Tasers...

[sejnomar]

Re: Tasers...

Not all cops carry Tasers, and if they do they do get the proper training. Not sure if this is true but I heard that every cop (EPS) gets tazed to see what it feels like. (In the training program)

I believe the taser is a good idea, it's usually that one bad cop that abuses his power.

[Russell]

Re: Tasers...

I believe the taser is a good idea, it's usually that one bad cop that abuses his power.

This is very true, we don't hear about the number of lives it has saved... just from the little bit I watched on the TV there seems to be a number of cases where it has been used wrong or abused.

[me=mk3]

Re: Tasers...

I think those cops from the vancouver airport should be droping the soap in jail by now. The polish guy was angry because nobody helped him to clear the customs for 10 hours and he didnt speak english therefore he could not help himself. Once the coops showed up, he showed signs of cooperation. Imagine the same situation, but the cops being civilians. They would be prosecuted in 5 minutes in court for murder.

Its pretty sad when four police officers cant control an exhausted man with a stapler. This questions the credibility of our police.

Also, why nobody in an airport notices a man wondering around for 10 hours. Dont they have security to detect suspicious behavior? If only one staff member would help him go through customs he would probably still be alive.

[calgarydub]

Re: Tasers...

In the history of policing they have always used physical force to subdue a threat(before tasers were introduced). Now, if you listen closely, the police officers decide almost immediately that tasers are going to be used.Tell me how 4 trained police officers couldn't manage one man without using a taser? I don't know what police officers are taught as far as takedowns, but I am almost positive that 4 of them could get the man under a submission without tasering him x amount of times. Tasers are not a bad thing, but they should not be used until it is proven that 100% of people tasered will live. A month of training mixed martial arts could easily teach people how to effectively get someone into a submission.
Tasers need to be used appropriately if they are going to be used at all. At YVR they were indeed misused and there should be charges laid against the officers for the failure to correctly assess the situation. Tasered within 25 seconds, dead within 1:25. How can anyone tell me something isn't wrong with that?

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Tasers...

Another taser death this week...

OTTAWA (AFP) — A third death in five weeks linked to the use of Taser stun guns by police in Canada on Thursday prompted a ministerial inquiry in easternmost Nova Scotia province.

Justice Minister Cecil Clarke ordered the review into the use of Tasers in Nova Scotia, he said, following the death of a 45-year-old man who died in police custody Wednesday, hours after being zapped.

"I have ordered Police Services officials in my department to immediately begin a review of policies and procedures regarding Taser use in Nova Scotia" by law enforcement, corrections staff and sheriffs, Clarke said in a statement.

"At the same time, RCMP are being called in to investigate the circumstances of the death at the correctional facility and I understand Halifax Regional Police will also have the RCMP conduct an external investigation into the arrest."

In October, Robert Dziekanski, 40, died after being shocked repeatedly by policemen with a Taser stun gun only 60 seconds after they first approached him at the Vancouver airport in westernmost Canada.

A bystander's video released last week showed the four officers then piled on top of the distraught traveler as he lay writhing and screaming in pain on the floor, and within minutes he fell still.

Days later, a Montreal man died in hospital after being shocked by police with a stun gun, touted as a safer alternative to firearms.

In the wake of these fatalities, Amnesty International urged authorities to suspend the use of Tasers, saying it had documented 16 prior deaths in Canada that raise "serious questions about the health risks involved in electro-shock weapons."

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary heeded the call, suspending the use of Tasers in the Atlantic island province.

British Columbia province announced a public inquiry into Dziekanski's death. The coroner, the federal police homicide team, Canada's national police complaint's commissioner also launched independent probes of his death.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he ordered a review of the use of Tasers in Canada and asked Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to explain how Dziekanski, who spoke only Polish, got through customs, and why he was left alone in a secure area for nearly 10 hours.

The CBSA is expected to make its report public by week's end.

Dziekanski had traveled to British Columbia to live with his mother and start a new life, but a mix-up at the airport forced him to wait for her for almost 10 hours in a secure area, while she waited for him on the other side of a wall in the public arrivals area.

According to the family's lawyer, Dziekanski spoke only Polish, and had never before traveled far from his home town of Pieszyce, Poland.

Police were called to the Vancouver airport after Dziekanski blocked a security door with chairs and a table, and threw a computer off a counter onto the floor.

[nordex]

Re: Tasers...

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...rom=public_rss

UN says tasers are torture

TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America.

"The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,'' the UN's Committee against Torture said.

"In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events,'' the committee of 10 experts said.

Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police.

The man, Robert Dziekanski, 40, fell to the ground and died after the police officers piled on top of him.

There have been three deaths in Canada after the use of Tasers over the past five weeks.

The company that makes the weapons has said that similar deaths have been shown by "medical science and forensic analysis'' to be "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser".

The UN committee made its comments in recommendations to Portugal, which has bought the newest Taser X26 stun gun for use by police.

Portugal "should consider giving up the use of the Taser X26,'' as its use can have a grave physical and mental impact on those targeted, which violates the UN's Convention against Torture, the experts said.

[Khyron]

Re: Tasers...

Blah blah blah - but no-one offers any alternatives. I'd like to see one of you try and subdue someone high on PCP WHO FEELS NO PAIN. You can break legs and he'll still keep coming.

But I guess shotguns and pistols are what people want to see used more often? Brilliant.

[nordex]

Re: Tasers...

Blah blah blah - but no-one offers any alternatives. I'd like to see one of you try and subdue someone high on PCP WHO FEELS NO PAIN. You can break legs and he'll still keep coming.

But I guess shotguns and pistols are what people want to see used more often? Brilliant.

Totally agree BUT when you look at what happened in Van. that was torture. He was not high on pcp but he was probably hungry, thirsty and confused.

In the Van. situation there were also four large police officers with an abundant amount of tools they could have used.

[calgarydub]

Re: Tasers...

Blah blah blah - but no-one offers any alternatives. I'd like to see one of you try and subdue someone high on PCP WHO FEELS NO PAIN. You can break legs and he'll still keep coming.

But I guess shotguns and pistols are what people want to see used more often? Brilliant.

Here's a point someone brought up in an interview on tv. They said that Tasers should only be used as an alternative to lethal force. That meaning instead of law enforcement drawing a pistol and potentially wounding/killing the subject with a bullet, a taser could be used instead. Multiple tases are uncalled for, especially with multiple officers in attendance. ESPECIALLY when a relatively calm person is involved. Here's a slogan to show what I think about tasers.

Reduce the use. Can't we all agree on that, at least?

[Khyron]

Re: Tasers...

Yah, a hungry thirsty guy brandishing a table, smashing computers and thowing crap into glass windows threateing everyone else in the room - in an international airport.

You have compassion because you know he died. If you were standing in that room, waiting to get out you would have probably been saying "Holy crap just take this guy away in a straight jacket". Exactly the same reason why the camera guy wasn't saying "Oh my god look at the vicious cops" - at the time it looked like the right call.

And still the taser gets blamed when it was more likely the dogpile afterwards because he was STILL resisting like the hulk.

But that's ok - the next time a mentaly unstable guy starts swinging a pipe or other weapon around in a public place, the anti-taser people will sleep easy knowing he's not being tortured as the bullets shred him to pieces.

Should also be a class action lawsuit by all police officers, since they were obviously forced to be tortured by the government in order to get their taser certification.

[Khyron]

Re: Tasers...

Reduce the use. Can't we all agree on that, at least?

You earlier made the huge assumption that police officers are well trained in grappling and unarmed combat. They get maybe a weekend course a year after they're done basic. Some do it privately on their own, others don't.

They're not paid to be ninja fighters. They are paid to know and enforce laws, and mediate disputes. Not be boxers. You pull a knife, they pull a gun. They are not supposed to try fancy disarm tricks or go toe to toe.

A taser doesn't work on pain, it causes paralysis for those 5 seconds. That's why it works on anyone, no matter how tough or drugged they are. It also works at a distance which is safer for everyone involved.

Search hard enough I'm sure there's been a few fatalities caused by pillows, straws and toilets.

[calgarydub]

Re: Tasers...

Yah, a hungry thirsty guy brandishing a table, smashing computers and thowing crap into glass windows threateing everyone else in the room - in an international airport.

You have compassion because you know he died. If you were standing in that room, waiting to get out you would have probably been saying "Holy crap just take this guy away in a straight jacket". Exactly the same reason why the camera guy wasn't saying "Oh my god look at the vicious cops" - at the time it looked like the right call.

And still the taser gets blamed when it was more likely the dogpile afterwards because he was STILL resisting like the hulk.

But that's ok - the next time a mentaly unstable guy starts swinging a pipe or other weapon around in a public place, the anti-taser people will sleep easy knowing he's not being tortured as the bullets shred him to pieces.

Should also be a class action lawsuit by all police officers, since they were obviously forced to be tortured by the government in order to get their taser certification.

You speak as if you were there. How can you say he was mentally unstable? He was frustrated, dehydrated and wanted to get the hell out of YVR. What would you do after 10 hours in a security room in a foriegn country with no help from any staff whatsoever? Oh don't forget you cant speak a word of the language! The cops made the WRONG decision. Watch the video. Before they can even see the guy they already had made the call to use tasers. The police protocal is to use soft physical force, then hard physical force then lethal force, if I am correct. Now tell me, which was used in the Vancouver case? None, at least not until after the taser was deployed which isn't the correct way in which the officers in question were to act. I question how a mentally and physically drained middle aged man can outpower 4 trained police officers in "peak" performance. They lacked the ability to properly diagnose the situation and did not escalate through the correct steps to ensure that no one was (oh dare I say it) murdered. I will agree he may have been slightly agitated, but wouldn't we all?

[calgarydub]

Re: Tasers...

You earlier made the huge assumption that police officers are well trained in grappling and unarmed combat. They get maybe a weekend course a year after they're done basic. Some do it privately on their own, others don't.

They're not paid to be ninja fighters. They are paid to know and enforce laws, and mediate disputes. Not be boxers. You pull a knife, they pull a gun. They are not supposed to try fancy disarm tricks or go toe to toe.

A taser doesn't work on pain, it causes paralysis for those 5 seconds. That's why it works on anyone, no matter how tough or drugged they are. It also works at a distance which is safer for everyone involved.

Search hard enough I'm sure there's been a few fatalities caused by pillows, straws and toilets.

No, I did not make any assumtions. I am suggesting that they go through MORE hand to hand combat as a subsitute for excessive taser use. I will agree that tasers could be used in times when the only alternative would have bullets flying. Police officers only have a weekend course? Hell no wonder why they resort to tasers as a first resort. You mention straws pillows and toilets? Somehow, strangely, I'm not seeing death by any of those in the news, at least, not this frequent anyways.
All I meant to say before is that a couple hourse a week for less than a month, if that, could have the basics of correct grappling moves. Don't call B/S, I've done it. I guess there are always two sides to an arguement, which is how problems are solved. Just let me finish with this one final thought. What would you rather have the cops use on you, a potential deadly weapon, or a minimal injury take down?

I enjoyed this discussion, you have proven many good points and I agree with some of them, but not all. I do not mean to direct any aggression towards you, just to the development of critical thinking for a better debate. No hard feelings on my part.

[Khyron]

Re: Tasers...

You speak as if you were there. How can you say he was mentally unstable? He was frustrated, dehydrated and wanted to get the hell out of YVR. What would you do after 10 hours in a security room in a foriegn country with no help from any staff whatsoever? Oh don't forget you cant speak a word of the language! The cops made the WRONG decision. Watch the video. Before they can even see the guy they already had made the call to use tasers. The police protocal is to use soft physical force, then hard physical force then lethal force, if I am correct. Now tell me, which was used in the Vancouver case? None, at least not until after the taser was deployed which isn't the correct way in which the officers in question were to act. I question how a mentally and physically drained middle aged man can outpower 4 trained police officers in "peak" performance. They lacked the ability to properly diagnose the situation and did not escalate through the correct steps to ensure that no one was (oh dare I say it) murdered. I will agree he may have been slightly agitated, but wouldn't we all?

Again, hind-sight = 20/20. They see a guy who's obviously unstable (tossing chairs and tables). He's got something metal in his hands. He's not putting his hands up, instead he's looking defensive and threatening. To them, the safest, quickest way out of this situation is to taser him down, restrain him, then figure out what's wrong - NOT in the middle of customs with 300 passengers about to enter. Remember he's already committed crime, vandalism, destruction of property, assault, and whatever else wasn't on the tape. You can tell in seconds when someone is ready to fight - their pupils dialate, voice pitch changes, shallow breathing. If you know what to look for you can strike first and still be covered under self-defence. We couldn't see his face or the small details of what he was doing.

But what I did see was certainly enough to justify taking him down. And as I've said over and over, for most people the taser is way safer than choked, punched, hit in the head, etc. People can DIE from a single punch to the head as well. People can DIE from carotid artery control. Or jaw control. Or pressure points (which don't work on many people).

His situation was unfortunate. The airport definately has questions to answer which is why the Border Authority has an inquiry directed at them to answer why the guy waited 10 hours. But sorry, trying to disect the causes of someone going nuts is not the job of the police, especially at that moment in time.

Forget the conditions, the 10 hour wait, etc - the cops had no way of knowing that at the time. You feel sorry for him now, but all they had at the time was a crazy guy causing a disturbance and trying to trash the place.

The press reports tasers because it's a hot news item.

For perspective:

In North America: tasers: 17 deaths ever, 0 proven conclusively to be caused by the taser.

Bathtubs: 341 americans drown in their bathtubs in the year 2000 alone.
Beds: 327 americans died by either strangling or suffocating themselves in bed, in 2000.
And on and on and on.

Just because CNN says it's a crisis doesn't make it so.

[nordex]

Re: Tasers...

Yah, a hungry thirsty guy brandishing a table, smashing computers and thowing crap into glass windows threateing everyone else in the room - in an international airport.

You have compassion because you know he died. If you were standing in that room, waiting to get out you would have probably been saying "Holy crap just take this guy away in a straight jacket". Exactly the same reason why the camera guy wasn't saying "Oh my god look at the vicious cops" - at the time it looked like the right call.

And still the taser gets blamed when it was more likely the dogpile afterwards because he was STILL resisting like the hulk.

But that's ok - the next time a mentaly unstable guy starts swinging a pipe or other weapon around in a public place, the anti-taser people will sleep easy knowing he's not being tortured as the bullets shred him to pieces.

Should also be a class action lawsuit by all police officers, since they were obviously forced to be tortured by the government in order to get their taser certification.

WOW. Maybe your not from Canada, but this is not how we deal with things in Canada. Police here are not trained to be a bunch of trigger happy fools. They were in a secluded area and could have maced him, why use the second last resort and then beat him?

Your statement above truly shows how ignorant some individuals truly are.

As a Canadian citizen I believe this man was completely failed by what Canadians consider to be the foundation of Canada. I am ashamed to be a Canadian citzen given the circumstances of this situation.

This man was in the process of immigrating from Poland to Canada. He would be joining his mother who immigrated here 8 years ago and became a citizen. His flight was originally booked to go through Vancouver and then to Kamloops, where his mother resides. However, his mother changed his flight so she could drive him back to Kamloops from Vancouver so he could see first hand what Canada is like/about.

On the day of, she arrives at the airport to realize she made a mistake, unlike a domestic flight you cannot access the baggage carousel as it is on the secure Canadian border located in the airport when you fly international. She however told her son she would meet him at the baggage carousel, which she didn't have access to. Like any other logical person would once they realize the error they would ask someone at the airport if they could go find him or help her contact him.

This is where the first problem occurs. Airport employees refused to go look for him and only agreed to page him over the intercom. However, the employee should have known better as the page system does not function in the border crossing where her son was as he was just coming off an international flight and had passed through kiosk "a” into the border to go get his luggage where he expected to find his mother and therefore all pages went unheard by her son. After waiting for some time she was told to leave the airport nothing more could be done! (How is it in this day of age know one is able to check and see if he entered the border) Someone should have done something more. She then went all the way home because she felt as if though she could do no more because the "friendly, caring, helpful" Canadian staff were just the opposite.

In the mean time, her son is now stuck between kiosk "a" and "b"(the exit). In a period of 10 hours not one Canadian employee did anything to help this man before it escalated to the point it did. Why is it no one sent out a message to customs letting them know they were looking for a Polish man who speaks no english?

Imagine being in a country and not one person speaks your language and your mother who said she would be waiting for you is not there and no one has offered any sort of help to you, how would you feel? Oh and to top it all off you have just come off a flight from Germany and it's not unreasonable to think he hasn't eaten or drank anything for some time. The area he was stuck in is not that big as it is the border crossing and it is so hard to believe that not one employee of the airport or the government noticed this man who was there longer then a persons 8 hour shift.

It is NOT usual for someone to be in this area this long.

Fast forward to when the video starts and so much more can be said.

You see security and what are they asking for? A TRANSLATOR. The Vancouver international claims it has a translator of every language spoken in this world on stand by via telephone. I am sure that it is not the first time someone has come through this airport and has needed one. Security did the right thing and is taped requesting a translator. How come security thought to call to get someone who speaks Polish but the police didn't. Very embarrassing. Beyond that there are gestures one can make to help show they are there to help. I did’nt see anything like that as the police went barging in.

So this man has been failed on so many levels and what do we see next. The RCMP storming in like soldiers in Iraq. Pathetic. This man was in a secluded, glassed in area and was no threat to the public. Force may have been warranted if he was amongst a crowd or even remotely near someone else but he wasn’t.

What was he armed with in this secure border crossing? A keyboard? That warrants the use of lethal force? The police look like they feel real threatened the way they approached him and got real close to this “dangerous” man. Would they had shot him had they not had a taser? What was wrong with tackling the man who had his hands up to signal he wont harm them? Or if they felt so threatened why not mace him and tackle him to the ground. Nope they taser him, jump on him which could have been what killed him, as your lungs go into panic and need a moment after being tasered to recover otherwise they can fail. Then to top it all off once all four of them are on him they whip out a baton and give him a couple good jabs.

Isn’t it ironic that the man needed help and the first sign of help was the help that killed this man. Every single thing Canada stands for is simply forgotten.

So to top it all off, the mother is called to let her know that the found his son and he has been murdered.

Can you imagine if this happened to a Canadian or forbid an American citizen in a foreign country. The consequences would be devastating for that country.

Police are not suppose to act in the heat of things, and should know better then to act this way in an airport where individuals are highly stressed and placed in less then ideal conditions. Stress is a funny thing and this could happen to anyone. Would’nt it be nice to know that if you were in the same position and acted uncontrollably because of a mental brake down you wouldn’t be in a position to fear for your life?

Its unfortunate to because these officers are now going to have to prove in a court that they're actions were warranted. Maybe if there was not video but it's very unlikely they well be able to prove it was warranted and they well have to answer to they're actions with what well more then likely be murder charges.

You can also go by the numbers all you want but since this another man in Canada has just died and three more in the USA.

In the end, would it have hurt anyone to try and calm the guy down and let him know they are there to help and offer him a bottle of water? I'm sure the police who responded to this are wishing they did now give then grave consequences that could follow their actions.