Friday, July 25, 2008
No Tasers in Saskatchewan
CTV.ca News Staff
Regular municipal police in Saskatchewan will no longer be using Tasers in the wake of several high profile deaths in other parts of the country, the province's police commission announced Friday.
"After questions about the safety of the equipment arose, accompanied by the public inquiry in British Columbia ... the commission believed it was not prudent to move forward with the authorization of conducted energy weapons for general use," Michael Tochor, chairman of the Saskatchewan Police Commission, said.
RCMP and municipal tactical teams will continue to use the electronic stun device in the province.
The decision comes days after a 17-year-old boy brandishing a knife in Winnipeg died following being shot with a Taser by police.
Michael Langan was the 22nd Canadian to die from the Taser in the last five years.
Tocher did not make direct reference to either Langan or Robert Dziekanski, who died after being Tasered at Vancouver International Airport last October.
"There is a general feeling that it hasn't been established one way or the other that Tasers ... are safe, so we would like more medical and scientific information on that," he said.
"There is also the question of when is it appropriate to use a Taser? Do you use it because a 16-year-old girl in Manitoba isn't doing what the police are telling her to do? Or do you use it when someone is swinging a sword at you?"
The decision comes on top of more allegations about police misuse of the Taser.
Another Taser victim talks
A rural Manitoba family is coming forward with what happened to their teenage daughter. Their identity cannot be revealed because of the girl's age.
The teenage girl claims she was Tasered after being taken to an RCMP detachment in Selkirk, Man. for being intoxicated last November. She admits to being drunk and obnoxious and even jumping on the back of an officer in the holding cell.
That's when she says four male officers -- one for each limb -- held her on the ground and Tasered her.
"They kept telling me 'stop screaming and we'll stop Tasering you,'" the 17-year-old girl told CTV News. "That's when I thought I was gonna die cause there's no way I was going to stop screaming."
The family showed CTV News pictures of burns to her body.
The girl, who was 16 at the time and never formally charged, now goes to trauma counselling.
The family's lawyer is preparing a public complaint and lawsuit against the RCMP.
"You don't treat a 16-year-old girl who weighs 130 pounds in the way in which the RCMP did," lawyer Catherine Dunn said.
The RCMP would not comment on the case but in letters to the family the force said that "statuary offences had not been committed" by the officer using the Taser.
The girl is Métis, just like Langan was. The Manitoba Metis Federation has spoken out against the use of Tasers.
"The use of Tasers is getting totally out of control," the girl's mother said. "Something needs to happen."
With a report from Murray Oliver
Regular municipal police in Saskatchewan will no longer be using Tasers in the wake of several high profile deaths in other parts of the country, the province's police commission announced Friday.
"After questions about the safety of the equipment arose, accompanied by the public inquiry in British Columbia ... the commission believed it was not prudent to move forward with the authorization of conducted energy weapons for general use," Michael Tochor, chairman of the Saskatchewan Police Commission, said.
RCMP and municipal tactical teams will continue to use the electronic stun device in the province.
The decision comes days after a 17-year-old boy brandishing a knife in Winnipeg died following being shot with a Taser by police.
Michael Langan was the 22nd Canadian to die from the Taser in the last five years.
Tocher did not make direct reference to either Langan or Robert Dziekanski, who died after being Tasered at Vancouver International Airport last October.
"There is a general feeling that it hasn't been established one way or the other that Tasers ... are safe, so we would like more medical and scientific information on that," he said.
"There is also the question of when is it appropriate to use a Taser? Do you use it because a 16-year-old girl in Manitoba isn't doing what the police are telling her to do? Or do you use it when someone is swinging a sword at you?"
The decision comes on top of more allegations about police misuse of the Taser.
Another Taser victim talks
A rural Manitoba family is coming forward with what happened to their teenage daughter. Their identity cannot be revealed because of the girl's age.
The teenage girl claims she was Tasered after being taken to an RCMP detachment in Selkirk, Man. for being intoxicated last November. She admits to being drunk and obnoxious and even jumping on the back of an officer in the holding cell.
That's when she says four male officers -- one for each limb -- held her on the ground and Tasered her.
"They kept telling me 'stop screaming and we'll stop Tasering you,'" the 17-year-old girl told CTV News. "That's when I thought I was gonna die cause there's no way I was going to stop screaming."
The family showed CTV News pictures of burns to her body.
The girl, who was 16 at the time and never formally charged, now goes to trauma counselling.
The family's lawyer is preparing a public complaint and lawsuit against the RCMP.
"You don't treat a 16-year-old girl who weighs 130 pounds in the way in which the RCMP did," lawyer Catherine Dunn said.
The RCMP would not comment on the case but in letters to the family the force said that "statuary offences had not been committed" by the officer using the Taser.
The girl is Métis, just like Langan was. The Manitoba Metis Federation has spoken out against the use of Tasers.
"The use of Tasers is getting totally out of control," the girl's mother said. "Something needs to happen."
With a report from Murray Oliver
# posted by SBP : 11:52 PM
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