RCMP Watch

(Toronto Star Editorial) - Public outrage over the death last year of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport after RCMP officers jolted him with a Taser should have prompted Canada’s national police force to become more open about its use of the high-voltage stun guns.

Instead, a joint investigation by The Canadian Press and the CBC suggests the beleaguered Mounties may be hiding behind privacy concerns to justify withholding key information about how and why Tasers are being used – even though in some cases such details have previously been made public.

Documents obtained by the news organizations show the RCMP is stripping crucial details from public Taser reports at the same time it has widened its use of the stun guns. Did the person who was zapped have a weapon? What measures did officers take to defuse the situation before resorting to their Tasers? And what injuries resulted? By the RCMP’s reckoning, Canadians are not entitled to know.

But the force’s privacy arguments don’t add up. Names and addresses are already removed from publicly released forms. For an organization trying to rebuild public confidence, the RCMP’s reluctance to release Taser information is downright short-sighted.

Stung by criticism over the media probe, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has belatedly ordered a review of the recently released reports to determine if more information should be made public. One hopes this will prompt the RCMP to do the right thing and open up its records to more scrutiny. But it is disturbing that it took being publicly embarrassed for Elliott to act.

As police use of Tasers increases, and pressure builds to put them in the hands of more officers in Toronto and elsewhere, more, not less, transparency is in order.