Justice ministers issue national guidelines on Tasers

October 15, 2010
The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - Federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers have agreed to new general guidelines on Taser use, but the broad recommendations come months after many provinces enacted similar rules on their own.

The new guidelines say "where possible" Taser use should be "avoided" on the pregnant, frail and elderly, as well as on children.

The guidelines add Tasers generally shouldn't be used on people who are already restrained, or who are driving a vehicle, bicycle or snowmobile.

Police officers are also urged to avoid zapping sensitive areas of the body such as the head, throat and genitals.

The guidelines echo those announced in Ontario this past March. Alberta, Nova Scotia and British Columbia clamped down on their Taser use policies last year.

"The development of these new national guidelines is another significant step in strengthening public confidence in police use of this important tool," federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said after a meeting of his provincial and territorial counterparts in Vancouver.

The new guidelines say police should avoid giving people successive jolts with a conducted energy weapon — the generic term — or zapping them for too long unless a single deployment fails to allow police to gain physical control of the person.

As well, police forces should establish a training policy and minimum training requirements for officers authorized to use a Taser, as well as for those who train others.

The latter point was underscored in an in-depth review of the Victoria Police Department's use of force policies that was also released Friday.

The report, by Vince Bevan, a retired Ottawa police chief, found that although the Victoria force was among the first in Canada to start using Tasers, its training in the use of the weapons had fallen drastically behind.

The report found that in 2005, all front-line Victoria police officers were trained and certified to use Tasers. But there has only been refresher training twice since then.

The Justice Institute of B.C. had included Taser training in their recruit program, but that was discontinued in 2006. As a result, no Victoria police officer hired since then has been certified to use the weapon.

"Because of the gaps in training, the effect of the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport and the subsequent Braidwood inquiry, few of the qualified officers are carrying the Taser as part of their regular equipment," wrote Bevan.

Among his 80 recommendations, Bevan urged the Victoria force to overhaul its Taser training program.

Bevan's report also noted a lax structure of keeping track of the Tasers in Victoria. Bevan noted they could be signed out by officers to be carried on patrol, but there was no process to ensure they were later returned.

The justice ministers also agreed that better tracking of the devices was needed. The guidelines include a requirement that an accurate inventory of the weapons be maintained, including their location.

Officers should be required to check their conducted energy weapon before and after their shifts and they should be required to submit a report whenever they've discharged one.

Those reports should be available to the public.

David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the national guidelines introduced Friday are hardly a breakthrough.

"It's frustrating for us because they're so far behind," Eby said in an interview. "Most of what we understand they're recommending has already been done."

Eby said the justice ministers would have been better served to look at policy changes around the introduction and testing of new weapons.

When Ontario brought in its guidelines, critics panned the changes as "grossly inadequate," saying they do little to address concerns raised amid incidents that have seen police use Tasers against youths or the mentally ill.

At least 20 people in Canada are known to have died after being struck with a Taser.

Taser International has long insisted the weapon cannot kill.

Despite the myriad of bad publicity surrounding police use of the Taser, the head of the B.C. inquiry into their use rejected calls for an outright ban on the weapons.

Police groups across the country argue conducted energy weapons are less lethal than guns and save lives as a result.

Ottawa spends more than half a million to defend RCMP, officers at Taser inquiry

October 18, 2009
James Keller (CP)

VANCOUVER, B.C. — The federal government spent more than half a million dollars defending the RCMP and the actions of the four officers who stunned Robert Dziekanski with a Taser at Vancouver's airport.

The force and each of the four officers had lawyers at the public inquiry into Dziekanski's death, which began in January and finished with closing submissions last week.

The Polish immigrant's fatal confrontation with police on Oct. 14, 2007, has been a source of intense criticism for the RCMP and the four officers and for police use of Tasers, fuelled in large part by an infamous amateur video of the incident.

The Justice Department had billed the RCMP more than $373,000 in legal fees to represent the force at the inquiry as of July 31, according to documents obtained under federal access to information laws.

Lawyers for the officers had together cost the RCMP about $200,000 by the end of August, according to the documents.

Those figures were tallied during a three-month summer break, which was ordered in June to investigate an internal RCMP email that raised questions about the officers' testimony. Since then, there have been several days of hearings in September and final submissions this month.

And lawyers for three of the officers are heading to the B.C. Court of Appeal in December to challenge the inquiry's authority to make findings of misconduct against them.

The RCMP and the four Mounties were named in a lawsuit filed by Dziekanski's mother earlier this month, although it's not clear who will pay the officers' legal fees in that case.

The officers' lawyers were hired just days before the inquiry was set to begin in January, and the inquiry has taken far longer than anticipated. Initially, the hearings were expected to be finished by the spring.

Ravi Hira, who represents Const. Kwesi Millington, the Mountie who fired the Taser, said it wasn't his place to comment on the RCMP's decision to pay the officers' legal fees.

"In terms of cost, you have seen the length of the inquiry, you know the amount of time that we're talking about here," said Hira.

The RCMP couldn't be reached for comment.

The force has always stood firmly behind the actions of the officers, and that position has been reflected at the inquiry.

In its written final submissions, handed over to the inquiry two weeks ago, the federal government maintains the officers used an "acceptable" level of force that was consistent with RCMP policies and training.

Walter Kosteckyj, who represents Dziekanski's mother at the inquiry and in her recently filed lawsuit, said regardless of his criticisms of the officers, it's important to ensure they've been adequately represented at the hearings.

"I would be a hypocrite to say they're not entitled to be properly defended," Kosteckyj said in a recent interview.

"And no one can say they didn't get the best legal help necessary, no one can come back and say these guys were railroaded or weren't treated fairly. That's important to the process."

The B.C. government ordered a two-phase public inquiry a month after Dziekanski died.

Commissioner Thomas Braidwood held the first part last year, broadly examining Taser use by law enforcement agencies in British Columbia. He released a report from that phase during the summer, concluding Tasers can kill but are a necessary tool for police.

The second phase, examining Dziekanski's death in detail, has now wrapped up and Braidwood's final report is expected to be made public next year.

By August, the provincial government had spent $3.99 million since the first phase began, said Leo Perra, executive director for the commission. That total could increase by another million by the time the commission's work is finished, he said.

Perra said most of that cost goes to salaries, including Braidwood - who is paid about $1,700 a day - the inquiry's own lawyers and support staff. That money also pays for facility costs.

"Commissions of inquiry aren't particularly provided with a budget, because nobody knows where they're going and exactly what's going to happen," said Perra.

Kosteckyj said it's been money well spent.

"Every once in a while we have to shine a light on the things that are bothering us and the things that don't seem right, and here, we put this under a microscope," he said.

"People have to know that in certain circumstances, when you're involved in things, there is going to be full scrutiny and this makes everybody better."

Taser probe's pace blamed for oversight of crucial e-mail

June 22, 2009
IAN BAILEY AND STEVEN CHASE, Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER and OTTAWA — The federal Justice Department is partly blaming "the pace" of the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski for its failure to turn over an e-mail that suggests four Mounties involved in the confrontation with the Polish immigrant were not telling the truth about their plans to taser him.

"The mistake was due to the volume of work and documents, the number of witnesses and the pace of the inquiry, counsel did not appreciate the fact that the CD-ROM contained documents relevant to the commission's request," Federal Justice spokesman Christian Girouard said yesterday. However, the issue of pacing was not disclosed last week when one of the Crown's lawyers tearfully apologized for the error that has derailed the proceedings.

The inquiry, headed by Thomas Braidwood, was established by the B.C. attorney-general in February, 2008. There have been more than 58 days of hearings from January, 2009, to June, and 86 witnesses.

Mr. Girouard declined to address questions raised by his written statement, forwarded to The Globe and Mail in response to a request for comment on last week's surprising developments at the inquiry.

But the concern about the inquiry's "pace" was scoffed at by the lawyer representing the Polish government. "It's preposterous to suggest that the inquiry is moving too swiftly for the government and RCMP to give full document production," Don Rosenbloom said in an interview. "This phase of the inquiry is now more than five months in duration. The government of Canada has had notice this inquiry would be conducted for over one year."

The provincial probe, which was supposed to hear final submissions from lawyers this week, has been postponed for three months as parties try to figure out how to deal with the disclosure of the e-mail between two senior Mounties.

The Mounties involved in the Oct. 14, 2007, confrontation with Mr. Dziekanski at the international arrivals terminal of Vancouver airport have previously testified they arrived on the scene without any plan for dealing with the 40-year-old labourer, who had attracted police attention by acting erratically after being lost in the airport for hours.

But on Tuesday, federal lawyers turned over the e-mail from RCMP Chief Superintendent Dick Bent to Assistant Commissioner Al McIntyre in which Mr. Bent says another superintendent, Wayne Rideout, told him the officers had discussed using the stun gun while travelling to the airport terminal.

Mr. Dziekanski was tasered five times, and cuffed by police. He died of a cardiac arrest. His death has prompted a continuing debate about the police use of tasers.

Commission counsel Art Vertlieb said pacing has never been an issue in the inquiry. "No one else has complained about the pace," he said. "It's moved along because the commissioner recognizes the importance of it."

He said the issue here is that the RCMP did not flag the document for the Justice Department. "The pace would be no issue if the document had been pointed out months and months ago," he said.

Instead, the inquiry has heard that federal lawyers representing the RCMP overlooked the e-mail among material on a CD-ROM provided by Mounties in April. The lawyers did not access the material until last week.

Federal lawyer Helen Roberts tearfully apologized for the omission on Friday, but did not mention the pace of the proceedings as a concern. "Any concerns about document production properly lie with counsel," she told Mr. Braidwood, who said he was "obviously appalled" at the situation.

Mr. Girouard said the government of Canada apologizes for failing to provide the documents and "continues to fully support the work of the Braidwood Commission of Inquiry."

The omission has raised a number of issues for the inquiry, which now faces the prospect of recalling the four officers as well as the other Mounties in the loop on that e-mail for further hearings, which could extend the inquiry for weeks.