting someone - without putting themselves at increased risk - is good.
But it’s impossible to know if that’s how the stun guns have been used in B.C. The impression is that Tasers have been used as a convenient way to subdue people.
When Victoria police studied Tasers for the B.C. Police Complaints Commissioner in 2004, they found that about one-third of the cases in which it had been used in Canada involved people who were resisting arrest - perhaps pulling an arm away from an officer, or ignoring an order. They weren’t hitting or kicking.
There’s certainly been no evidence that the RCMP had any reason to consider shooting Dziekanski. He had no weapon; there was no imminent danger in the largely empty airport. At least three RCMP officers were there to deal with one angry man.
Don’t get me wrong. Long ago, as a reporter, I did a ride-along with an RCMP officer in Alberta. She stopped a beat-up car full of men on the highway. I sat there with my notebook, wondering what I’d do if things went sideways and we were suddenly fighting five big guys. A Taser would have been reassuring.
The issue here is not the value of the weapon. It’s the need for an accurate assessment of the risks, so that the Tasers can be used to ensure police safety while not subjecting civilians to the risk of death.
Police and the manufacturer argue Tasers don’t kill. But their use has been part of a sequence of events that does. The person being zapped is generally in state of excited delirium, often due to cocaine use. They are then restrained on their stomachs, with hands and feet tied behind their backs. And then they stop breathing and die.
The 2004 report made several recommendations around police training and the need for mandatory reporting anytime a Taser is used. It called for specific training for all officers in excited delirium and an end to “maximum restraint” positions that sees suspects hogtied on their stomachs.
Some of the recommendations have been adopted; others are still not in place. But the continuing toll be taken by Taser use indicates that more needs to be done.
And the greatest concern remains the reluctance of police to acknowledge the risks or that Tasers can kill.
When people are belligerent or violent, there is no easy solution for police. All the alternatives, from pepper spray to baton to talking, carry risks.
But Tasers have proven particularly dangerous. It’s time to ensure their use is treated almost as seriously as discharging a gun in the line of duty.
Footnote: The Dzienkanski case raises once again another problem. The investigation into his death is being conducted by the RCMP, just as the force investigated its officer’s actions when Ian Bush was shot and killed inside the Houston RCMP detachment. The public interest demands an independent investigation.