Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Press) – Aeron Hall admits he’d had a few drinks before setting off on the walk home one spring night four years ago.
But Hall, who is disabled, said it was his limp and not excessive intoxication that attracted the attention of RCMP and set off a chain of events that ended with him being jolted seven times by RCMP Tasers, including once to his testicles.
Hall’s experience in Merritt, B.C., and a disturbingly similar experience by a Kamloops man have angered the head of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, which wants police officers better trained to recognize disabilities.
Both Hall, 35, and Gary Williams, 49, admit they had been drinking before their confrontations with RCMP officers. But both adamantly deny they were drunk.
Williams has a limp from a horrible accident as a child. He also has a chronic sleep disorder and speaks slowly and carefully.
Hall had a brain aneurysm as a child. His weak leg swings as he walks, a visible reminder of his disability.
Both men are on government disability pensions.
Hall said he was on his way home after having a couple of beers with a few friendsin June 2004 when he was confronted by a female police officer in front of the Merritt RCMP detachment. He questioned the need to get in her vehicle but said he did comply and was driven a short distance to the detachment door.
Once inside, Hall was told to remove all his clothing and jewelry but the First Nations man wouldn’t take off one necklace. He said his spiritual adviser told him never to take it off.
That’s when he said two large, male officers approached him.
“One was holding a Taser behind his back and they reached for my necklace to rip it off. I stepped back and he pulled out the Taser … and I started defending myself,” Hall said.
“They wrestled me to the ground and started Tasing me in my privates and on my back and my legs.”
Hall was released the next day from jail without charge. His doctor counted seven Taser burn marks, including three on his back, three on his legs and one on his genitals.
Hall’s mother, Norma, later received a copy of a police report that concluded the officers had done nothing wrong.
“Evidence supports the amount of force applied was consistent with training methods and standards,” wrote Staff Sgt. A.H. Clark, the officer in charge of the Merritt RCMP detachment at the time.
The letter sent to Norma Hall said that her son was “unco-operative and combative.” It supported her son’s story that he became aggressive when officers tried to remove his necklaces.
The letter further said officers were trying to touch him in the thigh area when he refused to comply with officers’ requests.
“Your son continued to fight and kick and turn on the ground, causing the Taser to contact him in multiple locations,” Clark wrote.
The letter also noted Aeron continued to fight even after being Tasered.
Williams’s encounter occurred in the summer of 2005, when police showed up at his apartment. Officers were responding to a call after he yelled at a woman in his building who didn’t hold the door open for him.
“They said ‘You’re under arrest for public intoxication,’ ” he said with a laugh. “I said ‘I’m in my apartment. How can you arrest me?’
“I was zapped on my right (side) first … and I guess because I didn’t fall down the other officer jabbed me from the other side with his (Taser).”
Williams, who has bad burn scars on his torso from a previous accident, said the third hit came at the detachment.
“I was pulling my shirt off over my head – and this is my theory, because there was absolutely no scuffle going on, no words exchanged, nothing – and I pulled the shirt off my head and exposed that large white area and I guess it looked too tempting … and bam right in the scabs,” he said.
Williams wasn’t charged with anything and didn’t complain at the time because he said he thought the abuse would only get worse.
That’s a misconception RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre wants to fix.
Lemaitre, an RCMP spokesman, said Williams needs to come forward to allow police to investigate the incident.
“If there was any impropriety we need to know, we need to deal with it now,” Lemaitre said when asked about the incident.
Lemaitre said police are trained from the start to observe if a person is intoxicated by alcohol or drugs, which includes the smell of liquor, slurred speech, lack of balance, glassy eyes.
“But the first thing that officer does is try to communicate with that person,” he said. “And you try to go through some check list.”
Unlike Williams, in Hall’s case a complaint was filed to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, an independent body created by Parliament to investigate public complaints against RCMP.
“The result of the investigation (was the RCMP) acted within their policy guidelines and were upholding the law,” Norma Hall said.
She said her son had the right to be protected, but instead he was attacked by the very people who should have been protecting him.
“We warned him about coming downtown alone … he could get picked up again,” she said.
The stories anger Margaret Birrell, executive director of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities.
“What is this intolerance about? Have they got nothing else to do?” she asked. “If we heard about this in another country, we’d be appalled. It’s abuse of power.”
Birrell said any number of disabilities including brain injuries, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis can give the impression someone has had too much to drink.
“Somebody has to take leadership on awareness with the police forces,” she stated. “We’ve got to have more understanding and tolerance. I mean not everybody’s an ace athlete.”
Birrell said the fact these men had a few drinks shouldn’t matter.
“They weren’t driving. They were walking.”
A public inquiry is underway in British Columbia into the general use of Tasers by law enforcement in the wake of the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver’s airport last October.
Video shot by a member of the public, showing Dziekanski dying on the airport floor, stunned the public and focused attention on the controversial shock weapons.
The first part of the inquiry by former B.C. Court of Appeal justice Thomas Braidwood is looking into medical issues and police policies surrounding the use of the Taser. A report is expected later this year. The second phase will look specifically into Dziekanski’s death, but only after a decision on possible criminal charges has been made.
Birrell said her group hadn’t planned on making a submission to the Taser inquiry but has changed its mind after hearing of the treatment of the two men by Mounties in B.C.’s Interior.
“I’m so offended,” she said.
You forgot the important contraindication, care to try for another attempt. You’ll get it one day. third times a charm.
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First responder training given to cops includes CPR, adult and child. AEDs are designed to be simple to use for the layman, and the use of AEDs is taught in many first aid, first responder and basic life support (BLS) level CPR classes.
Contraindications in the AED:
· Less than 8 years or under 55 pounds (25kg)
· Obviously dead criteria
· Honoring Prehospital DNR orders
Relative Contraindication:
· Traumatic full arrest is a relative contraindication.
· If the patient appears to be more medical than trauma, proceed with the AED protocol.
You are not clear on: “Let’s compare the AED protocol with the Taser Weapon”. Other than electricity, you cannot.
As for the “missive” you forgot that both had been drinking. The question is how much.
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With respect too the “IMIM Model” and the Energized Weapon Protocol.
As a result of The Taser Weapon deployment and questionable application a Taser use Commissions has been tasked to review the legitimacy of its application.
The following missive is the examples set out for comment:
“Williams has a limp from a horrible accident as a child. He also has a chronic sleep disorder and speaks slowly and carefully”
“Hall had a brain aneurysm as a child. His weak leg swings as he walks, a visible reminder of his disability”
“Both men are on government disability pensions”
Remarks: “Medical laymen intervention via AED protocol is not as high a standard as they cops are trained to”. If you have something to support your statement show us.
With respect to the CPR link you provided, Wrong wrong,wrong link, lookup the word “Contraindication” The contraindications should be similar for both energy delivery methods as they are now being realized through the enforcement community.
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Same with the baton? Same with the spray? Same with the fist or boot? These are weapons too you know. Medical laymen intervention via AED protocol is not as high a standard as they cops are trained to. Exactly how do you compare a weapon to the first responder reactions especially when you know the background and activity?
You may find the follwing websites helpful to you:
http://www.atoutplus.com/AED_SPECIAL.pdf
http://www.atoutplus.com/AED_PUBLIC.pdf
Maybe we taxpayers can afford one for every cop car, at 1500 per.
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The Taser Weapon is just that a Weapon and Victims of this Weapon should be treated as though their body has been violated. Let’s compare the AED protocol with the Taser Weapon. Look up the contraindications and application there of.
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Good idea, we can make sure that they are able to jump the ER lineup ahead of everybody else and then spend my tax bucks taking tests that will by that time be useless. If they don’t want blood taken and ECG, EKG, what? Make them submit?
New tasers have built in recording and video catching all the action. Reports are already filed with every usage. All file material is available to complainants upon request at no cost.
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Cops already have a new policy out. Read the news. New tasers have a built in camera. Read the news. A report is made after every use. Read the news. All reports on any file are a mandatory release via Privacy Act. A court decides if excessive force is used.
I am not in favor of my tax bucks being spent on medical exams no doubt performed several hours after in an emergency room where needy patients already have to wait hours for treatment of serious incidents. Just how accurate is that going to be? Or perhaps you are suggesting that certain procedures in the emergency room be superseded by your idea? What might they be?
The antimony of which you speak is not comprised of the majority conscience. I have no difficulty in reconciling what is being said from a small minority of whiners, and what is the norm.
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The RCMP policy guidelines “IMIM model” is often referenced so as to excuse the conduct of Police whom by public decree overacted to a perceived threat and pacified a subject with the use of force. We are presented with Mr. Dziekanski a disoriented man tasered to death at YVR, also in another case an enfeebled 82 year old male with cardiac and COPD history convalescing in hospital also tasered. Recently reported two disadvantage males with impediments also tasered, numerous instances of questionable Taser Weapon use are now on record.
The antinomy between Social Conscience and the RCMP policy and guidelines and the Taser use proliferation has inspired the following, The RCMP and other Police forces after each controversial Tasering. Justify their actions with reverence to RCMP/Police Policy and guidelines.
A New Taser Weapon use Policy is required with strict adherence to deployment guidelines. After a Taser Weapon interaction with the combatant subject ; A mandatory exam by an emergency room physician is required to evaluate EKG Rhythm via tracing, blood chemistry specifically “pH” levels and breathing rate and oxygen saturation.
A Police Officer or Person Authorized to use a Taser Weapon to be compelled without delay, to write a detailed report that clearly and completely states the reason why. The Taser Weapon was deployed and for each additional occurrence the Taser was used in the relevant file. The said report is then to made available for immediate release within 30 days at no cost to the person on file or to his/her designate.
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That`s just awful!
Reminds me of the man that was hit and thrown on the floor from his wheelchair and he wound up weeling it into uncomming traffic.
It seems to me that since the Federal Government was successful at avoiding a public inquiry into why the RCMP are operating this way here in Canada that it smells like it`s on the way anyway with some of these reports that are coming out on them and look at the security issue with the Ministers girlfriend and the top secret documents that was left at her home….
When will the Ministers take up their responsibilities and stop dealing with all these individual cases and show the people of Canada that they are there for our benifit and not for theirs…. WHEN!
When we look like fools all over the world, that`s not ledership… WHEN!
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