RCMP Watch

Neal Hall (Vancouver Sun) - Police are sometimes too quick to use force rather than trying to de-escalate a situation, a former Mountie told a Taser inquiry Wednesday in Vancouver.

“Certainly, my own opinion is that we’re moving too quickly to use force rather than using techniques to de-escalate,” said Kevin Begg, now assistant deputy minister of the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor-General.

He suggested police should try to lower the level of tension rather than escalate it.

Begg, who served 23 years in the RCMP, said Canadian policing has traditionally been more community-based than U.S. policing, which relies heavily on the use of force.

He pointed out the Taser was approved for use in B.C. in 2000 for situations where a suspect was violent, aggressive or armed.

Begg is concerned that in recent years Tasers are being used in lower-risk situations — “slippage,” he called it.

“This is not how the government originally envisioned and endorsed the use of Tasers,” he told inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood, a retired appeal court judge.

He said Tasers should not be a compliance tool, but should be moved up the use-of-force continuum for assaultive and combative behaviour.

Outside the inquiry, Begg told reporters there appears to be a gap that needs to be filled in policing by clearly defining when Tasers can be used.

“What I’m concerned about is that it’s [the threshold for Taser use] been slipping down,” he said.

“I think the philosophy of policing is different in the U.S. and Canada … and I think there’s been a drift in that [the U.S.] direction and it’s time to shift it back.”

Earlier in the day, a Canadian Mental Health Association presentation recommended a specially trained “crisis intervention team” to deal with mental health calls.

Camia Weaver, a lawyer who works as the association’s justice coordinator in B.C., said there should be a core of crisis response officers available 24 hours a day in each district.

The crisis intervention team of officers would be given extra training and would be put on regular duty but would be available to intervene in mental health calls, she said.

“We are recommending a core of carefully selected first-call officers who will be trained and available 24 hours a day who can respond to mental health calls,” Weaver said.

At present, the six-month police recruit training program in B.C. sets aside a three-hour component specific to mental health, Weaver said. She suggested crisis intervention team officers should get 40 hours of mental health training, including verbal crisis intervention, which should be the first level of intervention.

She said police need to use a non-threatening approach and de-escalation techniques when dealing with mental health calls.

A recent Vancouver police report found up to 50 per cent of calls in certain areas of the city involve mental health issues.

Nancy Hall, a mental health policy consultant, said mental health professionals initially supported the use of Tasers by police because it was considered a lesser use of force than a firearm.

But she suggested there has been “Taser creep” that has seen a wider application of use.

Hall called for more independent research on Tasers.

Asked by Braidwood what she meant by independent research, Hall said: “It shouldn’t be done by the company selling it.”

Tasers, which provide an electrical shock to incapacitate subjects, are made by an Arizona company