RCMP Watch

(CBC News) - RCMP officers involved in the Taser-related death of Robert Dziekanski were also affected by the tragic incident and in need of support, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said Friday.
Campbell made the comments a day after CBC News published internal RCMP e-mails that indicated the premier was “highly complimentary” of the police force, despite [...]

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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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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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Neal Hall, Vancouver, B.C. (Canwest News Service) - The electrical shock from a Taser stun gun used by police could cause cardiac arrest, a Vancouver heart surgeon testified Tuesday at a Taser inquiry.
“One can conclude the risk of death from a Taser is small but not insignificant,” Dr. Michael Janusz, a heart surgeon at Vancouver [...]

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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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(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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