Allan Dowd, Vancouver, B.C. (Reuters) – Police should restrict their use of Taser stun guns, but there is no need for a moratorium on the weapon while safety concerns are studied, according a Canadian report released on Thursday.
The weapons can be used safely, but police must also recognize they have the potential to kill, and further study is needed on their medical effects, according to the report of British Columbia inquiry into a fatal incident near Vancouver.
Inquiry head Thomas Braidwood said he was recommending police be able to keep the weapons while safety questions are resolved, because they are a potentially valuable tool for officers as an alternative to firearms.
“From a public policy standpoint, you have to balance the good and the bad … life is not easy,” Braidwood, a retired British Columbia judge, told reporters in releasing the 546-page report in Vancouver.
Tasers, also known as conductive energy weapons, disable people with a 50,000-volt jolt of electricity, and have become increasingly popular with police around the world. They can also be sold to the public in the United States.
British Columbia’s provincial inquiry stems from the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski in an incident in which he was shocked several times in a confrontation with Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers at Vancouver International Airport in 2007.
The exact cause of his death has never been determined.
A video recording of him screaming on the floor as he died was broadcast around the world, and became the flash point for concerns in Canada that police were misusing the weapon.
Dziekanski’s mother and other critics of the weapons had called for a ban.
Braidwood issued 19 recommendations, including that police should only use Tasers against a suspect who is causing bodily harm or is about to, and the officer has no alternative.
He also said it should only be used against suspects involved in serious crimes, noting that in some cases the weapons have been fired at suspects who were simply running away from officers.
Police in British Columbia have been using Tasers since 1999. Braidwood said there have been 25 deaths associated with their use in Canada and over 300 deaths in the United States.
The weapon’s maker, Taser International Inc., is not happy with the report and said the restrictions will force police to use more dangerous alternatives.
“It appears that politics has trumped science in the commission (inquiry),” it said.
Taser, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, says there is no scientific evidence the guns have been directly responsible for any deaths, which it asserts were likely caused by other issues, including what the company and police say is “excited delirium.”
Braidwood criticized the use of that phrase, saying it allows officials to avoid finding the real cause of death. He called on the government to do more studies on the effect of the powerful electrical jolt on heart muscles.
He also chastised police for not developing their own policies on how the weapons could be used safely, instead of relying the manufacturer’s recommendations and assurances of safety.
British Columbia said it would immediately accept all of Braidwood’s recommendations for all provincially regulated police agencies.
Braidwood acknowledged he did not have the authority to force the RCMP, Canada’s national police force, to follow his recommendations, but suggested the province require them to be put in place when the two governments negotiate a new policing contract.
Braidwood is still collecting evidence on police conduct in the incident the night Dziekanski died, and is not expected to release that report until next year. The Polish government has also been represented in the inquiry.
Good recommendations CL, however until you remove the RCMP from the government you will have no change. The Commissioner is a deputy minister, another political hack. The office of Commissioner has to be independent from the government and overseen by civilian authority, bereft of political influence. Only then will you realize 1, 2 and 3 of your recommendations.
I don’t think that the poster is stating that white males do not have incompetents. that is not the way I read his direction.
Anyone who has worked in a large organization can make the same statement with respect to witnessing hiring and promotion of individuals. It is nothing unique to the RCMP.
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JohnnyG
If white male members historically allowed all qualified applicants to follow the training and hiring practices we would not be having this discussion. This did not happen.
There is plenty of documentation to prove that covert methods were used to keep non-white applicants from becoming members. There was an official policy that women could not become members of the RCMP.
White males had an (covertly) employment equity program for decades.
Have these covert methods been refined and being applied today? I’m not going down that road. People are going to believe what they want. We will just get into stories of this group or that group being better or worse than the next group.
With respect, you’re above statement regarding white males and Merit may be convincing to a member of the public, but I can assure you that no one group including white males are immune from incompetence and being hired and promoted for other reasons than merit. My being a member of the RCMP for 28 years qualifies me to make this statement.
The reason why there is a great deal of incompetence is that the RCMP puts “politics before performance”. Lets get away from the blame game.
The way that we resolve this conflict and differing opinions is simple.
1 .Have an RCMP standard.
2. Abolish all existing employment equity programs etc. in the RCMP
3. Hold all INDIVIDUAL RCMP members accountable for their conscious actions of alleged harassment, discrimination, and cultural abuse after doing a timely, accurate, and open as possible investigation. Then tell the truth no matter who it helps or who it hurts.
Problem solved.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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I agree with Calvin. KEEP THE STANDARDS HIGH!
I don’t think there is anyone here on the discussion board that wants to keep someone who can do the job out of policing. People are getting fed up with hiring standards where merit is near the bottom of the list of pre-requisites.
As far as the 6ft 200lb white male comparisons go, I am not saying that I agree with that, but it is the only standard to compare what the force has become. Though you had to be a white male, atleast the ones that did get hired did so on merit. That is more than what can be said today.
I think having tiger woods in golf is great, but I don’t want to see Connie Chung or Oprah Winfrey competing because of some quota.
Social Critic, as far as Michelle Knopp goes she drove into an ambush- she did not know that she was going to get shot at. And when she did, she did whatever it took to survive. She did what she did because she had to, as there were no other options. If this were the army this wouldn’t even come close what it would take to be awarded the Victoria Cross. By the way, I would be curious to look at similar cases involving men to see if they recieved such an award and accolades. Ottawa is crawling with feminists who push for these kinds of things. I wonder if a white male would get the kind of press she did?
Also, like a true modern liberal you are twisting what has been said into a broader issue. The context is that too many people are being hired on the basis of race and not merit. My point is when you put merit as far down the scale as it currenty is, the quality of the force is going to suffer and when you have physically weak people going in that can’t fight their way out of wet paper bag, than tasers and pepper spray is what is going to fill the void and be used to attempt to equalize the situation.
As far as the Vancouver 4 go, they shouldn’t have used them, but this shows how in the toilet the RCMP has gone. In a feminized organization women are supposed to act like men and men are supposed to act like men. And the men that act like men don’t fit into the current culture. In a feminized organization, nobody likes to get their hands dirty or call a spade a spade.
You talk about sterotypes and being colorblind, but liberals are the ones that create all this. There is no united white person college fund. There is no White Miss America pagent.
It is people like you that push the quota systems not based on merrit that determines employees on the basis of sex/race and not competence- NOT ME!
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1. This is one more example of how police work has been feminized.
2. If the police forces were all 6 foot, 200lb men
3. pandering to special interest and minority groups who otherwise would not “make the grade”
4. Everyone knows what the problem is, but the RCMP culture is so cut throat that you will be sold out and betrayed by other white males-
Please let me understand what is being stated in the above quotes.
The RCMP is now substandard because of the hiring practices of visible minorities, women, and people who are not 200 lb. and 6 ft. tall, and not white? It seems to me that was the make up of the RCMP by design for most of the RCMP’s existence while barriers were placed to block the hiring of others. What would have happened if barriers were not placed to block the hiring of others? You can’t have it both ways.
Lets get rid of all the employment equity programs and special interest groups. Keep all the standards the same and hold individuals RCMP members accountable for any behaviors that violate the core values of the RCMP organization.
Raise the standards don’t lower them.
When expectations are high as in golf and tennis for example; you get Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters. Get the point.
We should never let other peoples negative opinions of ourselves become our reality.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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Newspaper help wanted ads and storefront employment signs in common use across Canada in the early 1900’s were known on more than a few occasions to carry this helpful hint to job seekers:
NO IRISH NEED APPLY!
Some say we have advanced a long way. True, but here is living proof prejudice and the bitter bile of stereotyping wholesale segments of the population have a cherished place in the hearts of those whose bigotry must surely be the source of weightlessness which enables them to remain suspended over an abyss of their own construction.
Constable Michelle Knopp who is being recognized by the Governor General for the bravery of her actions in the Spiritwood shooting might be momentarily offended by some of the thin-skinned sexist rants above. But then again she probably has endured enough of that ignorance that she would rather just get on with her job than devote her focus to a cadre whose primary daily irritant (aside from the repeal of Jim Crow laws and the Women’s Franchise Act of 1918) is that annoying concrete burn on their knuckles.
I bet her 200 lb white male colleagues have confidence in her bravery and her character. Do you honestly think they devalue her based on her genitalia? (Oh, come to think of it, you do.)
For years Asian men who had served with distinction in the Hong Kong police force were denied the right to even apply to police forces in Canada because of height and weight restrictions. Foolishly excluded, it would seem, because they had previously and repeatedly proved themselves capable of handling violent behemoths including no small numbers of booze-fuelled sailors on liberty who use brawling as a substitute for “Hi, how are you?”
And if you looked at the YVR 4 they didn’t appear very “feminized” on video…whatever the hell “feminized” means.
So if I understand you correctly a force of 200 lb white males is just the ticket to resolving unsightly problems of police “feminization”. Oh, provided they have the right aptitudes …knowing as we all do that aboriginal candidates may get their hands on firewater and attack the wagon train, or “darkies” can’t handle mental complexity (which is why some say they will never attain quarterbacking jobs in the NFL), and those Asians are too small and who can understand them anyway, and Latinos are lazy, and women!…well we don’t want any of them because they are so emotional.
But just before you examine your bed sheet for gasoline stains prior to heading down to the meeting tonight, ask yourself this: If you have a daughter or a sister, or you know a neighbour’s daughter you think a lot of, would you trash her career aspirations based on stereotypes? Would you? Bear in mind, I’m not talking about what YOU think she should aspire to. This question isn’t about you. It’s about that young person. Say she announced she wanted to work for a career that usually attracts 200lb white men. Would you say to your daughter ‘honey I mean this only in a loving way, but you are not very good, and I have no confidence in you, and girls just can’t do that, and I think you will be a failure…so give up now before you fail or worse still, take a well paying job from a more deserving 200lb white man (name to be supplied at a later date)’. Would you?
If the answer is yes, then I won’t keep you. You won’t want to be late for the meeting or you’ll miss the Grand Imperial Wizard’s opening remarks
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Justice Thomas Braidwood issued 19 recommendations on how and when the Conducted Energy Weapon (the Taser) should be used. His list ought to be augmented with some of the items set out in the June 2009 complaint that Adam Dormer filed against the RCMP. In January 2009, in Banff, Judge John Reilly found that on July 21, 2007 RCMP officers arrested Dormer without cause and violated his Charter rights by Tasering him five times, three times after he was in handcuffs. The judge rebuked the officers for providing deliberately false evidence. The Crown appealed Dormer’s not-guilty verdict but the Appeal Court dismissed it saying that the officers were responsible for the incident.
Where Braidwood recommends that all police officers receive training on crisis intervention, Dormer requires that all RCMP officers receive annual training on how to diffuse a situation without use of weaponry.
Braidwood recommends that all officers. when dealing with emotionally disturbed people. be required to use de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques before deploying a Taser. Dormer requires that officers use conflict resolution skills before use of any weaponry in all instances.
Braidwood recommends the province develop an electronic system for the reporting and analysis of Taser incidents, with reports reviewed quarterly and reported annually to the responsible provincial minister. Dormer wants the establishment and weekly updating of a publicly available web site providing proactive disclosure of all Taser events; “event” being defined as the Taser being drawn, whether fired or not. Information to be provided will include, but not be limited to: name and rank of officer(s) involved, whether or not the Taser was fired, age and sex of Tasered person, date and location of event, whether the Tasered person was armed, why they were fired on, whether they were injured, whether medical treatment was provided, number of shocks, duration of shocks, what the police tried before resorting to the Taser, if the Tasered person dies within seven days of being Tasered, the date of death must also to be provided, a tally of how many incidents an officer has used a Taser as well as the number of shots per incident by the officer. The web site is to be audited for accuracy and completeness annually by an independent authority. The audit reports are to be tabled in the House of Commons.
Dormer also wants a change in RCMP policy so that it will be mandatory that every time the Taser is deployed/used/fired, the full report generated by the Taser will be provided within 24 hours to the person Tasered.
Dormer was attacked by the RCMP four months before Robert Dziekanski was Tasered and killed. Had RCMP management paid attention and taken corrective action then, Robert Dziekanski might still be alive.
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Another problem in the force is that if you breathe one word about what we all posted above, you are up to your neck in trouble. Everyone knows what the problem is, but the RCMP culture is so cut throat that you will be sold out and betrayed by other white males- even though some of them are thinking or hypocritical enough to have once said the same thing themselves. The RCMP in their “nouveau” training methods destroys any kind of cohesion and will thus prevent the membership from having any solidarity on issues such as this.
In the old days, most members were dedicated and hard working. Back in the old days there was “peer pressure” to perform above the call of duty. Nowdays there is peer pressure not to perform. With all below average cops in the outfit, little cliques form and they target the harder working, dedicated ones that are showing them up. The attitude is “if you do it, than that means I have to do it”. When you tell the wrong person where they can go with this attitude, you can just sit back and watch your career and reputation be destroyed (mostly all behind your back) and the force you were so dedicated to, will do nothing to back you up…
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Not only feminized, but inclusive of all warm bodies regardless of physical and mental aptitude thanks to the pandering to special interest and minority groups who otherwise would not “make the grade” as it were in days past. Specialized functions for law enforcement sometimes requires unique characteristics such as the former RCMP special constable program for such items as surveillance units, embassy patrols etc. All such units were converted in a misguided effort years ago.
Minimum physical requirements are no longer tolerated, which is counterproductive. You are even allowed to join the RCMP if you are color blind, (to a degree), stutter badly and other such impairments.
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The tazer just shows how weak the forces and it’s members have become and how they must trust in their below average tazer to do their jobs, if you can call what they have been doing killing people with the tazer that is?
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The problem here is too many of todays police need a tazer just to go out and do police work. This is one more example of how police work has been feminized.
If the police forces were all 6 foot, 200lb men, I wonder how quickly the taser would have been banned, if invented at all….
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