RCMP Watch

((CBC News) - RCMP members with less than five years of operational experience should be prohibited from using Taser stun guns, the force’s watchdog said Wednesday, adding that any individuals zapped by the Mounties should receive immediate medical attention.
Paul Kennedy, head of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, released a final report Wednesday [...]

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Jim Bronskill And Sue Bailey, Ottawa (Canadian Press) - Nearly one - third of the people the RCMP has zapped with Tasers needed medical treatment afterward, prompting new questions about a potent weapon police consider a safer alternative to conventional guns.
A joint investigation by The Canadian Press and CBC-Radio-Canada of more than 3,200 incidents in [...]

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Ottawa, ON (Canadian Press) The Supreme Court of Canada has quashed the conviction of a British Columbia man for molesting three children, ruling that the RCMP “knowingly and deliberately” violated the Charter of Rights during their investigation.
In a 9-0 judgment Thursday, the court ordered a new trial for Dieter Wittwer, 73, described at a Kelowna, [...]

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Paul Walton (Nanaimo Daily News) - A Nanaimo provincial court judge, in dropping a charge against a local man of assaulting police, instead blamed a Nanaimo Mountie for creating the violent confrontation.
The decision was handed by Judge Allan Gould on Monday in staying charges of assault police and uttering threats against Shane Owen, 48.
On Nov. [...]

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Steve Lillebuen, Edmonton, Alberta (Canwest News Service) - A Mountie has been stripped of three days pay and urged to enrol in anger-management classes after an internal disciplinary hearing into charges of disgraceful conduct.
RCMP Const. Gord Kroeker was found guilty Thursday of conduct unbecoming of an officer in an April 1, 2006, incident outside a [...]

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Marianne White (Canwest News Service) - While the RCMP is on the hot seat at the inquiry probing the use of Tasers in British Columbia following the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, documents from the Mounties show their use of stun guns has more than doubled across Canada between 2005 and 2007.
According to documents [...]

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Toronto, ON (Canadian Press) - The RCMP are challenging an order that it give a cadet expelled from the force another chance to join and pay him $500,000 in damages. In an application for a judicial review, the RCMP argues the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was wrong to find the force discriminated against Ali [...]

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Neal Hall, Vancouver, B.C. (Canwest News Service) - The mother of a Polish immigrant who died after being shot with a Taser by Vancouver police told a public inquiry Thursday that her son would still be alive if they didn’t use the controversial weapon on him.
“I know my son would not die if he was [...]

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Gary Mason, Vancouver, B.C. ( Globe and Mail) - Someone else might have resisted the temptation, especially knowing he might be blackballed as a result. But Mike Webster has never operated that way.
And so, when the respected police psychologist testified this week at the B.C. public inquiry into the use of tasers, he didn’t [...]

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(Canadian Press) Vancouver, B.C. - Robert Dziekanski’s medical history, not potential skeletons in his past, was the focus of investigators who travelled to Poland to examine the background of the man who died after being jolted by an RCMP Taser, says the senior officer who led the overseas probe.
Dziekanski came to national attention last October [...]

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