(Paul Schneidereit, Chronical Herald) Halifax, N.S. – Deployment of the Taser has saved thousands of lives in Canada since the stun gun’s introduction in 1999, according to police spokesmen.
There are any number of pungent words for this claim, but let’s employ a polite one. Poppycock.
Have the number of fatal police shootings of criminal suspects fallen by thousands? No, and the totals were never that high to begin with. Have the number of suicides dropped by that magnitude? No. Again, the totals were never, ever in that range. What about the number of police officers killed? That tragic number was also, thankfully, much, much smaller.
So where did police officials come up with the “4,000 lives saved in Canada since 1999″ figure? Beats me. But I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that Taser International officials have used the same phraseology – 4,000 lives saved by Tasers since 1999 – in the past, while referring to the U.S. experience. (That number has since been adjusted upwards by the Taser’s makers, to at least 9,000). Even in that context, I don’t believe anyone’s conclusively shown that thousands of people who would have been shot dead were instead Tasered – and so remain alive.
That’s not to say that Tasers couldn’t indeed save lives in certain circumstances. In fact, I have no doubt they have done so. But thousands? In Canada, since 1999? Not a chance.
Defenders of the Taser, I’ve noticed, employ the “thousands of lives saved” argument less and less. Good thing, too.
For instance, the public was not going to swallow that police would have had to use their firearms when, called to assist in a medical emergency, they instead Tasered a diabetic man in Amherst last year. (Police still defend that bit of public service, by the way.)
Or that bullets would have flown in a Dartmouth home last February when a mother called the cops on her uncooperative 17-year-old daughter. (Another justice gem. The Nova Scotia Supreme Court just overturned the girl’s acquittal on charges of assaulting the police officers who Tasered the teen while removing her from her own room.)
Or that gunfire would have been the result when an 80-something-year-old man in B.C. was Tasered in a hospital bed – I kid you not – after he had resisted treatment efforts.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Still, let’s go to one more example, that of poor Robert Dziekanski, the disoriented and despondent Polish immigrant who was repeatedly Tasered by four strapping Mounties at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007 and subsequently died. If the RCMP officers had not had Tasers, would they have pulled their guns and shot the man, who apparently alarmed the law enforcement constables by picking up a stapler? Clearly, the answer is no.
So how did we get to the point that four policemen would walk into an airport, be told of an agitated man who didn’t speak English and, less than a minute after arriving at his location, shock him with Tasers FIVE times – after he didn’t respond to their commands in English – and pin him to the ground with a knee on his neck until he had stopped breathing?
The police conduct in that incident was appalling. Their excuses and justifications since then have been nauseating.
He was sweating profusely. So he needed to be Tasered? He was suffering from alcohol withdrawal. The autopsy found no traces of drugs or alcohol, and since when have police been trained to Taser first and ask questions later? He didn’t respond to commands. The police were TOLD he didn’t speak English, for God’s sake.
What happened to Robert Dziekanski isn’t only a disgrace to the RCMP’s image, however. Testimony at a current public inquiry in B.C. has revealed that the airport official who processed Dziekanski first had noticed, more than eight hours later as she was ending her shift, that the Polish immigrant was still wandering the arrivals area. She went home without taking any further action. An airport official who dealt with Dziekanski’s mother and a family friend waiting to meet him told them to go home after a brief check of surveillance cameras showed no one of his description. She didn’t even bother to pick up a phone and ask anyone in that area if they had seen Dziekanski.
They didn’t care. Neither did the Mounties. As a result, an innocent man died and his mother’s life’s been shattered.
As far as a welcoming committee, spew some of your venom on the reasons why he was in the airport for several hours without any contact. Also note the fact that there were a few heated arguments according to the latest witnesses. But by all means negate all of that for the fact he was tasered and unfortunately died. I think I will wait for all the facts to be in before I decide where to point fingers.
Sounds pretty simple; tazered, cuffed, looked at by EMTs and then if he’s not dead, hauled off to the crow bar hotel and if he is to the morgue for police back-up and follow-ups.
Sounds like a pretty good welcome I wonder if a third class world would be this heartless? I’m glad we don’t carry machine guns in our airports.
But what about Robert’s help before he got to the above and how can we blame a man who’s spent so many hours in the air, didn’t know the language, was lost in the airport process and his mom was told something that wasn’t true and sent home…. Someone is responsible, so would the police responding know all this information or just the last few minutes of it?…
I’m glad I’m not those police officers it must be embarrasing and troubling for them, that’s if they still have a concience…
Alcan, you are mixing my post with onegin 1, and you have not answered my questions, nor commented on my opinion, rather you are going off in other directions without finishing responses to your own posts.
If you cannot find the mandate of the Braidwood inquiry here is the link:
http://www.braidwoodinquiry.ca/terms_of_reference.php
MS, he did not have a chair when confronted by the officers. They are also allowed to “skip” levels of the continuum if they feel it was necessary. Depending on what they were told before their arrival, they could have already decided not to dally around and simply move to stun him right off the bat. Nothing unusual about that. Without the fatal response to the circumstances, he would have been tasered, cuffed, looked at by EMT’s and then hauled off to the pokey, end of story. A situation repeated thousands of times every year.
Onegin1 is correct, the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the USSR dosolved in 1991; somwhere around that time Poland ceased being a “Communist” state, but Dziekanski would have lived under a Stalinist dictatorship for the first half of his life, and his encounters with the authorities during that period may well have informed Mr. Dziekanski’s view of police.
And the Taser is not classified as deadly force but as an alternative to using deadly force. The RCMP subscribe to the “National Use of Force Framework” in which officer’s are trained to assess and evaluate situations and quickly plan how to act in a situation and constantly reassess said situation. Depending on the level of resistance the officer graduates from verbal communication to lethal force gradually. It seems to me that the officers in question skipped the physical control option (which graduates from soft to hard) and moved right to the use of intermediate weapons.
I still don’t know why they didn’t just tackle the guy or, if they were so concerned about the chair he was weilding, use those telescoping batons they have to knock said chair out of the poor guy’s hands.
Well Deepthroat; if I had to fire one of those Tazers I would have to accept the ideal that I could kill someone with it if I did. But if I had to fire it five times on the individual then I should know…. is this a very logical assumption considering it’s still not classified as a deadly force because of the bottom feeders inside the forces today.
My point was not captured. I once helped a man who had defected from Poland years before from the military by giving him a lift where he could get some food, shelter and some help. I asked him on the way why he was living this way and he told me the reason I just mentioned above. But I said like you did that Communism was abolished over 12 years ago but in his mind he was still under it’s effects…. not all cases are text book cases are they and if there a mistake made even the bottom feeders should have some recourse like the ranks and file do don’t you all think so or is compensation just allowed for the upper class of society?
Is not justice suppose to be fair even though we all know it’s stacked against some?
1) Tasers are not classifed as deadly force.
2) He did not come from a “Communist system.” Poland has not been “Communist” for 20 years.
You presuppose that the cops knew they would kill him with the taser. Not a very logical assumption.
You really think that they were intending to kill him for waving a stapler and going a bit nuts?
Well, if he came from a communist communist system or even a communist communist communist system, he would have gotten down prone on the floor all by himself when he saw them coming. I think they actually shoot people in communist communist countries.
You might want to reread the mandate of the Braidwood inquiry there Alcan. Its a little broader than you realize. The information from there will also greatly assist the bottom feeders with their civil suit against the rcmp.
Since when does holding a stapler warrant a death sentence?
Did he use it?
I though our lives had to be seriously in danger to justify using deadly force and how can one justify this kind when you are standing in front of four RCMP members and you are alone?
I think the Polish man should feel and maybe others with all the reports I’m reading here that his life was in danger and it would be justified in thinking so even if he is a stranger to this country.
Try and remember he came from a Communist Communist system and he could have responded in fear especially with 4 to 1 odds.
Remember Inquiries are not there to fault find only to recommend without teeth or obligation…. it’s a farce
Must have been that huge stapler he pulled out after walking over there.
So if they inquiry does not make that finding, they are dishonest?
Everything seems to be accurate but one thing… Robert Dziekanski did follow police instructions… how you say?
When they pointed to the glass wall he obeyed, walked over and stood there before they surrounded him and then shot him with the tazer…. I believe they should be charged for that excessive action because they killed this man in cold blood because it wasn’t neccessary for Robert Dziekanski to die and I hope the inquiry is honest enough to find this out.