Scott Tracey, Guelph, Ontario (GuelphMercury.com) How refreshing it’s been lately to finally hear police leaders speaking frankly about the potential threat posed by Tasers.
RCMP Commissioner William Elliott got the ball rolling a couple of weeks ago, telling the parliamentary public safety committee the national police service has done an about-face when it comes to use of the stun guns.
Elliott said the RCMP no longer allows use of Tasers to subdue “resistant” individuals, and authorizes the weapons’ use only when “necessary” to protect officers or members of the public.
But the most headline-grabbing part of Elliott’s presentation was his admission the potential risk of using Tasers includes “the risk of death.”
The commish later clarified that while there is no evidence Tasers can kill, that possibility must be considered given the number of people who have died shortly after being jolted with the 50,000-volt weapons.
Most notable among these, of course, is Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, who became the tragic poster child for the campaign against Tasers after he died in October 2007 shortly after being zapped five times by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport. A public inquiry now underway into Dziekanski’s death has revealed some troubling evidence, including that responding officers did not speak a word to each other or to witnesses and were on the scene less than 20 seconds before zapping Dziekanski.
One of the officers testified this week his use of the Taser was authorized because when Dziekanski took a few steps away from the officers they considered him to be resisting.
The new rules banning use of the weapons on suspects who are simply being resistant likely would have prevented — or at least delayed — the officers’ use of their stun guns in the Dziekanski case.
The RCMP’s new rules might even have required those responding officers to speak to Dziekanski, to try to understand why he was upset, to learn that he could not understand English and find someone to communicate with him.
To de-escalate the situation the way police officers did it for the hundreds of years before Thomas A. Swift invented his “electrical rifle.”
This week, senior representatives of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association — which together represent cops from the front lines to the highest level of administration — presented in Ottawa a 13-point position paper supporting the use of Tasers and calling on legislators to allow all police officers to carry the weapons.
But their message became somewhat diluted toward the end of the news conference, when the police spokespeople had to concede that Tasers have been used too often and in cases in which the suspect presented no threat.
They also questioned Elliott’s admission the weapons might present a risk of death and claimed there have been 150 studies worldwide which have failed to find a link, though they could not name a single one.
That is a stupid tactic.
Flatly denying that Tasers can cause death flies in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, not to mention defying common sense.
A Taser is a weapon. Weapons, in extreme cases, can cause death.
Instead of denying Tasers can be lethal — which could make officers that much more likely to pull the trigger — police should acknowledge this is a possible outcome, and focus on how much less harmful Tasers can be than other weapons on the police tool belt such as firearms and batons.
Our own Deputy Chief Brent Eden seems to have got that message.
“There’s definitely a risk to using them,” Eden told me this week. “They are a use-of-force option and there can be a risk associated with any use-of-force option.”
How refreshing.
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