Excerptcize

I’ve never been a fan of tasers. Way too many people have already died directly from these devices or were killed in an event that involved their use. They have been adopted very quickly by law enforcement (both in the US and Canada) with very weak and lackadaisical guidelines, and it seems these guidelines are breached quite frequently with little to no disciplinary action. I would even be so bold as to say that they’ve been a force that is responsible for elevating lazy police work. Digby, writing at her fabulous blog Hullabaloo is always on top of these terrible accidents as they happen and if this is an issue that concerns you and you want to follow it I’d suggest adding her site to your daily blogroll. Here she is writing about one of the stories I linked to above:

[...]the man had done absolutely nothing wrong, presented no danger, had made no threats. The officers merely thought he might be mentally ill. And he screamed in agony when they shot him full of electricity five times in two minutes before he finally complied. (Of course, by “complying” I mean dying.) Therefore, they said they shouldn’t be held liable for killing him.

This is the logic that pervades the taser argument: The taser isn’t harmful so we shouldn’t be held responsible for killing people with them.

Recently the Abbotsford Police Department released the findings of an investigation into the conduct of the Vancouver Police Department during an incident this past summer that resulted in the death of Michael Vann Hubbard, a 54 year old homeless resident of Vancouver. The investigation concluded, amongst other things that:

The two police officers had reasonable grounds to believe that they were in immediate peril of grievous bodily harm or death, [...]After considering the totality of the circumstances facing the two police officers, notwithstanding that there was a tragic outcome, the officers were justified in using force that was intended or likely to cause grievous bodily harm or death.

Vann Hubbard was killed after being confronted by the two police officers in relation to a search for a purse snatcher. Video footage captured at the scene clearly showed Vann Hubbard brandishing an X-Acto knife and continuing to advance towards officers who had their weapons raised at him. Something that I have argued on this blog about other issues that is also relevant to the taser issue is that when enacting and enforcing any policy a cost/benefit analysis needs to be conducted and adhered too. As you may be able to tell from my opening comments, I feel the costs do outweigh the benefits that tasers present. Even with that being the case, why are law enforcement officers not doing a better job of demonstrating those benefits? My understanding of the deployment of tasers is that they are to be used to replace guns in situations they may have been used in before the development of the taser. This seems like it was one the more appropriate scenarios where deploying a taser would have been reasonable. Why was that not the case here? Isn’t this exactly the type of scenario that tasers were designed for?

Slowly the public is becoming more aware of the wide range of taser use and the abuse of their usage by officers (or in the above case, non-use when appropriate). It seems the PR snafu’s are becoming a bit too embarrassing and both Ottawa and the provinces seem to moving forward on implementing national standards on the appropriate use of tasers, and this is a welcome development. One can only hope that sane and reasoned discussion will the baseline as the relevant ministries begin this long overdue work.

Update: Here’s another story just from this weekend in North Vancouver where I’ve gotta ask; why was a taser not used in this circumstance? If tasers are here to stay (which I suspect is the case) police really need to work on deploying them only where appropriate. I realize I am playing both sides of the coin here, in disagreeing with the usage of tasers in the broad, but asking about specific cases. I don’t think I being disingenuous though. The public defenders of law and order should always be held to a higher (the highest) standard of conduct.

Update II: This morning’s Metro has some further info about the story in the above update. It appears that the person who was shot received non-life threatening injuries and is expected to recover. The fact that Vancouver Const. Lindsey Houghton commented that the officer who fired the round was not equipped with a taser at least indicates that enforcement bodies are starting to recognize the optics behind the electro-shock weapons and that if they hope to win any PR battles they will need to clearly show scenarios where the use of a taser is not only warranted but a better solution than other methods of disarming a violent person. If the public must be subject to the costs that tasers bring to enforcement, the benefits must be crystal clear.

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