RCMP Watch

Matt Kieltyka (24 Hours) - The use of Tasers needs to be restricted, according to the the chair of the body that oversees RCMP complaints.
Paul Kennedy, chair of the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, appeared before the Braidwood Inquiry into Taser use on Wednesday and said he has a problem with the way [...]

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(CBC News) - A parliamentary committee is threatening to call for a moratorium on the use of stun guns if the RCMP doesn’t begin restricting use of the weapons by the end of the year.
The House of Commons public safety and national security committee made its report on Taser use public in the hours following [...]

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((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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(CBC News) - Hours before the scheduled release of a highly anticipated final report on the use of stun guns by Mounties, the RCMP complaints commission abruptly cancelled the Thursday event.
Spokesman Nelson Kalil said the report by RCMP complaints commissioner Paul Kennedy will be released next Wednesday instead, at the request of Public Safety Minister [...]

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Dirk Meissner, Williams Lake, B.C. (Canadian Press) - Jurors at a B.C. coroner’s inquest into an RCMP shooting death say all officers should be trained in the use of tasers.
American Donald Lewis died of a gunshot wound in August of 2006 near McLeese Lake, B.C., in an altercation with an RCMP officer.
Constable Cole Brewer told [...]

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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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