Associated Press
TORONTO — Canada’s federal police will no longer use stun guns against suspects who are merely resisting arrest or refusing to cooperate — saying the guns can cause death.
“Tasers hurt like hell,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner William Elliot said Thursday of his reaction to being shot with a stun gun as a test. “Taser” is one brand name for the guns made by U.S. firm Taser International Inc. The guns incapacitate people with a 50,000-volt jolt of electricity.
Some police have said the stun guns are needed as a non-lethal alternative to firearms.
“The RCMP’s revised policy underscores that there are risks associated with the deployment of the device and emphasizes that those risks include the risk of death, particularly for agitated individuals,” Elliot told members of Parliament’s public safety committee.
At least 20 Canadians have died after being zapped by stun guns. Federal police officers have used the guns more than 5,000 times in the last seven years.
An analysis of incidents by The Canadian Press between 2002 and 2005 found that three in four suspects zapped by the RCMP were unarmed.
Elliot said stun gun use must now be justified as a necessary and reasonable use of force — including cases that are serious enough to warrant an officer using his real gun if the stun gun does not calm down the suspect.
Officers had previously been told that stun guns are a good way to control suspects in a state of so-called “excited delirium,” or in an agitated or delirious state.
Elliot said the term will no longer appear in police manuals.
"(Police officers) are highly trained, but they’re not medical experts and we don’t think it’s fair or reasonable to have policy based on a medical condition or diagnosis,” Elliot said.
The term was widely used after a Polish man died in 2007 when police at Vancouver International Airport repeatedly zapped him and pinned him to the floor. The RCMP have maintained Robert Dziekanski was in a state of excited delirium when they shot him.
International attention and intense criticism of police followed when a bystander released video of the incident. The case is the subject of a public inquiry into police actions.
Amnesty International is among groups that have urged a ban on the weapons, pending conclusive impartial study.