TASER a fixture in Canadian policing

April 2008 Edition - The bottom-line on a TASER story is simple, TASERs are here to stay because police like them. The reality is, cops believe they have a clearly effective non-lethal tool to deal with people who are resisting arrest under suspicion of breaking the law. In an example of expanding use, Toronto Police Service is seeking funding to supply TASERs for 3,000 officers, whereas presently 500 Toronto police officers are equipped.

There is no momentous argument against continued use of these particular Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) if the tool is non-lethal and provides effective use for stopping in-your-face lawbreakers.

RCMP Commissioner William Elliot said recently, "Guidance is being communicated to frontline staff across the country, but use on the ground includes certain amount of subjectivity. Our preliminary view is that the current deployment of the weapon was appropriate. The measures we are putting into place are significant but it is not a major policy shift. This remains a useful tool that promotes officer and public safety."

Meanwhile the questions presently being asked across the country in a variety of official forums are, what about 'usage creep?' Why has TASER use exploded? A final one must be, do they kill?

TASER is another form of CED (as are cattle prods, electric fences, bug zappers, and neck collars for dangerous prisoners-in-transit or to train pets or command vicious working animals).

TASER is a patented and exclusive 'hand-held' Conducted Energy Device made in Arizona, by Taser International, named after the fictional youth-oriented hero Tom A. Swift's 'electric rifle,' and trademarked TASER.

The idea and practices are not entirely new and were developed under the aegis of the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1980s, however, the TASER 50,000 and 90,000 volt format is less than a decade old; thus, it is new to the arsenal of law enforcement, .

Last year Crime Watch Canada magazine reported that, according to Amnesty International, TASER issues include controversy about the theoretical incidence of 'excited delirium,' "a condition that purportedly overcomes some people in restraint and in rare instances leads to death." Apparently, "the term has no formal medical recognition and is not recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." (wikipedia, 'excited delirium')

After the magazine report came the incident with Robert Dziekanski of Poland at YVR where RCMP zapped him and Dziekanski died on camera for the world to see. Problematic for the theory of excited delirium brought on by TASER use in the case of Dziekanski is that he was already in a state of excited delirium before police arrived. The video of the encounter is difficult to watch, this is true, but it is doubtful if the video is a depiction of  excited delirium by TASER.

To this day reports are generating news about Dziekanski's encounter and demise. He was a big man in a frenetic state of mind. He was throwing things like computers at the window where a sympathetic woman stood pleading to him. It is a fact that people standing nearby were in danger of injury if not by his normal intention then certainly by his extemporaneous actions. He was mentally lost.

Zapping him and getting him restrained seemed to police suddenly on the spot at this peculiar hour in the Vancouver International Airport to be an expedient solution, almost a no brainer. It is sadly disturbing to learn this recourse was nearly bypassed when the arrival of a Polish interpreter was seconds away, according to the situation represented by new information released through access to information requests sought by major media and subsequently reported.

An airport employee with Polish language skills who was familiar with and to Dziekanski was on the scene only seconds after the four officer 'take-down' was completed. Canada Border Services Agency employee Adam Chapin arrived only to witness futile resusitation attempts on a man he had been assisting 90 minutes earlier.

It appeared from the opportune prism of a cell phone camera lens that even though Dziekanski was discombulated and needing restraint, four responding RCMP officers went overboard with TASERs, as there are some indications he was hit four times in less than 30 seconds. Even after he was down and restrained by overwhelming strength of force, the zapping continued (especially the 'shooting' kind that keeps voltage flowing from the device into the suspect along extension wires).

This event ignited the requisite firestorm of outrage about the use of TASERs in Canada. In fact minor changes did occur and those made to emphasize that the RCMP would conduct a review of the use of TASERs, and that during the interim awaiting the report Commissioner Elliot had issued instructions suggesting the use of TASERs be applied on the suspect only when they are combative (as opposed to combative, resisting arrest, or suicidal).

The real problem was the public response the police encountered, which became an enraged public response during continuous airing on news broadcasts, then Youtube, Google Video, et al., of the Dziekanski  incident, the showing of which police initially tried to suppress. The preliminary response of the authorities toward the use of TASERs said, end-users (police officers) need to be retrained and must recertify their skill set with TASERs every two years.

At the outset of the process of TASER investigation the commissioner called for strict reporting requirements, but instead, as March 2008 came to an end, the RCMP released data that restricted most of the reporting on TASER incidents.

They came forward with a further renunciation of moratoriums on TASER use, however, the investigating authority within the national police force did express worries about 'usage' or operational creep,' of the tool.

The RCMP reports that presently 9,000 police officers are trained to use TASERs in Canada (and remember that Toronto and other police services are rapidly expanding deployment). Last year 1400 uses were made of the tool, a figure which has doubled in five years. Expansion of use is partly because of expansion of deployment.

The TASER hasn't been around long and expansion of incidents is the end result of deployment of a new tool. Even so, the RCMP have become shy about reporting the information about deployment, and savvy journalists can fill in gaps in reporting in incidents in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, and in Pukatawagaon, Manitoba. RCMP have restricted the reporting on the basis of privacy issues.

Ujal Dosanjh, federal opposition critic of the Public Security ministry, said, "privacy issues are absolutely nonsense," in regard to restricted reporting on TASER use. "RCMP is a public police force and accountable to Canadians. Nothing more important to police than their public image and they are failing to ge the message out," and this is another example of a, "lack of communication."

In the face of the criticism of the reporting incident the RCMP decided to, "re-examine the decision to strip crucial information from the TASER reports recently made the public."

"I think the RCMP, by doing this, is losing a lot of credibility on the way they handle the TASER," said BQ MP and frequent justice critic Serge Ménard. He added, "I think the RCMP, by doing this, is losing a lot of credibility on the way they handle the TASER."

The RCMP reported that TASERs were deployed (if not always fired) more than 1,400 times last year, as opposed to 597 times in 2005.  More than 20 people have died in Canada since 2003 after being TASER’d by a police officer, and 300 people have died across N America, 12 since Dziezanski.

To be clear, the manufacturer Taser International says no direct blame for a death has been assigned to the device, although, "It has been cited as a contributing factor in several cases."

The police will continue to argue that it is safer to use this weapon than fists, boots, or baton. If it is an operational creep issue than superiors will be monitoring their subordinates to stick to the rules of 2001: TASERs are for resisting arrest, suicidal or combative encounters, and the goal will be to monitor against overuse in the field, because it will remain in the eyes of the cops an easy way to put down a suspect.