Power and authority of RCMP being drastically diluted

June 18, 2010
Gary Mason, Globe and Mail

The landscape of policing in Canada is undergoing a radical transformation. And the once unchallenged power and authority of the RCMP is being drastically diluted in the process.

It’s difficult to imagine a 48-hour period in the force’s history that has been as damaging and wrought with implications for the future as the one the Mounties have just endured.

On Thursday, the conduct of the RCMP was condemned in a report into the greatest mass-murder in Canadian history – the Air India bombing. And a day later, the behaviour of four Mounties in B.C. was denounced in the harshest terms possible by the commission investigating the tasering death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski.

Behind the findings and the fundamental changes the RCMP is facing lies the power of a Canadian public whose growing disenchantment and distrust of Canada’s iconic police brigade could no longer be ignored by our political leaders and even the force itself.

That cynicism and suspicion is what really has driven the rather urgent policy changes now being rolled out. Public trust is the cornerstone of policing. Without it, officers have little credibility, which ultimately undermines their effectiveness and threatens the stability of a crucial pillar upon which a just society is built.

This is why the RCMP recently made internal changes in the way its members are investigated and disciplined. This is why the federal government recently gave the RCMP watchdog sweeping new powers to obtain documents during his investigations and also compel officers to testify. This is why Ottawa is expected to adopt the recommendations of John Major, head of the Air India Commission, that a new national-security czar be established that will severely crimp the RCMP’s investigative authority.

And this is why the B.C. government waited less than an hour after commissioner Thomas Braidwood released his exhaustive report Friday on the Dziekanski affair to announce it was adopting all of its recommendations, including the establishment of an Ontario-like Special Investigative Unit to carry out all probes of the police in the province – municipal or RCMP.

In fact, the investigative squad will have a mandate that far exceeds the SIU’s in Ontario. The B.C. group will not just investigate deaths involving an officer, but cases where serious harm has occurred, where a provision of the Criminal Code has been violated or where there has been a possible contravention of any federal or provincial statute. As significantly, the unit will be entirely civilian – no member of it will be allowed to have served anywhere in Canada as a police officer. (Although Mr. Braidwood allows for a five-year transition period during which former officers would be able to participate subject to certain conditions).

And B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong made it clear that the RCMP will soon come under the authority of the provincial police-complaints commissioner as well.

The result is that B.C. will effectively have a provincial police force. And the RCMP, which polices 70 per cent of the province, isn’t saying a word about it because it understands it doesn’t have the moral authority to protest.

The Mounties’ new attitude stands in dramatic contrast to the one that was expressed only four years ago by the force’s top media-relations spokesman in B.C. When it was suggested the public had the right to know about how the force was handling the investigation into the in-custody death of mill worker Ian Bush in Houston, B.C., Staff Sergeant John Ward replied: “The public doesn’t have the right to know anything.”

The comment reverberated throughout the country.

Sadly, it often takes tragedy to forge change.

And in Canada it took the death of Ian Bush, hundreds of poor souls aboard Air India and Robert Dziekanski – among many, many others – to inflame the public mood to the point it ignited the changes we’re now witnessing.

If there was a case that tipped the balance it was the death of Mr. Dziekanski. Captured on an amateur video, it was the one that mortified this country, made us feel embarrassed of our national police. It would be the graphic, irrefutable bit of evidence Canadians would need before collectively exclaiming: Enough.

Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer who so ably represented the interests of Mr. Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, at the Braidwood commission, was asked Friday how long it would take for the RCMP to regain the public’s trust.

“They didn’t lose it in one day,” he said. “It’s going to take a while. I guess we’ll see just how serious they are about repairing the damage. Ultimately it’s up to them.”

And they certainly deserve that chance.

Linda Bush drops lawsuit against RCMP in B.C.

April 21, 2010
Gary Mason, Globe and Mail

Linda Bush is abandoning the civil lawsuit she filed against the RCMP after her son, Ian, was shot in the back of the head by an officer at a detachment in Houston, B.C., in October 2005.

Ms. Bush announced her decision in downtown Vancouver Wednesday morning, releasing a press statement.

RCMP Chief Superintendent Craig Callens also released a statement to the press.

Ms. Bush said in an interview that while making the decision “makes her sad” she believes more can be accomplished by “working co-operatively with the RCMP than fighting them in court.”

She also said that the decision was made easier by the fact that the federal government and other provincial jurisdictions are moving to various models of civilian oversight – something that she has been calling for since her son’s death.

“The RCMP aren’t the ones fighting civilian oversight,” Ms. Bush said. “They’re quite happy to have it. In B.C., at least, it’s the provincial government that is dragging its feet in this area. We want true civilian oversight in this province and not the Alberta model that is civilian led but still uses police officers investigating themselves.

“We want to see the Ontario model here. It seems to be working well there now.”

Many felt Ms. Bush faced long odds of winning her civil suit. And then there were the ever-growing legal costs that went along with it. For the past several years, Ms. Bush has been drawing an income as a part-time bookkeeper in Houston.

Her lawyer, Howard Rubin, said today that it is difficult to “get much money out of these kinds of lawsuits and the courts are very conservative when it comes to lawsuits against the police.”

Many point to the death of Ian Bush as the event that provoked a nationwide outcry over the RCMP’s conduct in Canada, and in particular in B.C. In the years that followed, the force was deluged with criticism for its handling of any number of events and cases, culminating in the airport tasering of Robert Dziekanski.

After Mr. Dziekanski’s death, the federal government and provincial governments could no longer ignore the growing demand for civilian oversight of our national police force.

But before the Dziekanski case there was the troubling death of Mr. Bush, who had been picked up outside an arena in Houston on Oct. 29, 2005 for being in possession of an open beer. In the back of a police cruiser, Mr. Bush was asked his name and jokingly gave the officer that of his friend’s instead. He was taken to the local detachment by RCMP Const. Paul Koester.

Twenty minutes later Ian Bush was dead from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.

The officer was not charged but a coroner’s inquest into the death raised many troubling questions about the event.

The officer’s description of what happened in the final seconds leading up to the shot, seemed anatomically impossible. The police officer said he was lying face down on a sofa with the 190-pound Mr. Bush on top of him and yet somehow he reached around with one of his hands and shot the young logger directly in the back of the head.

Const. Koester refused to demonstrate how that was possible.

An independent blood spatter expert called in by a lawyer for the Bush family said blood evidence at the scene suggested it was Const. Koester who was on top of the victim, not the other way around.

It was also revealed at the inquest that the constable destroyed his notes from the evening in the immediate days after the incident. When he was interviewed by investigators three months later, they supplied him with their questions in advance.

And those were just some of the more disturbing bits of evidence that came out at the inquest.

Ms. Bush acknowledged that there will be many people, especially in Houston, who will be upset and disappointed with her decision to drop the lawsuit.

“I know that,” she said. “I do wish things had gone differently with Ian’s story. But I don’t think we were going to get anything out of this lawsuit. So it makes me a little sad. But I still think the case did draw attention to many of the most important issues around the RCMP and civilian oversight so to that extent it was worthwhile.”

Ms. Bush’s decision to abandon her lawsuit would seem to bring this troubling case to a close.

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Statement by Mrs. Linda Bush
2010-04-21 10:00 PDT

On April 21st 2010 a joint news conference was held with Mrs. Linda Bush and Chief Superintendent Craig Callens – Deputy Criminal Operations Officer. Below is Mrs. Linda Bush's statement. Click here to view Chief Superintendent Callens' statement.

I have decided, in consultation with our lawyer, Howard Rubin, not to proceed with the civil court case which we filed when faced with Ian’s death. I know that many people, including some who are very close to me, will be very disappointed with this decision. I do, however, need to make the decision after considering what makes the most sense.

Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

I will start with the benefits;

Nothing we can do will give Ian’s life back to him, so the only thing we truly want is not within our reach.

Proceeding with the civil court case would give us, and Ian, our day in court. The inquest was an exercise in frustration for the family and court would hear more evidence. Individuals who were testifying would be required to answer questions regarding the investigation and be able to support their statements under oath. The civil case was meant to expose the flaws in the current system and I think that has been done.

By now, with all that has taken place over the past four years, we feel that people are aware of our stand on the flaws in the system when police investigate police. There is now a movement towards completely independent investigation of police in cases where there is loss of life or serious harm has been done. There is much discussion about whether civilians can be trained for investigation, whether former police officers are civilian, and what exactly constitutes “serious harm”. Those issues can be settled.

The RCMP has now made a decision to use whatever outside investigation is available. In Alberta it will be ASIRT, which is a team of civilians and seconded police officers led by a civilian investigator. In Ontario, they have the SIU, which is a completely civilian investigative team. I have been told by people involved with the civilian investigative team in Ontario that it does work. In British Columbia we do not yet have any such process. It will be up to legislators to create the necessary laws and investigative body; they need to hear from us, the people, that we want civilian investigators.

Now, the costs;

Under Canadian law there is not a great monetary value placed on a human life. Ian did not have a wife and children, so no one was dependent on him, which is how the awards in such a case are determined after a death. Someone who was injured would receive an award which would consider family needs and the needs of the individual who had been harmed. We have been aware from the very beginning that the costs of proceeding in court could greatly exceed whatever we could hope to gain monetarily.

Because of his interest in seeing greater police accountability and changes made to the law, Howard Rubin has worked pro bono on this case, but going to court would still be tremendously expensive.

Aside from the financial costs, there is the enormous toll going to court would place on all of the individuals in our family, including the children. You have seen how an inquest affects the families. We would be reliving the despair, anger, hopelessness and frustration. While I have made it my life’s mission to do whatever is necessary to make the changes to the law I am no longer sure I can justify putting my family through the ordeal of a court case. As well, I do believe that change is underway, and we can accomplish what we need to do without proceeding in civil court. The RCMP is now demonstrating the will to make the changes which are necessary to bring accountability and transparency to the force, so working co-operatively will accomplish more than taking an adversarial position. I will leave it to Chief Superintendent Callens to explain the changes which have been made.

I assure you that though the direction of our work has shifted, our goals remain the same—to improve transparency of police operations and ensure accountability for police in our province and our country. Dropping the civil suit does not mean we will discontinue that work.

There are many things which I still want to see changed, including some aspects of RCMP cadet training, enhanced and on-going training in “people” skills, and a firmer definition of RCMP policy in regard to procedures to prevent serious incidents and behavior of the officers present when something catastrophic does happen. I believe that independent, civilian investigation will lead to all of these things because there will be greater transparency and accountability for police actions. People will be able to trust and have confidence in the investigations involving police officers. No officer will be put into the intolerable position of being required to investigate another officer.

The most essential need right now is the legislation to create civilian investigation. Bill C472 has been introduced to Parliament by Nathan Cullen, the MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley. If passed, this bill would provide for civilian investigation for the RCMP anywhere in Canada. I would like to see a national standard, at the least, for investigating the RCMP. There are many difficulties with the RCMP Act itself, as it has not been revised for many years. In 2006 Paul Kennedy submitted proposed legislation to the federal government to strengthen the Commission for Complaints Against the RCMP. This has not been enacted, so complaints are still investigated as they were in 2006 when Ian’s case was before them.

The provincial government has improved the police act in British Columbia, but as yet it does not cover the RCMP. I want to see British Columbia adopt civilian investigation as it is in Ontario. This team may necessarily include police officers in the beginning, until civilian investigators can be fully trained. I realize that there is an overlap in the federal and provincial requests we have made, and that there may be jurisdictional conflicts. The important thing is for the problem to be solved in the best interest of all Canadians, and ultimately all police officers.

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Statement by Chief Superintendent Craig Callens, Deputy Criminal Operations Officer, E Division
2010-04-21 10:00 PDT

On April 21st 2010 a joint news conference was held with Mrs. Linda Bush and Chief Superintendent Craig Callens. Below is Chief Superintendent Callens' statement. Click here to view Mrs. Linda Bush's statement.

Thank you, Mrs. Bush. I appreciate this opportunity to be here with you today.

Your input to the ongoing refinement of RCMP policy and procedures has been significant. Your efforts have contributed to the improvements that have been made at the Houston Detachment since your son’s death as well as in other areas of the RCMP.

On behalf of the RCMP, I would like to thank you for the time and energy you have dedicated to seeing this process through. I can only imagine how emotionally difficult this has been for you and your family.

We have met and discussed some of the changes that have resulted from your direct involvement and from both the Coroner’s Inquest and the final report from the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP. The RCMP has made changes which include external investigation, review and oversight of serious incidents involving RCMP members and employees; and, the installation of video recording equipment in RCMP buildings. We both agree that these changes are needed in order to enhance the transparency of police operations and to provide a means for greater accountability to the public. The goal is to maintain and enhance public trust and confidence in the RCMP which is critical to our operations.

The first significant change to directly result from the in-custody death of Ian Bush involved independent oversight (or observation) of investigations conducted by the RCMP in British Columbia involving high-profile and serious incidents such as in-custody deaths. This independent oversight began in BC in 2006 with the establishment of the Commission for Public Complaints Independent Observer Program as a three year pilot project. At the request of the RCMP, the CPC was given contemporaneous (simultaneous) access to observe and assess the impartiality of officer involved investigations conducted by the RCMP in “E" Division. The program was formalized in September 2008.

The need for civilian oversight was taken a step further in September 2009 by the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police with a resolution that called for the establishment of an independent, civilian-led investigation agency to investigate serious incidents involving the police.

While work is underway to achieve this goal, the RCMP took the interim measure to implement a new national policy to address this important issue of external investigations and reviews earlier this year. The intent of the policy is to ensure fair, effective, thorough and impartial investigations of RCMP employees through a combination of independent external investigation, observation and review.

The policy will be used for investigations where there is a serious injury or death of an individual involving an RCMP employee or it appears an employee may have been involved in a matter that is of a serious or sensitive nature. The RCMP will refer all matters that meet these criteria to an external law enforcement agency or other duly authorized investigative agency to conduct the investigation and ensure impartiality and thoroughness.

If an independent external investigation is not feasible, due for example to the lack of available resources, the policy outlines other requirements to follow. This includes requesting a different division from where the incident occurred to conduct the investigation.

It is our hope, and we are confident, that BC will soon establish its own regime responsible for these independent investigations, oversight and review of police actions.

The second important change that resulted from the BC Coroner’s Inquest and the Commission for Public Complaint’s recommendations in 2007 is that video recording equipment be installed and used in all police buildings across the province. Since then, the BC Provincial Police Services Division (government) has been working on a set of standards for all police agencies and, in November 2009, the BC Solicitor General shared those standards and forthcoming regulations with the RCMP.

Upon receiving those new proposed standards, the RCMP in British Columbia immediately appointed a project manager to oversee the process of assessing detachments, evaluating the costs and devising an action plan and time line for implementing video recording equipment in all of our detachments.

Since January 2010 we have worked to establish province-wide internal policy and procedures for Closed Circuit Video Equipment (CCVE) installation and use and we have started the installation of CCVE and cell upgrades in some Provincial RCMP detachments across BC.

It should be recognized that many of the 120 provincial and municipal detachments the RCMP works within already have some form of CCVE equipment, however they may not comply with the new standards set by the provincial government. In some cases, meeting the standards will mean adding a camera to an area within the detachment where there isn’t one now such as a finger print room or a breathalyzer test room, while others may require more extensive upgrades.

The provincial government has laid out a three year timeframe for compliance with the proposed standards and it is the RCMP’s intention to meet the requirements of the pending regulation by fall 2012 in our detachments here in BC.

The bottom line is that we welcome the installation of CCVE cameras in our detachments to further enhance the transparency of our operations and interactions between our members, employees and the public.

It should be noted that Houston is one of the first detachments to have a major renovation to its cells which began in December 2009. Houston Detachment already had four cameras, and an additional four cameras have been installed to further enhance transparency while the detachment undergoes final renovations and CCVE installation. The entire project for Houston Detachment is on schedule for completion in June 2010.

These are some of the more significant changes that have come about since this tragic incident.

I would again like to thank Mrs. Bush for her time and commitment. We value your cooperation and partnership as we move forward to achieve these improvements in policing.

C.J. Callens, Chief Superintendent
Deputy Criminal Operations Officer (Contract)
"E" Division

Editorial: Lawyer leaves public service on a high note

December 14, 2009
Law Times
By Glenn Kauth

At the end of the year, Canada will lose yet another valuable and outspoken civil servant when lawyer Paul Kennedy leaves his post as chairman of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.

After finishing his law degree in 1972, Kennedy spent 25 years with the Justice Department that included stints as a criminal prosecutor and later senior general counsel for the federal prosecution service. Then, after rising to become a senior assistant deputy minister with two different ministries, the government appointed him to the RCMP watchdog role in 2005.

Since then, Kennedy has established a reputation for pulling no punches against a federal police force that in recent years has come to define government secrecy. He’s been particularly forthright about the need for the RCMP to stop investigating itself in cases of serious allegations against its officers, an issue the 2005 in-custody death of Ian Bush at a B.C. police detachment helped bring to public attention.

This week, we saw Kennedy come out swinging again in his report on the infamous Taser incident involving Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport in 2007. The events that led to the Polish man’s death “represent a defining moment in the history of the RCMP,” Kennedy said.

In what amounts to an official validation of what most people have likely been thinking, Kennedy said police claims about the threat they felt from the stapler Dziekanski was brandishing didn’t justify using a Taser on him.
“The members demonstrated no meaningful attempt to de-escalate the situation nor did they approach the situation with a measured, co-ordinated, and appropriate response,” he wrote in his report.

Kennedy, in making his 16 recommendations, also criticized the officers involved for inappropriately meeting after the incident before giving their statements. In addition, he deemed that their version of what happened lacked credibility. “Overall, I found that the conduct of the responding members fell short of that expected of members of the RCMP,” he concluded.

In coming out so strongly in one of his final acts as head of the public complaints commission, Kennedy has demonstrated his value to our federal bureaucracy. But the government’s decision last month not to reappoint him raises questions about whether it’s merely pushing aside someone who has been a thorn for highly ranked public officials in recent years.

In fact, while Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has so far declined to provide details on the reasons for the move, it was only last December that he praised Kennedy for his commitment “to achieving excellence in policing” in announcing a one-year extension of his term.

So far, it’s unclear whether the decision to end Kennedy’s posting has anything to do with his outspokenness. But we’ve seen such scenarios play out already, including in the firing of former Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen after the agency ordered the shutdown of the Chalk River reactor.

Similar issues arose in the case of Military Police Complaints Commission chairman Peter Tinsley, who also clashed with the government and isn’t getting reappointed.

So, whatever the official reasons the government gives for its moves, they do raise concerns. Given the important role people like Kennedy and Tinsley play in upholding the rule of law, we need to keep them in our public service. Just this week, Kennedy proved his worth once again.

The man who confirmed what we all suspected about the RCMP

December 10, 2009
Gary Mason, Globe and Mail

When the federal government announced it wouldn't be renewing Paul Kennedy's term as head of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, the soon-to-be-jobless civil servant chose not to say anything.

Well, now he's spoken.

Mr. Kennedy's report into the RCMP's conduct in the Robert Dziekanski affair is as devastating a critique of our national police force as you'll find. And the same federal government that told Mr. Kennedy he's done at the end of the year must share some of the blame.

Many of the RCMP's well-documented failings – ones the federal government has steadfastly refused to address – are at the root of the case in which Mr. Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, died after being tasered at Vancouver airport two years ago.

This is not a report Mr. Kennedy would have felt comfortable writing when he first started his job. After four years, though, he's learned a lot. He better understands, too, how increasingly tenuous support for the RCMP is in our country. As such, Mr. Kennedy said the death of Mr. Dziekanski represents a “defining moment in the history of the force.” He didn't say why. But it's likely obvious.

The Dziekanski case is the denouement of a pernicious period for the RCMP in which its reputation and credibility have been bloodied and battered. How the force (and the federal government) responds to this challenge will determine its future.

If nothing else, the Kennedy report is a clarion call for change, especially when it comes to the contentious matter of police investigating themselves. The public needs to have complete faith in any investigative process that centres around the conduct of a police officer. When that investigation is handled by fellow police officers – as it was in the Dziekanski case – and is found to be terribly flawed – as it was in the Dziekanski case – then the public loses trust in the very institution it needs to trust most.

Many of the investigative deficiencies have already been revealed. Still, no matter how many times you hear about the screw-ups, it makes you shudder with rage.

Like the four officers involved in the Dziekanski encounter giving virtually identical statements to investigators. How is that possible? Perhaps it's because they were allowed to compare notes ahead of time. They also didn't seem to take into account that there was a video of the incident – one they hadn't seen but knew existed. Surprise, surprise then, when the video version was decidedly different from the self-serving explanations offered by the officers in their statements. Yet, they were never asked to justify the discrepancies.

As outlined in the Kennedy report, the RCMP's head investigator said he didn't want to show the officers the video because it might have been too “traumatic for them.” Right. Better to sweep the inconsistencies under the carpet. Mr. Kennedy said he did not accept any version of events given by the four officers. Yet, the RCMP accepted their every word.

Recall the Mounties' investigation of the Ian Bush case. Four years ago, Mr. Bush, a 22-year-old logger, was shot in the back of the head by an RCMP officer in the Houston, B.C., detachment after being arrested for holding an open bottle of beer outside a hockey arena. The officer who shot Mr. Bush was never charged, even though there were serious questions about the credibility of his story.

A year later, the RCMP announced a proposal designed to alleviate the public's concerns about the quality and impartiality of the Mounties' investigations. Under the Independent Observer program, someone from Mr. Kennedy's office would have a front-row seat in the investigative process when the Mounties were probing one of their own. The observer couldn't make any real-time suggestions if he saw something he didn't like; he was there only to observe. It was a pointless public-relations exercise.

Never was that more evident than in the Dziekanski case. The independent observer reported to Mr. Kennedy that there were no outward signs of bias on the part of the investigators. In other words, everything about the probe was fine. But bias isn't always on open display or manifestly evident in what people do. More often, it's a product of what they don't do.

The RCMP investigation into the death of Mr. Dziekanski was a travesty of justice. Paul Kennedy's report simply confirmed what we all suspected.

RCMP should limit self-investigations: watchdog

August 11, 2009
CBC News

The RCMP should not investigate its own members in cases involving death to avoid a possible conflict of interest, the head of a watchdog agency said Tuesday in Ottawa.

"In the public interest we sought to answer the following question: Can the current process of the RCMP investigating itself legitimately engender confidence in the transparency and integrity of the criminal investigation and its outcome?" Paul Kennedy, told reporters at a press conference.

"Based on the results of our research and analysis, the informed commission answer is that it cannot."

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, of which Kennedy is chair, spent 19 months studying the controversial issue of the RCMP investigating itself.

Kennedy's report called for several policy and legislative changes to avoid actual or perceived conflicts. Currently, the national police force has discretion to decide how such investigations will unfold.

28 cases studied

The commission examined 28 cases from across the country between April 2002 and March 2007, including six deaths.

The high-profile case of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who was stunned with a Taser by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport on Oct. 13, 2007, falls outside that time frame. An inquiry into his death wrapped up in June and a report is expected later this year.

However, several other controversial cases sparked debate over RCMP self-investigations, including the death of Ian Bush, 22, of Houston, B.C. Bush was arrested in October 2005 for having an open beer outside a hockey game and for giving a false name to the officer. He was taken to the RCMP detachment and, 20 minutes later, he was shot in the back of the head by a rookie officer.

In November 2007, Kennedy's commission found that the officer who shot Bush acted in self-defence, and the police investigation into the shooting was conducted fairly and without conflict of interest.

Scope of problem not understood

The RCMP currently has no national tracking system for investigations against its members and lacks an understanding of the scope of the problem, said Kennedy.

"There is currently no national, centralized co-ordination of member investigations," he said. "That means that no member of the RCMP, including the RCMP commissioner, can tell you how many criminal investigations have been undertaken into its own members.

"More serious is that no one can tell you how many members have been investigated for serious injury, sexual assault or death nor can they identify how many charges have been laid against their members nor what the outcome was."

The commission also found that there are no national standards or policies governing how investigations are conducted, Kennedy said.

"Of real concern is the fact that the RCMP investigative guidelines specifically tell members when undertaking a criminal investigation into another member to 'take the same action as you would for any other person,'" he said.

"We disagree strongly with this principle and believe that criminal investigations into RCMP members should not be treated the same as any other investigation. Police are held to a higher standard."

Kennedy's research also found the RCMP investigators were "free of bias" and approached their assignments in a professional and conscientious manner.

'Inappropriate' patterns

However, he identified several "inappropriate" patterns in the case files:

25 per cent of primary investigators personally knew the member under scrutiny.
In 60 per cent of cases, a sole investigator was assigned, putting the investigation at risk for potential conflict of interest or perception of bias.
In almost one-third of cases, the primary investigator was of the same or lower rank as the subject member, creating potential for intimidation.

Kennedy's report called for national standards on RCMP criminal investigations involving its own members so they are conducted the same way across Canada.

He also urged legislative changes that would allow investigations to be referred to another criminal investigative body. This would be mandatory in cases involving death.

In cases involving serious injury and sexual assault, the complaints commission and a new national registrar would decide whether to refer the case to another body.

RCMP need government oversight

March 8, 2009
By Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun

The jarring testimony that has been presented at the Braidwood inquiry suggests it's time for greater government oversight of the RCMP.

The inquiry, currently on a two-week break, isn't just a test of the four officers whose actions led to the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007. The reputation of the 136-year-old national police force hangs in the balance.

It had been hoped the RCMP turned a corner in 2007 when the Harper government named William Elliott as the force's first civilian commissioner.

A turnaround certainly was in order after the Maher Arar debacle and tales of RCMP pension fund abuse. Controversies involving the RCMP in B. C. alone were enough to cause consternation.

Former justice Ted Hughes, following a 2001 probe of RCMP actions during a 1997 meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Vancouver, criticized unnecessary pepper-spraying of demonstrators, unwarranted arrests, improper removal of protest signs and intrusive strip searches.

The spotlight was back on the RCMP in B. C. in 2005 when Ian Bush, a 22-year-old Houston, B. C., mill worker, was shot -- in the back of the head.

He'd been arrested for having an open beer outside a hockey game and giving a false name. Const. Paul Koester -- five months out of RCMP training -- never faced charges; he was deemed to have acted in self-defence.

Now, testimony before former Supreme Court judge Thomas Braidwood is revealing that armed RCMP officers in bulletproof vests were so fearful of a guy with a stapler that, within 30 seconds of arriving on the scene, they Tasered Dziekanski five times in 31 seconds. He died of cardiac arrest.

They watched him drop, cry out in agony and go blue in the face -- but they didn't offer him CPR.

And in their oral recollection of events and written recordings, the officers got it all wrong.

Without a bystander's video, the public never would have come within a country mile of the truth. How in future can courts be expected to rely on RCMP testimony and incident reports?

To date, none of the officers has admitted to serious misjudgment.

Nor has the RCMP made any gesture to atone for the tragedy.

The RCMP, on its web-site, still maintains Tasers -- implicated in 20 Canadian deaths -- are "another means to obtain compliance from resistant or combative subjects when police must arrest them. The tool allows police at such times to protect the public, and the subjects themselves, from harm."

But Tasers also allow police to get lazy. Four RCMP officers should have better means of subduing a lone suspect than to immediately Taser him.

Consider: if the officers were freaked out by the appearance of an exhausted traveller wielding a stapler, imagine the message they sent Dziekanski by barrelling on to the scene, four-strong and with hands on their weapons.

The Harper government has been mostly silent on the Dziekanski incident. In 2007, then-public safety minister Stockwell Day requested a review of protocols on Taser use. More recently, Peter Van Loan, his successor, insisted Tasers are a useful alternative to deadlier options.

However, Commissioner Elliott revealed last month that officers now are advised Tasers can cause death and should be used more restrictively, only in circumstances involving danger to the public or the officer.

That said, the assortment of inquiries into police conduct in B. C. should give pause.

The Braidwood testimony comes as a $900-million security budget for the 2010 Olympics is about to be handed over to the RCMP for management.

The RCMP story, of course, is not one-sided. Mounties often get cited for heroism and do plenty of good work. But they aren't the source of national pride they once were.

Beyond the scarlet serge and shiny boots lurk obvious problems that call for greater scrutiny. One good option would be a permanent parliamentary oversight committee.

Mom keeps pushing for reform of in-custody death inquests

June 2, 2008
Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

Linda Bush, whose 22-year-old son was fatally shot while in RCMP custody, continues her crusade for reform this week as another inquest into a police shooting begins.

Her son Ian was killed Oct. 29, 2005 in a scuffle with a young constable in the Houston detachment. There were no witnesses and there have been hugely different interpretations of the forensic evidence. His mom thought she might learn what actually happened through the inquest process: She was sadly disappointed.

Bush had to get her own lawyer to represent the family and even then, the institutional participants closed ranks and turned the inquest into a fait accompli.

Ever since, she has been pushing for a change to how in-custody deaths are investigated and also for a change to B.C.'s inquest system. We're about to see another inquest, this one in Williams Lake, into the death of 43-year-old Don Lewis, shot by a rookie RCMP officer Aug. 13, 2006, near McLeese Lake. Coroner Shane DeMeyer, the same man who conducted the inquiry into Ian Bush's death at the hands of an inexperienced RCMP constable, will oversee it.

Linda plans to be there with Don's widow Sara when the inquest opens today.

Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan all have independent civilian review boards to remove any bias in internal police investigations when someone is seriously hurt or killed while in custody. Why doesn't B.C. do the same?

Good question.

Here is how Linda Bush summed up the process and the grandiloquent claims the coroner's service likes to make about answering the questions surrounding such a death: "It does not provide an independent investigation, but relies entirely on the evidence provided by the original investigators as does the Commission for Complaints Against the RCMP. In this case, as in Ian's, the RCMP had complete control of the investigation into a shooting by a fellow RCMP officer. A coroner's inquest cannot assess blame, only find the facts. There will be few verifiable facts other than that Don Lewis was fatally shot by an RCMP officer. This is already a known fact, so it will be a very expensive process which will provide very little, if any, service to the public."

While no one looks out for the families of the victims, there's a bottomless pit of public money for the institutional participants.

That's what's wrong. No matter what you think about Ian Bush's death or any other individual who has died in custody, we should fix this.

Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, has been out front with Linda, saying that without legal representation, family members of the deceased are stymied in their attempts to get answers at inquests.

This is an incredibly germane point with the inquest into the Taser death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport in the offing. Taxpayers pay the coroner's staff, the lawyer for the RCMP and, if he has hired one, the lawyer for the officer involved, as well as the overhead. No one provides a lawyer for the deceased's family or covers any of the expenses for them to attend the inquest.

In the Lewis case, Bush points out, Sara lives in Pemberton, so she must pay for the lawyer she has engaged plus her own bills. She must also find a sitter for her daughter. Don's mother and siblings live in the U.S. and cannot attend.

Lewis will be represented by Cameron Ward, who is only charging his travel expenses.

He also represented the family of Kevin Edmond St. Arnaud, the 29-year-old welder shot by police in December 2004, who was the subject of an inquest last year.

"I am asking people interested in the justice system and concerned with the futility of the coroner's inquest, the Commission for Complaints Against the RCMP, and the practice of police investigating police to help me help Sara," Bush said.

"Any small donation to pay for accommodations and meals would be welcome. It can be sent to me at 5009 Morgan Rd., Houston, B.C., V0J 1Z2, given to Sara in Williams Lake, or deposited in the Royal Bank, account #02240 - 5050919."

There are several problems with the inquest system, in her view, including the fact that most happen way too long after the fact. She believes changes must be made to the Coroner's Act, RCMP training and procedures and how police are investigated.

I couldn't agree more.

"I am doing this because no matter what the circumstances, no family should have to face an inquest alone," Bush said.

No kidding.

For more information, visit the petition for Change to BC's Internal Police Investigation System.

Alcohol, drugs main causes of in-custody deaths: RCMP

February 16, 2008
CBC News

An internal RCMP report obtained by CBC News shows 80 people died while in police custody between 2002 to 2006, the majority due to alcohol intoxication or drug overdoses. The 100-page report, written in December 2007, is the RCMP's most comprehensive analysis of in-custody deaths and presents statistics ranging from the reason police got involved in the first place to where the death occurred.

"The majority of subjects died at the scene of a complaint, which was most commonly a disturbance or drunk in public place call, or in a hospital within 30 minutes of initial contact with the police," the report says. "The leading cause of death was alcohol or drug overdose."

Of the 80 people who died in police custody, most were men over the age of 30 who had been using drugs or alcohol and had a criminal record.

The report's author, a staff sergeant with national criminal operations, called the report "good news for the RCMP," because in 2006 none of the 15 deaths could have been prevented, as those people had put themselves in situations where "their decisions resulted in their deaths."

However, the report's assessment brings little comfort to Linda Bush of Houston, B.C. On Oct. 29, 2005, rookie Const. Paul Koester shot her son, Ian, in the back of the head while he was in police custody at the RCMP detachment in Houston. Bush, a 22-year-old sawmill worker, was arrested for having an open beer outside a hockey game and for giving a false name to police. He was taken to the local police detachment where he died 20 minutes later.

"I think the RCMP are making some wrong choices in excusing themselves here and not making more of an effort to change what's happening," Linda Bush told CBC News.

Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward, who has represented a number of families whose relatives died in police custody, said the RCMP report is flawed because it only focuses on the victims and does not take into account the age of the officers involved or their experience with the force.

"I see this report perhaps as an attempt by the RCMP to fend off the critics and those who say that a higher level of civilian oversight and civilian investigation in these cases is necessary," Ward said.

Tom Engel, an Alberta lawyer who represents families of people who have died in police custody, also has doubts about the validity of the report. "[It's] just so superficial. It's useless," Engel said. "Something like this to me can only be useful to the RCMP in terms of public relations."

Ward said while British Columbia is home to a third of the RCMP members in Canada, it's the source of more than half of all in-custody deaths. "We've got a death rate here in B.C that's about twice as high as it ought to be statistically," he said.

The RCMP declined an interview request by CBC News, but in a written reply noted that B.C.'s in-custody death rate is due to the fact that police work is more urban in the western province compared to other provinces. "The type of police work in B.C. is heavily urban-focused, compared to the predominantly rural policing that goes on in the other provinces in RCMP jurisdiction," Sgt. Sylvie Tremblay, an RCMP spokeswoman from Ottawa, said in her written reply. "Crime is logically more pronounced in urban centres than in rural areas. The majority of the deaths were related to high-risk lifestyles involving alcohol and drugs," she said.

The report said the RCMP will continue to examine the circumstances of each in-custody death. "The aim is to learn whether the acts or omissions, if any, of its members or the equipment/facilities and procedures played any role in the incident," says the report. "The RCMP finds itself in a difficult position of dealing with intoxicated or stoned individuals," the report concludes.

"Hospitals are generally reluctant to admit persons until and unless there are definite symptoms of toxicity that would necessitate medical intervention."

Complaints commissioner rules lethal force necessary in death of Ian Bush

November 30, 2007
The Canadian Press

And this is the man who will lead a nation-wide review of RCMP use of tasers and their use by RCMP officers on Robert Dziekanski?!?! The investigation into the death of Ian Bush was a joke and,if the man who shot him to death had not been an officer in a uniform, he'd be in prison ...

VANCOUVER - The RCMP Public Complaints Commissioner has ruled an officer's use of lethal force was necessary in the death of Ian Bush in Houston, B.C. In a report released Thursday, Commissioner Paul Kennedy also ruled the RCMP's North District Major Crime Unit conducted a "highly professional" investigation into Bush's death.

Earlier this year a coroner's inquest heard that Const. Paul Koester wasn't formally interviewed by police for three months after Bush was killed in October, 2005.

Bush was arrested outside the local hockey rink for giving a false name and 20 minutes later, Koester shot Bush in the head after what the officer said was a struggle for his life.

"After carefully considering the circumstances I conclude that Const. Koester had a reasonable apprehension of death and believed that he could not otherwise preserve himself from death other than to use lethal force," Kennedy said in his report.

"Accordingly, Const. Koester acted in self-defence."

The RCMP came under fire for using its own officers to investigate the controversial incident. But Kennedy endorsed their handling of the case.

"I concluded that the North District major crime unit conducted a highly professional investigation into Mr. Bush's death and exemplified the best practices for major crime investigations," he said.

Kennedy made several recommendations including installing recording equipment in every RCMP detachment where prisoners are handled, and that RCMP develop policy for police investigations involving their own members.

Besides his report on Bush's death, Kennedy also announced another probe into RCMP officers who have investigated fellow officers involved in death or injury cases over a five-year period between April 2002 and March 2007.

Kennedy launched his review in September 2006 into the circumstances surrounding Bush's arrest and death, as well as how the Mounties subsequently handled their investigation of it.

The RCMP investigation, which was reviewed by New Westminster police, concluded that no charges should be laid against the Koester.

A coroner's inquest later recommended only policy changes such as increased surveillance in police detachments to prevent similar deaths in the future. The jury also suggested last July that Mounties should not be alone with suspects at police stations.

The parents of Bush were disappointed by the recommendations and urged better recruitment and training for officers, while saying police should not investigate themselves.

Bush, 22, was arrested outside the Houston, B.C., hockey rink with an open beer in October 2005. Less than an hour later he was dead, lying in a blood-spattered room in the RCMP detachment.

Const. Paul Koester testified he shot the young man in the back of the head in self-defence while the two were alone in an interview room.

The case raised allegations that Koester got preferential treatment, including advance notice of the questions investigators would ask him. Three weeks went by before he gave a written statement to police investigators and it was more than three months before he was interviewed.

At the inquest, a blood-spatter expert disputed the officer's version of the events, saying it wasn't possible for Bush to have been behind Koester trying to choke him when the fatal shot was fired.

Joe Slemko, an Edmonton police officer and private consultant, said the evidence, based on blood patterns, showed the young man had to be under the Mountie.

The inquest also heard that Bush's body was left unrefrigerated in the Houston detachment for at least 24 hours before it was taken to the morgue in Prince George and then on to Kamloops for an autopsy three days later.

The dead man's mother, Linda Bush, has said the family will push ahead with its civil lawsuit against the RCMP and the B.C. solicitor general and Attorney General.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which believes a civilian agency should investigate such cases involving police, is also proceeding with a judicial review.

The release of the report comes amid the controversy over the videotaped death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski after he was zapped with a Taser and subdued by RCMP officers at the Vancouver International Airport. The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is also examining that case.

Harper crowd looks bad in its mishandling of airport death

November 21, 2007
Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun

The Harper government has proven itself wholly inept in dealing with a snowballing crisis of confidence in both the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.

Even as controversy flowing from a video of the Oct. 14 airport death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski is damaging Canada's international image, even as it has revealed deficiencies in national rather than provincial agencies, it has fallen to the B.C. government to pick up on demands for a full public inquiry.

B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal struck just the right chord this week, expressing deep distress about the Taser death and puzzlement about why Ottawa has not been forthcoming with answers.

Stephen Harper appears not to understand the depth of emotion that now surrounds this issue and has gone to ground, saying as little as possible.

He has left explanations to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who has announced a review of Taser use. It's unclear how this review will differ from other, previously announced probes.

Last weekend, Day demonstrated gratuitous insensitivity to the Dziekanski death by questioning why more Canadians aren't upset about drunk drivers.

Federal mishandling of the matter is all the more damaging because the Harper crowd is such a vigorous champion of law and order, and has worked so hard to bolster the image and might of Canada's police and military.

Before B.C.'s announcement Monday of its own public inquiry, no fewer than five investigations had been announced in scattergun fashion.

None was assigned to determined blame and none constitutes an independent body exclusively reflecting the public interest.

They included: A B.C. coroner's inquest; an OPP external review; an investigation by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP; a review by Day's Public Security department, and separate studies of Taser use and technology by the Canadian Police Centre and the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police.

At this point, taxpayers are bound to look askance at any police reviews, especially those involving self-scrutiny by the RCMP.

In fact, damaged confidence in the RCMP might be why the past two federal governments have looked to public inquiries instead of the national police force to investigate fishy federal situations.

An inquiry was struck to address the sponsorship scandal. And, more recently, Harper has agreed to an inquiry into allegations about Brian Mulroney made by Karlheinz Schreiber.

Public trust in the RCMP was eroded, certainly in B.C., after the 2005 death of Ian Bush, shot in the back of the head by a member of the force while the young man was in custody.

It was further eroded by the RCMP's initial statements in October regarding Dziekanski's Taser death, statements that depicted a wildly different situation than what video taken by an airport bystander later revealed.

People can only wonder how seriously they should take recounts by the RCMP, and about all the Taser incidents that have not been videotaped. What they don't know about those incidents is nearly as frightening as what they do.

Is it possible that the Harperites see the Dziekanski tragedy as a B.C. rather than a national issue because the RCMP doesn't constitute provincial police forces either in Quebec or Ontario -- where most Commons seats are?

The fact is that Taser deaths have occurred in all parts of the country. The fact is that public confidence in the RCMP has been lost nationally. The fact is that the border services agency operates in airports from one coast to another. The fact is that Dziekanski's death is being covered by news agencies globally. Even Al-Jezeera is on it.

A federal public inquiry should be struck to examine RCMP Taser use and recent deaths of those taken into custody. Such an inquiry should be mandated to review protocols used by border services agency at airports, and to scrutinize airport deficiencies in orientation services provided for international passengers. Separately, an independent Crown prosecutor should be considering charges against those involved in Dziekanski's death.

And while all this transpires, the 2,000 to 3,000 Taser guns currently at the disposal of Canada's police forces should be placed under lock and key.

Answers in taser case are years away

October 30, 2007
GARY MASON, Globe and Mail

More than a week later, Canadians remain outraged over the death of Robert Dziekanski, the man who died at Vancouver International Airport after being zapped by taser-wielding RCMP officers.

Many Canadians don't understand why three Mounties needed to use their tasers to bring one agitated but unarmed man under control. Nor do they understand why the officers allegedly waited only 24 seconds before using their weapons on the 40-year-old Polish immigrant.

As is the case with all in-custody deaths, it will be months, maybe years, before the public gets any answers about the incident. The first opportunity will likely be at an inquest. But it took 19 months, remember, before an inquest was held into the death of Ian Bush, the 22-year-old mill worker from Houston, B.C., who was shot in the back of the head while in RCMP custody.

While it will be some time before we know who will be called as witnesses at the Dziekanski inquest, I'll bet one will be RCMP Corporal Greg Gillis, an expert on use of force with specific knowledge in the area of conducted energy weapons. Also known as tasers.

After talking to Cpl. Gillis for almost an hour late last week, I can already see how the force will defend using a taser on Mr. Dziekanski.

Although we did not talk specifically about the Dziekanski case because it's currently being investigated, it wasn't necessary. It was still relatively easy to figure out what the three officers involved in the incident are likely to say in their defence.

And it all starts with the belief that tasers are a safe and reliable weapon to bring violent, angry people under control.

"When you look at the best available medical information out there, there is nothing, nothing to support the link between the taser causing or putting people at increased risk [of death]," Cpl. Gillis told me.

"This is something that has been studied by medical experts around the world. It's been the study of an intense, wide-ranging review by the Home Office in Britain. We are constantly reviewing the most current medical literature out there on the subject."

Okay, so the RCMP believes it is on solid medical grounds, even though the taser's use has been associated with 17 deaths in Canada alone in the past 4½ years. The officers are still going to be asked why they didn't try alternative measures, like pepper spray, to immobilize Mr. Dziekanski.

Cpl. Gillis said pepper spray is an option, but an officer often has to make instantaneous calculations about its use. If we're talking about using pepper spray in an airport, for instance, the officers have to weigh the risk of cross-contaminating other parts of the building.

"If it gets picked up by the [ventilation] system, you suddenly have hundreds of people in the arrivals area that could be exposed to it," Cpl. Gillis said. "Then you've got a widespread panic on your hands and you're draining other resources because now you have to get the fire department to respond and deal with the situation."

As well, Cpl. Gillis said, pepper spray doesn't work on everybody.

Namely on people who have a high pain threshold, are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or are experiencing a mental-health crisis. Perhaps the RCMP officers at the Vancouver airport felt Mr. Dziekanski fell into one of these categories.

On top of that, there are often medical reasons to subdue the person as quickly as possible, Cpl. Gillis said. When the insulin level of a person with diabetes crashes, for example, he or she often exhibits violent behaviour. Negotiating before using force to subdue the person may do him more harm than good.

"What they need is medical attention immediately," Cpl. Gillis said. "Same with someone exhibiting symptoms of excited delirium or a psychotic outburst. The best thing is to bring them under control quickly and let the first responders [paramedics] start helping them."

And an officer faced with this situation has to make that evaluation quickly while, to some degree, making an educated guess about what's at the root of the person's problems.

"You're often talking about split-second decisions here," Cpl. Gillis said.

Still, 24 seconds seems like an awfully short time to assess a person's state of mind. But Cpl. Gillis said an officer is also trained to ascertain quickly whether a person is "oriented" enough to have any kind of conversation.

"And I'm not talking about a language barrier here. You can have a language barrier and still talk to someone," Cpl. Gillis said.

"But you can have a language barrier and have little chance of communicating with the person because they are not oriented for any number of reasons. In that case, talking is not going to help."

As I say, the RCMP will have months, if not a couple of years, to build its defence in this case. But Cpl. Gillis gives us a hint of what's coming.

The public will decide if it washes.

RCMP shouldn't handle investigation

October 17, 2007
Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

Taser-related death in RCMP takedown leaves opening for a whitewash

RICHMOND - The RCMP's handling of the Taser-related death of a Polish immigrant Sunday seems as mindless as the offensive attempts to whitewash the shooting of Houston mill worker Ian Bush. Mountie spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre and the rest of the force just don't get it -- they are not a law unto themselves. That the Horsemen are investigating themselves in this situation raises the same concerns that turned the October 2005 death of Bush into a scandal.

From the moment Robert Dziekanski of Pieszyce, Poland, died in the customs area of Vancouver International Airport, Sgt. Lemaitre has been running damage control. Just as he did in the Bush case. Bush died inside the Houston RCMP detachment after he was shot in the head during a scuffle with a Mountie who had arrested him for having an open bottle of beer outside a hockey game. Lemaitre would have us believe that Tasering the distraught Dziekanski was the only way of dealing with the situation.

That's disingenuous. What's worse is that while quickly jumping to the defence of their members, the Mounties treated the Dziekanski family like dirt. How would you like to be told police had found your missing son, but when you arrived to see him, they told you he was dead? That's what the RCMP did to Dziekanski's mother. They were just as insensitive with Bush's mom. Can these guys even spell c-o-m-p-a-s-s-i-o-n?

Meanwhile, the force rushes therapists and lawyers to officers caught up in such incidents because of the trauma. According to Lemaitre, Dziekanski came to the attention of airport security because he was agitated, pounding on windows and throwing around furniture. The three officers Lemaitre said responded couldn't use pepper spray or their batons because there were too many people around.

Sima Ashrafina, a medical lab assistant from North Vancouver, saw it go down differently. First of all, she says there were few people around -- it was 1:30 in the morning. Secondly, she says five officers were present, two of whom Tasered the unarmed man. In her view the response by the RCMP was "too harsh." While Lemaitre says the officers only fired two bursts of the Taser, she says she heard four blasts. Since she's not facing lawsuits or potential charges for causing a death, I can't imagine why she would lie. She was there -- I believe her, a disinterested observer.

The force's need to stand behind its officers appears clearly at odds with its duty to the public in these incidents and breeds suspicion. I think it's obvious independent investigations of deaths involving police would dispel such concerns and prevent clouds of distrust gathering over the RCMP. Regardless, we need to have an inquiry into the use of Tasers.

Dziekanski was the sixth person in B.C. to die in the past five years after being zapped by the Taser's 50,000 volts -- one of 16 people across the country who have died after such a shock. Amnesty International says there have been nearly 200 deaths across the continent during the same period following Taser use.

Of course, the company that makes Tasers claims the deaths were caused not by its device but by drugs, a pre-existing medical condition or "excited delirium." I love that term -- which is not a recognized medical or psychiatric condition. It has been used over the last decade to explain deaths in police custody, but is so vague it appears to mean little more than your heart is racing. It's a bogus label that indicates little more than the person was distressed and ramped up -- could be from fear, a physical or mental health problem, intoxicants or, God forbid, an attack of acute claustrophobia from being stuck for hours in customs.

That's why there are urgent calls for higher standards to be imposed on the use of the Taser and demands for more training for those who use the controversial weapon. The bottom line is at the moment police don't know what the outcome will be when they fire a Taser. What we do know is they are taking a chance with the target's life.

Consider the Taser's history. The Taser was invented in 1974 by NASA scientist Jack Cover who named it after Tom Swift, a fictional inventor in a series of sci-fi adventure novels. Taser is an acronym for the "Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle." Cute, huh? Originally it was considered a firearm because it relied on gunpowder to fire the electric prods. In the early 1990s, that changed. The Taser was redesigned to use a nitrogen propellant so it would no longer be classified as a firearm. Since then, the company has built a lucrative monopoly through the use of former cops and army officers to tout the weapons.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department was among the first to sign up for the new product and thousands of police and corrections departments have followed suit. Taser International's success story unfortunately overlooks the mounting body count. The company says its product had nothing to do with those fatalities -- the deaths can not be attributed to the Taser. But I don't think that's the issue: People are dying after Taser use and we need to recognize and respond to that. Whether it is from being zapped or a combination of factors doesn't matter in my opinion -- too many people have died. If Tasers are going to be used by police, they need to be placed high up on what the cops call the "continuum of force" model. They should not be a first response.

For Lemaitre to insist responding RCMP in this instance could not use pepper spray, their batons or hand-to-hand combat training is ridiculous. Any bouncer in a downtown nightclub deals with similarly unarmed unruly patrons on a weekly basis. Why could a handful of police officers not take down one unarmed man without resorting to this weapon? This is responsible policing? Before they drew their Tasers, the Mounties should have tried other options. We deserve to know why they didn't.

Renewed plea for independent investigation into deaths in police custody

July 5, 2007
CKNW, Vancouver

The sister of a man who died after being stunned with a Vancouver police taser three years ago has renewed her plea for an independent body to investigate the deaths of people in police custody. Patti Gillman has been closely watching the Ian Bush inquest in Houston. Gillman has long been lobbying against the practice of police investigating themselves.

In May, a coroner's jury investigating the death of her brother --Robert Bagnell -- did not make any recommendations for changes in how police custody fatalities are reviewed. Gillman says she was disappointed to hear the coroner overseeing the Bush inquest has also decided not to factor that issue into his investigation.

In a statement on her blog, she's demanding changes at the federal level ... saying "only through unbiased police oversight will we ever hope to see a reduction in excessive force and corruption in Canadian police forces."

The inquest into the October, 2005 death of Ian Bush is expected to wrap up tomorrow.

The 22-year old mill worker was shot in the back of the head during a struggle with rookie officer Paul Koester at the Houston RCMP detachment.

IAN BUSH

Update: The jury recommended that the RCMP install audio-video equipment in all detachments and that its use be mandatory. It also suggested that a police officer not be left alone with someone he or she had arrested. It proposed that RCMP members conduct an "annual self assessment" and have a "continuing education plan to maintain competency." No one was quite sure what that meant.

Our thoughts are with the family of Ian Bush this week, as they continue the agony of the reconvened Coroner's Inquest into their son and brother's death. In case you've been living on a deserted island and haven't heard, 22-year-old Ian Bush was shot in the back of the head in the Houston (British Columbia) RCMP detachment on Oct. 29, 2005 by Const. Paul Koester after being arrested for the crime of holding an open bottle of beer in public and providing false information to the police.

The RCMP's version of events does NOT compute and it has only become more bizarre this week.

This entry has nothing to do with tasers. This is, instead, all about the practice in Canada of police investigating themselves and each other. This is a public service announcement. Only through unbiased police oversight will we ever hope to see a reduction in excessive force and corruption in Canadian police forces - from muncipal police straight up to the beleaguered RCMP. As Ian Bush's sister Andrea said, "If the police knew there would be a real investigation, then that would stand as a warning to them." And, if a Coroner's Inquest is *not* the forum for this urgent debate, then what is?! Knock! Knock! ... Who's there? ... Is Stephen Harper in? We, the families of people who have died in police custody, need to see him about a small matter of national urgency. Another sister of a person slain in police custody questions Mr. Harper's bias in favour of the law enforcers. Knock! Knock! ... Who's there? ... Is the opposition home?

Another issue that we strongly agree with is that families of people who die in custody of police in this country must be provided with funding so that they may be properly represented by legal counsel. The Globe and Mail's Gary Mason puts it this way: "Here we have this contemptible situation where Mrs. Bush is cashing in RRSPs to finance her fight on her son's behalf and yet the Department of Justice and the B.C. Attorney-General's Ministry have three lawyers here, all working on behalf of the RCMP, all at taxpayers' expense ... The entire onus for getting at the truth in this sordid affair is on the Bush family. And that's wrong. That's not how the system should work." BINGO!!

If the jury is unable to agree on any other LIFE-SAVING recommendations, the least it must do is recommend that Mrs. Bush’s LIFE SAVINGS be returned to her.

Globe and Mail reporter Gary Mason has been on this case from the beginning like a pitbull. Unfortunately, his reports are not available to non-Globe and Mail subscribers. HOWEVER, it takes less than a minute and a credit card number to create a free member account, which provides 14 days of unlimited access to everything on their site. Before the end of the 14 days, you can simply cancel your account. I strongly urge all of my readers to create an account and do a search for "Ian Bush" - you have to read this to believe it!!

What is happening in Houston, British Columbia this week should be sounding alarms across the country.