One in three hit with RCMP Tasers need medical care
By Jim Bronskill And Sue Bailey, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Germain Quesnel who used to be a truck driver, alleges RCMP used a taser on him in 2003 and he's been on a disability pension ever since. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
OTTAWA - Nearly one-third of the people the RCMP has zapped with Tasers needed medical treatment afterward, prompting new questions about a potent weapon police consider a safer alternative to conventional guns.
A joint investigation by The Canadian Press and CBC-Radio-Canada of more than 3,200 incidents in which Mounties fired the powerful electronic devices reveals more than 28 per cent were later examined by medical personnel.
The figures, covering the last six years, ranged from 16 per cent of cases in Nunavut to almost 42 per cent in Prince Edward Island.
Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died last October after being stunned twice with an RCMP Taser and pinned to the floor of the Vancouver International Airport. An unsettling video of his last moments, viewed by millions of Canadians, ignited fresh debate about the safety of the 50,000-volt weapon used by scores of Canadian police services.
The Taser can be fired from a distance of several metres and cycled repeatedly once steel probes puncture a suspect's skin or clothing. The guns can also be used in up-close stun mode - a sensation likened to leaning on a hot stove - resulting in painful blisters or burns.
Of 3,226 people the RCMP hit with a Taser from 2002 through last year, 910 were examined in a hospital or other medical facility. The data also show the Mounties zapped people with Tasers more than once in almost half of cases despite an internal policy that warns repeated stuns may be hazardous.
The findings emerge from an analysis of standard forms RCMP officers must file each time they pull a Taser out of its holster. Thousands of heavily censored pages - stripped of names and other personal details - were obtained under the Access to Information Act.
Secrecy around the extent of stun-gun injuries makes it difficult to get a true picture of the cuts, burns, head injuries - or worse - suffered by those hit with Tasers.
RCMP policy says that if the Taser is fired from a distance, a member certified in first aid may remove the pointy probes. "It is not necessary to have a medically trained person examine the individual, unless a probe is lodged in a sensitive part of the body, such as the eye or the groin, or the individual's physical condition warrants medical attention."
Officers are also told to make note of injuries, photograph them and obtain a statement from the person.
In general, officers are supposed to advise those zapped that the effects will be short-term, but also ensure they receive medical care "if any unusual reactions occur or if you think that he or she is in distress."
However, there are doubts about whether everyone adversely affected by a Taser received the necessary medical attention.
Germain Quesnel of Richmond, B.C., says he suffered a heart attack behind bars after being repeatedly Tasered by the RCMP in March 2003.
Quesnel called police over an altercation he was having with his step-son. The Mounties arrested Quesnel, shocked him several times to get him out of the car, then again twice in a police cell.
"I was blue and swelled up about two inch cause the Taser guy was not just Tasering me, he was ramming that Taser like a baseball bat," said Quesnel, now 47.
He complained of chest pains and asked for a doctor or an ambulance. An officer thought he was feigning distress to get an early release. "I was telling them that I thought I was having a heart attack but they didn't care, they didn't listen to me, they didn't do nothing."
In the morning, eight hours after his chest pains began, he was taken to hospital where doctors confirmed he had indeed suffered a heart attack.
An internal RCMP investigation found one of two officers who shocked Quesnel used excessive force by firing the stun gun at him in the cell. It also said the officer should have got some medical attention for him sooner.
Dr. Paul Dorian, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, says police officers need to assume they may hurt someone when they use the Taser and treat all injuries seriously - "even if they are accused criminals."
Murray Mollard of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association said the latest figures suggest "there are safety risks" associated with the stun gun's use. He said Tasers, considered by the RCMP to be an intermediate means of force - along with pepper spray and the baton - should be closer to a regular firearm on the force scale.
Paul Kennedy, head of the commission for complaints against the RCMP, will release a report Wednesday expected to echo his interim call for stricter controls on Mountie Taser use. On Tuesday, Kennedy met with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who requested the report last year, to discuss the findings.
The RCMP has declined to discuss the force's use of Tasers until Kennedy's report is issued.
Canadian police forces tout the stun guns as a safer alternative to the lethal force of a regular firearm.
Every police officer in the country should have a Taser, said Tony Cannavino, president of the Canadian Association of Police, which represents thousands of front-line officers across the country.
"We're strong believers that it's a very important tool."
Police need solid research, guidance and proper training - including recertification every two years - in order to be sure the stun guns are used properly, Cannavino added.
"Police officers don't want to injure people, they don't want to kill anybody. If they could save lives or save injuries, that's what police officers are there to do."
Earlier this year, the RCMP decided to stop releasing details of injuries suffered by Tasered people, citing the need to protect the personal privacy as well as the confidentiality of investigations.
However, previously disclosed RCMP Taser reports for the period 2002 to 2005 reveal glimpses of more than two dozen injuries - most of them skin burns - caused by the stun gun. In many of these cases, the subject was not taken to hospital.
"Upper probe penetrated bone matter," noted one Mountie after an unarmed suspect zapped for raising a ruckus in Ponoka, Alta., was hit with the sharp energy-conducting Taser hooks in May 2004. "Probe twisted on impact. Required additional force to be removed."
Others complained of shortness of breath after being stunned, while another hit their head on asphalt.
A suicidal Prince George, B.C., resident wielding a butcher knife was hooked in the upper left lip when police responded with a Taser jolt in July 2003.
Critics have called for a moratorium on the electronic weapons until sufficient independent research has been done.
Twenty people in Canada have died after being Tasered.
Arizona-based manufacturer Taser International points out that the weapons have never been directly blamed for a death, though they have been cited as contributing factors.
Nov 23.2007
A Kamloops man has been waiting more than two years for the outcome of his claim to the RCMP public-complaints office that he suffered severe scorch wounds from a Taser-toting officer.
Jean-Marc Phillips filed a statement — with photos of his raw, oozing burns and lacerations — to the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP in 2005, but it appears his case was shelved because Kamloops officers wrongly told investigators the 48-year-old wasn’t interested in pursuing it.
Phillips filed the complaint some time after he was arrested and jailed in June 2004 by a pack of Mounties who, he claims, beat him in a parking lot and shot him in the shoulder with a Taser gun before forcing him into a police cruiser.
He said they drove him to the detachment, where he was Tasered twice in the stomach, kicked, punched and ordered to strip. He says he was held naked in a cell for a day and then charged with assaulting Const. Craig Blanchard.
He was released with all but the shirt on his back. The Mounties said the shirt had been trashed.
The assault charge was dismissed last year by Provincial Court Judge James Gordon, who concluded that the officers were likely the bullies and strongly suspected they were a lot rougher than necessary.
The judge said he was troubled by the fact only one officer testified during the trial and that they offered no evidence to back their claim that they were forced to get rough when Phillips resisted arrest.
Blanchard denied using a Taser and testified he saw no injuries on Phillips during or after his arrest.
But a doctor reported finding Taser wounds on Phillips, leading Gordon to question the cops.
“Why were no videos placed before the court of what took place in the police bay or the book-in centre or in police cells?” he asked.
“What I have heard ought to cause those in charge . . . to make further inquiry, in the hope the sort of conduct Mr. Phillips alleges has not become a practice within this detachment,” he warned.
Phillips, meanwhile, had no idea the complaint he had filed to CPC the year previous was collecting dust. In a letter to the western regional office, Kamloops Staff-Sgt. Bill Goughnour told a complaints analyst they had terminated the internal investigation while “the matter was pending in court.”
He said they reopened the case after Phillips was cleared in 2006 but closed it again after the tile-
layer’s lawyer told him not to give police any further information.
“On that basis we determined that Phillips was no longer interested, and our file was closed, with no further action to be taken.”
CPC is required to return a file to the source detachment for an initial investigation by its officers, a process that has invited much criticism because it is open to abuse by officers who refuse to co-operate or provide the necessary reports.
Phillips’ mom, Sigrid, said her son didn’t know until last month that the public office had closed the file.
“If he’s committed a crime, fine, put him in jail,” said the retired elementary-school teacher. “But they have no right to torture him.”
She said she was told yesterday that CPC and the professional-standards branch of the RCMP have now reopened the investigation.
RCMP version of Taser use ‘absolutely false,’ victim’s wife says
December 19th, 2007 | Taser, Mounties Investigating Mounties, RCMP
Kelowna, B.C. (Vancouver Sun) - The wife of a man Tasered by RCMP in November after double parking denounces the Mounties’ internal investigation of the incident, calling their version of events “totally false.”
John Peters was shocked twice with the weapon by a Mountie after driving away from two officers in the process of citing him for a parking infraction.
On Friday, Kelowna RCMP Supt. William McKinnon released the results of his administrative review.
The officer, McKinnon said, was wrong to Taser Peters, but only because the 68-year-old stroke victim and paper delivery man was still in his car when the officer shocked him.
McKinnon said Peters displayed “combative behaviour” and the officer was “unable to successfully control” him using other techniques. Under those circumstances, RCMP use of force rules allowed him to deploy his Taser.
John Peter’s wife, Anne, was in the car when the confrontation occurred. She said Tuesday she and her husband were “absolutely shocked” when they read McKinnon’s explanation in the paper and went on to call the investigation a “total whitewash.”
Her husband was never physically combative, Ann Peters said, and the officer tried no other means of control.
She said the officer said all of six words before unleashing the weapon: “I am going to Taser him.”
Peters did raise his arms when he got out of the car, but only to defend himself, Ann Peters said.
An RCMP representative said McKinnon had nothing more to say about the incident.
RCMP probe of Taser incident a whitewash, victim says
December 18th, 2007 | Taser, Mounties Investigating Mounties, RCMP
(CBC News) - Kelowna, B.C., man and his wife say an RCMP investigation into why he was shocked by a Taser stun gun over a parking violation amounts to a whitewash.
John Peters, 68, was jolted twice with a Taser fired by a Kelowna Mountie following an incident in which he drove off after the officer tried to give him a ticket for double parking.
Peters stopped his car a short distance later, and was subsequently hit twice with the stun gun.
The RCMP report released Friday found the officer acted improperly by using the Taser on Peters while he was still in his car.
But it also said the officer was generally justified in using the Taser a second time after Peters got out of his car, because Peters was combative and lashing out with his arms.
That version of events is false, according to Peters and his wife.
“I was trying to avoid his vicious attack, because he’d already punched me,” Peters told CBC News on Monday.
“I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t hit him though. I never hit him.”
Peters’s wife Ann, who was in the car at the time, said her husband only put his hands over his face after the officer punched him in the mouth, and that the officer used the Taser twice on her husband while he was still in the car.
“John never hit the officer. He was never tased outside the car. He was tased both times inside the car.”
The finding of the RCMP investigation that her husband was combative is simply not true, she said.
“I was shocked, because there was very little truth to most of what was said. It was a complete whitewash.”
B.C. Civil Liberties president Jason Gratl said the case shows why the police should not investigate themselves.
“The investigation easily raises as many questions as it answers, and it doesn’t do much to restore the reputation of the RCMP to the public,” said Gratl, who is now calling for an independent inquiry.
John Peters said he is considering legal action.
Last week the RCMP apologized to Peters, and said the officer would be disciplined for using his Taser on Peters while he was in the car, which is not correct procedure.
this one is similar to Robert's death ....
Justice will be done in taser death, Quebec tells Italy’s envoy
December 14th, 2007 | Taser, Death While In Custody
Rheal Seguin (Globe and Mail) - The Quebec government this week reassured Italian authorities that the Quebec justice system is “honest, reliable and efficient,” but warned that it could take a long time to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of one of Italy’s citizens, Claudio Castagnetta.
Mr. Castagnetta died while in custody in September after having been tasered by Quebec City police and jailed without receiving medical care.
In a letter to Italian Ambassador Gabriele Sardo on Tuesday, Quebec’s Minister of Public Security, Jacques Dupuis, said that the provincial police have completed an investigation and that Crown prosecutors will determine whether charges will be laid.
“In respecting the independence of these institutions, the government cannot comment or interfere in these processes,” Mr. Dupuis said in the letter obtained by The Globe and Mail. “No doubt you are aware that in search of the truth time is an important factor and to want to precipitate things would not serve the cause of justice.”
The Italian government complained about the lack of adequate information surrounding the death. In an unusual move, the Italians summoned the Canadian ambassador last week to demand an explanation.
Ambassador Alex Himelfarb was called to the Foreign Ministry in Rome after the Italian ambassador failed to receive a reply to a letter to Quebec Premier Jean Charest dated Nov. 19, requesting information two months after Mr. Castagnetta’s death.
Quebec told the Italian government this week to be patient and that the information will be released in due course.
Mr. Castagnetta, a Canadian citizen, died Sept. 20 from what appeared to be self-inflicted wounds to the head while in custody. He was arrested Sept. 18 after refusing to leave a store where he walked in barefoot and, according to witnesses, appeared disoriented. Police used a taser gun several times to subdue him after he resisted arrest, according to eyewitness accounts.
The next day, while awaiting his arraignment at the courthouse and during his transportation back to the jail, he was seen banging his head several times. He had no criminal record nor family, and friends said he had no known medical disorder. An autopsy report concluded that Mr. Castagnetta had taken amphetamines and died of cerebral edema.
