Canada police watchdog calls for restricted Taser use
OTTAWA (AFP) — Canada's federal police watchdog on Wednesday urged authorities to "immediately restrict" the use of Tasers, following the death of a Polish immigrant when he was zapped by policemen with a stun gun.
The recommendation appeared in a report by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.
In it, the RCMP watchdog said the use of conducted energy weapons must be "permissible only in those situations where an individual is behaving in a manner classified as being combative, or posing a risk of death or grievous bodily harm to the officer, themselves or the general public."
The weapon, which was introduced to the RCMP in December 2001, was originally intended to be used as an alternative to guns.
But the watchdog noted a process of "usage creep," with the weapon being deployed more broadly, citing cases over the past six years where individuals who were clearly non-combative had been shocked.
The RCMP currently has 2,840 conducted energy weapons in its arsenal, and since its introduction, has trained more than 9,000 members in its use, and deployed Tasers more than 3,000 times.
"Yet there exists no empirical data generated by the RCMP as to the benefits, or detriments, of using the weapon," the watchdog said in its analysis.
For this, and to stem further erosion of public support for the federal police, the watchdog urged restraint in the weapons' use.
On October 14, Robert Dziekanski, 40, died after being shocked repeatedly by police officers with a Taser stun gun only 60 seconds after they first approached him at Vancouver airport in western Canada, where he was acting distressed.
A bystander's video released several weeks later caused widespread shock in Canada. It showed the four officers piling on top of the distraught Polish traveler as he lay writhing and screaming in pain on the floor, before he fell still minutes later.
More deaths have been linked to police use of Tasers in Canada since Dziekanski's death.
Amnesty International, which has called for an outright ban of the weapons, documented 16 other cases in recent years where individuals died in Canada after being stunned with police Tasers.
