RCMP Watch

Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Press) Germain Quesnel sat in an RCMP cell for an hour, believing he was having a heart attack.
He had just received two blasts from a police Taser to his chest because Staff Sgt. Lorne Malkoske said he wouldn’t move away from the cell door. Quesnel, who had had two previous heart attacks, [...]

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Neal Hall (Vancouver Sun) - The RCMP has changed its Taser policy and now trains officers only to use the weapon when a person exhibits “active resistance” to arrest or police commands, a provincial Taser inquiry was told Thursday.
The RCMP’s national use-of-force coordinator from Ottawa, Insp. Troy Lightfoot, told the inquiry the RCMP changed its [...]

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(CBC) - The RCMP is willing to change its Taser policy if a new set of guidelines is developed, senior members testified Thursday at an inquiry looking into use of the stun guns.
Assistant Commissioner Al McIntyre said when the Braidwood inquiry is complete, the RCMP will adapt.
“We are willing to change our policy, we are [...]

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Greg Joyce, Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Press) - There are no obvious features on a body to indicate to a pathologist that a taser has directly caused a death, a former chief coroner told a B.C. public inquiry yesterday.
But John Butt, who was the chief coroner in Alberta and the chief medical examiner in Nova Scotia, [...]

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Suzanne Fournier (Vancouver Province) - Vancouver pathologist Dr. John Butt warned yesterday that despite the fact “there are deaths due to the Taser,” its use is “exploding” among police forces in the absence of strict-usage rules or monitoring.
Butt, a former coroner and chief medical examiner with 45 years’ experience, told the Braidwood Inquiry into Taser [...]

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Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Press) - The RCMP learned much from the incident last fall at Vancouver airport where a Polish immigrant died after being Tasered by RCMP and the force will “answer to what happened on that day,” the force’s assistant commissioner said Thursday.
“It was tough for us, very tough,” Asst. Commissioner Al Macintyre told [...]

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(CBC) A coroner’s inquest into the death of an American man shot by the RCMP in the B.C. Interior two years ago will begin June 2.
Donald Dwayne Lewis, 43, died on Aug. 13, 2006, following an altercation with a Williams Lake RCMP officer near McLeese Lake, off Highway 97.
Presiding coroner Shane DeMeyer and a jury [...]

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(Halifax Herald) - The grieving mother of Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died after being Tasered by Mounties at Vancouver’s international airport last fall, last week told a B.C. public inquiry into Taser use that the incident has “shattered” her faith in the RCMP.
Police forces across Canada which use Tasers should be paying close [...]

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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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Jim Mattern, Saskatoon, SK ( 600 Action News) - A Coroners Inquest will be held on the Muskowekwan First Nation June 2nd to 6th into the death of 44 year old Delbert Pelletier.
Pelletier was shot by RCMP on the reserve following a standoff in a home. The inquest will determine the medical cause of death, [...]

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