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VPD sees dramatic drop in Taser use

Police watchdogs say decrease linked to strict guidelines, Dziekanski case

Vancouver police have seen a steady decline in the use of a weapon the RCMP made infamous for deploying it in the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski in 2007 at Vancouver International Airport.

According to Vancouver Police Department statistics, officers fired a stun gun 47 times at suspects between 2010 and 2014, for an average of nine times per year. That’s a significant decrease when compared to the 93 times police fired the weapon, commonly referred to as a Taser, in all of 2006.

“It is tough to say that there is a specific reason [for the decline] but the use of Tasers is relatively new still, when you consider the use-of-force options that have been and are available to police officers,” said Const. Brian Montague, a media liaison officer with the Vancouver Police Department, in an email to the Courier. “We are constantly trying to improve our training, and part of that is understanding the limitations of use-of-force options. The Taser, while in some cases can be a useful tool, is far from the magic answer to every encounter where police need to take immediate control of a violent individual.”

Montague said officers assess the type of offence, weapons involved, actions of the offender, other force options available and “small details like the type of clothing worn by a suspect” before firing a stun gun.

“The Taser’s limitations and the officers understanding and knowledge of those limitations are likely a big factor, along with other training in mental health, crisis intervention and de-escalation, and use-of-force options,” he said.

Freedom of Information documents posted on the VPD’s website indicate the department was equipped with 150 conductive energy weapons, or stun guns, in 2014. A total of 128 officers are certified to use the weapons, according to the department’s annual report on use of the gun, which is filed with the police services division of the Ministry of Justice. The VPD uses the X26 model built by Taser. The X26c sells for $1,000 each on the company's website.

In 2014, officers fired the Taser nine times at a person. In those cases, police reported that five suspects were under the influence of drugs or alcohol and four were carrying a weapon. Four were considered “emotionally disturbed.” The suspects were all men, aged 19 to 59, according to the annual report.

Police said the gun was “effective” in eight of the cases in gaining the suspects’ “compliance.” In four of the cases, the probes from the stun gun broke the skin of suspects, with one suffering “non-trivial injuries.” The report didn’t elaborate on the injury.

The report also indicates a stun gun “was displayed but not discharged at a subject” 55 times, inferring that a suspect surrendered instead of being shot with the weapon. That happened 38 times in 2013, the same year officers fired the gun six times, with no suspects suffering “non-trivial injuries.”

In 2012, police fired the weapon seven times, including in a Nov. 13, 2012 incident in which officers, paramedics and firefighters responded to a call involving a distraught man, armed with a large butcher knife.

According to a report by the Independent Investigations Office, the man had “significant and visible injuries” when police arrived. Officers were unsuccessful in getting the man to drop the knife, so they twice fired a Taser at him. He was subsequently restrained in handcuffs. The man was pronounced dead in hospital, 51 minutes after he was hit with the stun gun.

Richard Rosenthal, the chief civilian director for the independent agency, cleared three Vancouver police officers of any wrongdoing, saying the man died of self-inflicted injuries caused by the knife he used on his abdomen and neck. An autopsy concluded his death was attributed to “sharp force injury to the neck with significant blood loss and secondary injury to the abdomen.” Toxicology tests found the presence of methamphetamine and amphetamine.

Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, is skeptical of what’s behind the drop in Taser use by the VPD, saying it’s difficult to explain without data on whether other kinds of use-of-force incidents have increased, decreased or stayed constant.

“Does this mean more serious uses of force are taking place, or does it mean police are getting better at de-escalating incidents? We don't know,” Paterson said in an email to the Courier. “That being said, if this data reflects that officers are showing much more restraint in using Tasers, then that is encouraging.”

In reading the documents provided by the Courier, Paterson said the civil liberties association is concerned that more than half of the incidents in the last two years involved people thought by police to be addicted or emotionally disturbed.

“We continue to be concerned about the use of Tasers on people who are having mental health issues, rather than using other techniques,” he said. “We also note a high proportion of incidents were considered medically high risk -— as we've learned in B.C., Tasers are dangerous weapons.”

Lawyer Douglas King of Pivot Legal Society, which has been the city’s main police watchdog for several years, said the high profile of the Dziekanski case is obviously a factor in why Vancouver police aren’t using the stun gun as much as they did a decade ago. Last week, RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington, who used a Taser on Dziekanski, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and colluding with his fellow officers at an inquiry into the man’s death. Officers fired a Taser several times at Dziekanski, who died after the incident at the airport in 2007.

“Given everything that happened in the Dziekanski case, obviously the [police] departments are media shy to do anything that might end up in front page headlines of an officer killing somebody with a Taser,” said King, noting the drop in the VPD’s Taser use isn’t completely surprising. “Tasers were touted for so long as being safe, but then people kept dying. So if you don’t feel like you actually have control over the use of the weapon itself, and it’s not producing the result that you want, then no department is going to be too comfortable using it.”

King also believes strict guidelines for Taser use, which were brought in after the Dziekanksi case, is a factor in the VPD’s use of the weapon. But he, like Paterson, is curious if police are using other use-of-force options that are replacing the Taser, including deployment of police dogs. Pivot released a report in June 2014 that indicated there were 14.75 police dog bites per 100,000 persons in Vancouver in 2011 compared to 12.73 in Abbotsford, 2.5 in Victoria and 2.34 in West Vancouver.

“Certainly, it’s always been a question in our minds whether or not there is a correlation between the decline in Taser use and an increase in police dog bites,” King said. “But it depends if you’re getting officers in a situation who before would have said, ‘Oh, I’ll go in and Taser that person.’ Whereas now, they call the dog squad.”

mhowell@vancourier.com

@Howellings