A report on taser technology released today parrots the manufacturer’s claims and glosses over 126 deaths proximal to Taser use, says Cameron Ward, lawyer for Robert Bagnell’s family. (Robert Bagnell, 44, died June 23, 2004 after being tasered by Vancouver police.) “Canadian police forces should be obliged to stop using Tasers until truly independent and objective studies have been done on their safety implications”, he said.

There have been 126 deaths proximate to Taser use in North America since September, 1999. [source: Arizona Republic; www.azcentral.com] Ten of those have occurred in Canada. There have been 31 deaths in North America this year alone, with the most recent occurring yesterday, June 13, 2005, in Palatka, Florida. Taser International Inc., the weapon’s manufacturer, claims these deaths are coincidental, and not related to the physiological effects of 50,000 volts of electricity on the human body.

The Victoria Police Department report contains no real analysis of these fatalities, which is predictable. The Victoria Police Department and at least one of its authors have been proponents of Tasers since the Department became the first Canadian police force to start using the devices in 1998. Report contributor Sgt. Darren Laur has personally profited from his relationship with Taser International Inc., having received direct payments and stock options from the company in undisclosed amounts. He was also quoted in 2000 as saying, “My goal would be to see a Taser in every patrol car”. [source: Schizophrenia Digest, Sept./Oct. 2000]. The Victoria Police Department also holds the dubious distinction of having used a Taser on an 82 year-old, one of the oldest persons ever to be shocked by the weapon. [source: Victoria Times Colonist, March 2, 2005] American police forces have used Tasers on children as young as six.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner was right to commission a report into the safety of Tasers. It was wrong, however, to hire some of Canada’s staunchest advocates of the weapons to do the work.

Postscript: Since the foregoing was written on June 14, there have been six more deaths in North America, including one in Surrey, BC and another in Beamsville, ON.

According to statistics compiled by Robert Anglen of the Arizona Republic newspaper, at least 126 North Americans have died since September 1999 after being shocked by Tasers. Ten of those deaths have occurred in Canada, where, as far as we can tell, there has been no independent scientific analysis of the safety of the weapons, which use 50,000 volts of electricity to incapacitate the central nervous system.

Unless action is taken to curb Taser use, deaths will continue to occur at an alarming rate; there have been 31 so far this year, including four in the first two weeks of June. The most recent was Michael Anthony Edwards, 32 of Palatka, Florida, who died June 13, 2005.

The Canadian deaths:

April 19, 2003: Terrance Hanna, 51, Burnaby, B.C.

July 22, 2003: Clay Willey, 33, Prince George, B.C.

Sept. 28, 2003: Clark Whitehouse, 34, Whitehorse, Yukon

March 23, 2004: Perry Ronald, 28, Edmonton, Alta.

May 1, 2004: Roman Andreichik, Vancouver, B.C.

May 13, 2004: Peter Lamonday, 38, London, Ont.

June 23, 2004: Robert Bagnell, 44, Vancouver, B.C.

July 17, 2004: Jerry Knight, 29, Mississauga, Ont.

Aug. 8, 2004: Samuel Truscott, 43, Kingston, Ont.

May 5, 2005: Kevin Geldart, 34, Moncton, N.B.

We have responded to BC Police Complaint Commissioner Dirk Ryneveld’s suggested Police Act reforms with a strong critique of the present public complaint system. In our view, there have to be fundamental changes in the way allegations of police misconduct are handled. We recommend considering the adoption of a Special Investigation Unit to investigate serious cases, as Ontario has done.

Right now, according to the people we frequently represent, the system is unfair, secretive and ineffecient. As we point out, the three major problems are that police investigate themselves, the investigative report is kept secret and public hearings, though rare, are patently unfair to the complainants.

Problems are particularily acute in Vancouver. In our experience, Vancouver Police internal investigators do not conduct bona fide investigations of their brethren. Their ‘investigations’ are invariably elaborate cover-ups, completely lacking in credibility.

Any person with the courage and patience to lodge a complaint about police conduct faces an interminable battle on a playing field that is far from level. The police have unlimited resources to hire lawyers to represent their interests, while complainants have to fend for themselves. There must be some form of legal aid to enable members of the public to have legal representation as well.

Read our entire submission to the Police Complaint Commisioner

The Honourable Mr. Justice Romilly has been appointed as the case management judge. Lawyers for the plaintiffs and the defendants have appeared before him on December 10, 2004 and February 17, 2005 to discuss procedural issues relating to the plaintiffs’ application to have the proceeding certified as a class action.

The Court has directed that a preliminary legal relating to the constitutionality of the Vancouver Jail’s strip search policy be addressed before the certification hearing itself. Lawyers for both sides are scheduling a date for the hearing of that issue, expected to take place before the summer.

On Friday, January 21, 2005, Vancouver Police Chief Constable Graham arranged a news conference to discuss the adjudicator’s decision in the Police Complaint Commission Public Hearing in respect of Constable David Bruce-Thomas. The adjudicator determined that Cst. Bruce-Thomas did not use excessive force when he fatally injured Jeff Berg during an arrest on October 22, 2000. The complainant, Jeff Berg’s sister Julie Berg, is considering an appeal.

Some aspects of Graham’s diatribe are offensive, in that he publicly attacked the deceased victim, his sister and her lawyer. I find his conduct disappointing and do not propose to descend to that level.

However, some incontrovertible facts are worth pointing out:

The VPD internal investigation that purported to gather some of the evidence presented to the adjudicator was overseen by Inspector Rob Rothwell. On December 19, 2002 (two years and two months after Jeff Berg’s death), Insp. Rothwell advised Ms. Berg that “no further action is warranted”. Insp. Rothwell and Cst. Bruce-Thomas are not only long time VPD colleagues, they have raced together on the VPD’s “Pacer” racing team.

Jeff Berg was with three acquaintances the night he was fatally injured. None of the three were tried or convicted of a “home invasion” or any other criminal offence arising from the events that immediately preceded their arrests.

Jeff Berg had no criminal record, was unarmed and had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was fatally injured.

Much has been made of a “replica handgun”. Jeff Berg had no weapons on him, replica or otherwise. A plastic toy gun, in several pieces, was located in the neighborhood. Sworn police testimony at the coroner’s inquest into Jeff Berg’s death confirmed that it had no connection to the incident.

If there was a “scuffle” between Jeff Berg and Cst. Bruce-Thomas, only Berg sustained injuries, including at least ten separate injuries to his face, head and neck. According to eyewitnesses and the pathologist, several of these were kicks inflicted while he was lying on the ground. Cst. Bruce-Thomas was completely uninjured.

As between Jeff Berg and Cst. Bruce-Thomas, only Cst. Bruce-Thomas had a documented record of violence as of October 22, 2000, having been found guilty of abusing his authority in assaulting an innocent woman in an alley a few years before. She also successfully sued him for damages for assault and battery. On December 18, 2000 (less than two months after after Jeff Berg died) Cst. Bruce-Thomas asked his Chief Constable to expunge the abuse of authority conviction from his disciplinary record. After a recommendation from the VPD’s Internal Investigation Section, then Chief Constable Blythe did so, on January 30, 2001.

Chief Graham has resorted to the time-honoured tactic of blaming the victim. Whatever Jeff Berg may or may not have done before he was killed (and I have yet to see admissible evidence that he was a “criminal” as Chief Graham has alleged) the question was whether Cst. Bruce-Thomas abused his authority in the way he performed the arrest. The adjudicator found he did not. Chief Graham also blamed Julie Berg for a four year “campaign” against Cst. Bruce-THomas. Much of this time period was due to investigative foot-dragging and inadequate work by the VPD investigators. One can hardly fault the dead man’s family for seeking answers, answers that were extraordinarily slow in coming through no fault of their own.