New RCMP policy says Tasers potentially lethal, restricts use

There are a couple of collateral issues with tasers.

* when to use them: protocols need to exist to guide the police. Should the tazer appear only after pepper spray and batons are considered?
* how often to use them: should someone be continuously zapped in an effort to subdue someone?

I agree that the RCMP hugely over-reacted in the Vancouver airport issue. Some people will say I have no right to this opinion until I walk in their shoes. To that I say pfffttt. The man simply did not pose a thread to anyone. There were so many options available to the police before they even had to come into contact with him.

That said if the police were able to effectively deploy a tazer on Dumas would Dumas be alive today? Don't get me wrong, Dumas alone was the author of his fate.

I believe tasers have a very welcome place in today's policing. Police officers need to use better judgment in some cases. Don't forget that often a gun was used before tasers came along. I think a taser is so much safer in so many ways. Nobody has been killed yet by a taser ricochet...

Imo, what this has exposed is the culture of rushing around that the police seem to show. They seem in a rush to control the suspect and want to get it over as soon as possible. The taser has given the cops the opportunity to subdue the person quickly....to then stand around afterward and talk about it. What's the rush?

The cops, btw, have never been able to answer that question imo.

Agreed. Then they bitch about being short-staffed. Prioritization more than anything needs to be taught.

Personally, I think the cops should all be issued uzis, or M-16s.

That way, when they fire the weapon...you KNOW they are trying to kill the guy...which is probably the way it should be.

Fire 20 rounds before the crook can drop the weapon.

This just in- All Wpg police will be issued a lassoo- Pavola- you are so funny! I can just picture this event!
Maybe in Calgary?? lol

Funny it worked and the crook was stopped , no harm done . All I say is it is an alternative not to adopt it .

Police use taZers way fricking more then they ever even contemplated using guns.. ever....so if the taZer is supposed to be a replacement for guns... they were either lying and covering up shootings and deaths before... or they are misjudging when they are to use taZers now...

Freeman where are you . ( Private joke )

there is a bit of mis-information in this thread, which i would like to try and correct since i feel strongly that if people knew a little more about police training and response options available they might feel differently about a lot of 'issues'.
JTF said

I would think that pepper spray and a baton would easily take care of a person armed with a knife.

and

Well. If he's a distance away, he really is no immediate threat then.

this is very much a dangerous way to think, for several reasons.
Pepper spray (OC spray actually), is effective at a distance of 3-9 feet, assuming theres no wind or rain or anything. Any closer and the officer is practically guaranteed some level of cross-contamination, any farther and its already dropping to the ground.
now consider this, a person 25ft away, standing still in a normal position (i.e. not crouched and ready to sprint), can break into a dead run and be on top of a trained officer well before he can even draw the OC canister from its holster. For newer recruits or people who havn't had a ton of practice with it, i've found the distance to average about 35-40ft for the officer to have a chance of even spraying.
Consider also that OC spray just naturally does NOT effect roughly 20% of people. It does NOT effect the vast majority of drunk or high people. It does NOT effect the vast majority of mentally disturbed or highly agitated people. and lastly, it absolutely will NOT stop someone who is determined to ignore it. Not to mention that if they have glasses or sunglasses (which is a lot of people), the effect is greatly reduced, or if the person gets their hand or hands up in front of their face, there are just tons of situations where the spray is useless.

Extendable metal batons, depending on their brand, come in various sizes from 14 inches up to about 26 inches when extended. Imagine 26 inches of space between your body and the blade of a 6 inch knife, its not a lot, and if you are being attacked, that space is going to shrink very quickly. The only situation worse than defending from a knife with a baton is having to do it with your bare hands.

If an officer is dealing with someone with a knife, their firearm better be out and on target immediately.

Grumpy Old Man said

There are a couple of collateral issues with tasers.
* when to use them: protocols need to exist to guide the police. Should the tazer appear only after pepper spray and batons are considered?
* how often to use them: should someone be continuously zapped in an effort to subdue someone?

any police force using a taser has a policy in place addressing these things. for the RCMP, when tasers were first coming out, they fell in at the high resistant level, right alongside OC spray and before batons. Then it was changed so that they were in the same level as batons, which are used for combative individuals. Now it seems that it can only be used when they have no other option but a firearm, which is completely pointless because in that kind of situation they should be pulling their firearm.

There is also recommendations built into the policy about how many times it should be used on one person, but i dont know the exact number, and i'm sure its changed recently anyways.

JTF said

Imo, what this has exposed is the culture of rushing around that the police seem to show. They seem in a rush to control the suspect and want to get it over as soon as possible. The taser has given the cops the opportunity to subdue the person quickly....to then stand around afterward and talk about it. What's the rush?

The cops, btw, have never been able to answer that question imo

the rush to control a person is simple. A person who is under control does not pose a threat to anyone, not the officers and not any bystanders watching. The shorter the confrontation, the less time the person has to get worked up and potentially become violent or agitated. The person under control can also no longer harm themselves, whether by fighting with someone, or getting themselves worked up, or by making the officers take harsher actios against them like batons. For people who are drunk or high or showing signs of extreme agitation, the sooner you can get them under control, the sooner you can get them medical attention.

hope that stuff makes sense. I'm not a cop, for those wondering, but my agency uses the same training standards as the RCMP and I happen to be an instructor in several areas of that training.

How much of a danger did the Polish guy pose? None.

I agree, take the tasers away. Just shoot the bastards, at least that way no one dies "accidentally", as the cops intended to kill them when they pulled the trigger.

JTF wrote:How much of a danger did the Polish guy pose? None.

that strongly depends on whether you are the casual observer such as yourself and most others, who has no real knowledge of police training or resistance levels or any number of other factors that play into a situation like that. This is obviously not your fault, as thats not your chosen profession (i assume).


I, on the other hand, looking at that from the perspective of someone who knows how those officers are trained and the reasons for them doing what they did, see their response as entirely justified and appropriate given the situation. I could list off any number of reasons to support that view, but i think we both know that its an argument neither side will change their mind on. Its just one of those things that will always have two vastly differing opinions based on what people know or dont know about police procedures.
Unfortunately, the people who dont know make up the majority, and if the majority cries for blood or policy changes they usually get it. (not ragging on anyone here, people usually have the best intentions regardless of what they know or dont know and often the changes have their good points)

they decided to Taze him before they even arrived in the same room as him, did not attempt any meanigful converstation with him, held him down as he was dieing and did not really attempt to revive him.

Please tell us how this is justified.

DeanK- Bingo- that is exactly what I saw in the video. Lazy, RCMP, who believed that there was no danger in tasering a person, and that the taser was the "easiest" method to subdue a person, who co-incidentally did not require any submission, because he was absolutely no threat to anyone.
That is exactly what the inquest said!

It isn't.

They took the easy way out. No fuss. No muss. Move onto the donut shop. Can't waste time here.

(Again I shouldn't trust my lying eyes eh. They aren't professionally trained).

see the problem with all police believing there is no danger is that when they get taZed so they can understand what it is like...
they have one person on either side to catch them and hold them from falling, they have medical assistance waiting in case anything goes wrong and they are only taZed once. So they walk into the situation thinking that taZing is really nothing so it can be used without care.

TaZers were introduced by the police forces in Canada under the pretext that they would be using them in cases where they would normally be using a gun instead. They are however used for pain compliance with little regard. Granted, a lot of cases the perp should quite frankly be shot instead and if he dies anyway, well too bad so sad. But there are also way to many cases where the taZer is being used in the wrong situation.

Pavolo wrote:One thing I wonder about is, was it not when they unveiled this device the device to stop any one 1 shot . Seems a few have had several or at least two shots given .

the guy in van airport got atleast 5 shots!

I don't have police training. But I have common sense. Speaking of the Vancouver Airport incident only, nobody was in danger of getting hurt. The man was isolated.

The police made little effort to talk to the man. Had they they may have determined he did not speak English. That alone may have solved the problem.

I understand your POV AdamX. But I don't see the rationale for "act first understand later" training. Maybe if the RCMP officers did not have a taser option they might have taken other steps to understand what was distracting the man and made an effort at rectifying things.

see i can understand the arguments like 'they moved in too quickly' or 'they should have used something other than taser'. i dont agree with those arguments but i at least understand where they come from.

What i absolutely do not understand is how anyone can think that this man did not pose a threat to anyone. Lets take a little run through the video and i'll explain it from a law enforcement training point of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLlfavV80xU

the man is throwing equipment around, he's throwing that little table or whatever it is at the glass, he had previously been throwing chairs around. There is no denying this, because its right there in the first minute and a half of the video.

at 1:30, when he sees uniformed security officers approaching, he picks up something and holds it like he is going to toss it.
you can clearly hear the security officers trying to talk to him, you can hear them saying "calm down, okay? please" around 2:20

the man is breathing heavily and sweating heavily, he is obviously agitated, i imagine we can all agree on that.

How is this not threatening??? he wasnt exactly locked in that room, the doors are opening and closing the whole time, he can walk out any time he pleases.

police arrive at the door around 3:20, you can hear the airport security filling them in about how he was throwing things against the wall.

From about 3:24 to 3:41 you can see and hear the police trying to talk to the man, you hear things like "how are you sir?" "hows it going bud?" and you can see the officers standing close to him and trying to talk to him.

at 3:41 you clearly see Robert throw his hands out (in frustration, anger, confusion? whatever) and walk away from the officers.

So, people, please do not spout off this crap that officers decided to taser him before they went in the room, or that officers made little or no attempt to talk to the man. We can give opinions as to the right or wrong of their choices after this point, but up until now the facts are pretty clear on video that they DID try to talk to him, and that HE, not them, ended that conversation in an abrupt way.



carrying on from that point, is where opinions will differ as to what actions should have been taken. I will point out some key things that maybe some of you didnt pick up on, but of course everyone will see the rest of this video differently and have different opinions about it.

once he threw his hands out and started walking away they started trying to take control of him by pointing where they wanted him to stand, they got him backed against the desk or whatever it was.

at 3:45, you see the officer on the right side of the screen back away very quickly, most likely because he sees Robert pick something up and he doesnt want to be close enough to take a hit from whatever it is.

rather than moving in close to an armed and obviously extremely agitated individual, they chose to deploy a taser.

between 3:51 and 3:52 you see roberts right arm come up as he is spasming from the taser shock. There is clearly something in his hand. I never did read what that object was but obviously that one officer from 3:45 thought it might hurt to get hit with it.

up until this point, its pretty much standard policy, they are responding with an appropriate level of force for the resistance level the person is at (combative, he has a weapon and is not complying with commands, but he's not attacking anyone or trying to kill them yet so firearms are not appropriate).

The other option that they have at this level of threat, based on their training, is their batons.

You might be thinking, "well, the taser kills people, the baton would have been a better choice"

but keep in mind that at the time this happened, the taser was considered a completely safe and non-lethal weapon to be used in exactly this kind of situation. The changes to policy came after this and other incidents. But i digress.

In the officers minds at this time, they are not thinking "lets use the tazer because its easier to take in a corpse". They are thinking that they dont want to get to close to this rather large man with an object in his hand. They are thinking that based on what they know at that moment, the taser is safe, and if they can get this man under control quickly it will be better for him because he can get medical attention faster.


continue through the video.. he gets shocked, moves over to the other area where he finally goes on the ground, and officers move in to take control and get cuffs on him.

from 4:10 on to about 5:00 it takes all 4 officers wrestling with him just to get his arms out and behind his back. you can see and hear him fighting with them, trying to resist being cuffed. Having one guy who has already been tasered able to continue fighting with 4 physically fit cops for almost a full minute just to get handcuffs on shows you how extremely agitated this man was.

in fact, at about 5:13 you see one officer pick up his baton, which shows you how hard robert was fighting with them, that they had to pull out a baton to help pry his arms out from under him. (and at 5:18 the camera man says "how's he still fighting them off??")

around 5:22 you can hear officers talking, trying to figure out why robert was 'freaking out' and throwing computers around. you clearly hear one saying "nobody knows why...he doesnt speak, he speaks french, nobody knows why" and at 5:32 "no rhyme or reason for it"

from there till the end of the video you can see the officers going about the standard stuff now, starting a search and getting down to check on the guy now that he's calm.

The video ends there and i assume it was shortly after that point that they realized he was not breathing.



Grumpy said

I understand your POV AdamX. But I don't see the rationale for "act
first understand later" training. Maybe if the RCMP officers did not
have a taser option they might have taken other steps to understand
what was distracting the man and made an effort at rectifying things.

'Its not act first understand later training' as I showed above, they did try talking to him first and HE ended that. But as far as if they did not have a taser, then they would have had 2 options, OC spray and Batons.

OC spray would almost be guaranteed to have no effect on him because of the state of mind he was in, so they would have had to go to batons and fists/takedowns.

judging by how much of a fight he put up even after being tasered, i imagine it would take a few baton his and some solid wrestling to get him down on the ground and under control. End result, broken bones for sure from the baton strikes, as well as potential injury to whichever officers got in close to him, the prolonged fighting to get him handcuffed would have probably resulted in the same end effect of his heart stopping. Of course we will never know that for sure, thats just my opinion.


rosencretz said

DeanK- Bingo- that is exactly what I saw in the video. Lazy, RCMP, who
believed that there was no danger in tasering a person, and that the
taser was the "easiest" method to subdue a person

RCMP beleived that there was no danger in tasering a person and that the taser was the easiest method to subdue a person because at that time, IT WAS. Thats what they were trained to do, there was no evidence to link tasers to deaths, and tasers had been used for years by other police agencies around the world without the fuss we are having here.

This is not the fault of the police, they follow their training. If you want to blame someone blame the people writing the policies and doing the studies on this product.

and Rosencretz, please explain to me, watching that video, how anyone could think that this man did not need to be subdued. Tell me what you would have done differently with an individual that was throwing equipment and furniture around, who you cant communicate verbally with, and who ignores what you say and instead picks up an object which you feel threatened by.

Im very curious to hear the 'proper' way of dealing with that situation.

"judging by how much of a fight he put up even after being tasered,"
What video are you watching????

AdamX wrote:see i can understand the arguments like 'they moved in too quickly' or 'they should have used something other than taser'. i dont agree with those arguments but i at least understand where they come from.

What i absolutely do not understand is how anyone can think that this man did not pose a threat to anyone. Lets take a little run through the video and i'll explain it from a law enforcement training point of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLlfavV80xU

the man is throwing equipment around, he's throwing that little table or whatever it is at the glass, he had previously been throwing chairs around. There is no denying this, because its right there in the first minute and a half of the video.

at 1:30, when he sees uniformed security officers approaching, he picks up something and holds it like he is going to toss it.
you can clearly hear the security officers trying to talk to him, you can hear them saying "calm down, okay? please" around 2:20

the man is breathing heavily and sweating heavily, he is obviously agitated, i imagine we can all agree on that.

How is this not threatening??? he wasnt exactly locked in that room, the doors are opening and closing the whole time, he can walk out any time he pleases.

police arrive at the door around 3:20, you can hear the airport security filling them in about how he was throwing things against the wall.

From about 3:24 to 3:41 you can see and hear the police trying to talk to the man, you hear things like "how are you sir?" "hows it going bud?" and you can see the officers standing close to him and trying to talk to him.

at 3:41 you clearly see Robert throw his hands out (in frustration, anger, confusion? whatever) and walk away from the officers.

So, people, please do not spout off this crap that officers decided to taser him before they went in the room, or that officers made little or no attempt to talk to the man. We can give opinions as to the right or wrong of their choices after this point, but up until now the facts are pretty clear on video that they DID try to talk to him, and that HE, not them, ended that conversation in an abrupt way.



carrying on from that point, is where opinions will differ as to what actions should have been taken. I will point out some key things that maybe some of you didnt pick up on, but of course everyone will see the rest of this video differently and have different opinions about it.

once he threw his hands out and started walking away they started trying to take control of him by pointing where they wanted him to stand, they got him backed against the desk or whatever it was.

at 3:45, you see the officer on the right side of the screen back away very quickly, most likely because he sees Robert pick something up and he doesnt want to be close enough to take a hit from whatever it is.

rather than moving in close to an armed and obviously extremely agitated individual, they chose to deploy a taser.

between 3:51 and 3:52 you see roberts right arm come up as he is spasming from the taser shock. There is clearly something in his hand. I never did read what that object was but obviously that one officer from 3:45 thought it might hurt to get hit with it.

up until this point, its pretty much standard policy, they are responding with an appropriate level of force for the resistance level the person is at (combative, he has a weapon and is not complying with commands, but he's not attacking anyone or trying to kill them yet so firearms are not appropriate).

The other option that they have at this level of threat, based on their training, is their batons.

You might be thinking, "well, the taser kills people, the baton would have been a better choice"

but keep in mind that at the time this happened, the taser was considered a completely safe and non-lethal weapon to be used in exactly this kind of situation. The changes to policy came after this and other incidents. But i digress.

In the officers minds at this time, they are not thinking "lets use the tazer because its easier to take in a corpse". They are thinking that they dont want to get to close to this rather large man with an object in his hand. They are thinking that based on what they know at that moment, the taser is safe, and if they can get this man under control quickly it will be better for him because he can get medical attention faster.


continue through the video.. he gets shocked, moves over to the other area where he finally goes on the ground, and officers move in to take control and get cuffs on him.

from 4:10 on to about 5:00 it takes all 4 officers wrestling with him just to get his arms out and behind his back. you can see and hear him fighting with them, trying to resist being cuffed. Having one guy who has already been tasered able to continue fighting with 4 physically fit cops for almost a full minute just to get handcuffs on shows you how extremely agitated this man was.

in fact, at about 5:13 you see one officer pick up his baton, which shows you how hard robert was fighting with them, that they had to pull out a baton to help pry his arms out from under him. (and at 5:18 the camera man says "how's he still fighting them off??")

around 5:22 you can hear officers talking, trying to figure out why robert was 'freaking out' and throwing computers around. you clearly hear one saying "nobody knows why...he doesnt speak, he speaks french, nobody knows why" and at 5:32 "no rhyme or reason for it"

from there till the end of the video you can see the officers going about the standard stuff now, starting a search and getting down to check on the guy now that he's calm.

The video ends there and i assume it was shortly after that point that they realized he was not breathing.



Grumpy said

I understand your POV AdamX. But I don't see the rationale for "act
first understand later" training. Maybe if the RCMP officers did not
have a taser option they might have taken other steps to understand
what was distracting the man and made an effort at rectifying things.

'Its not act first understand later training' as I showed above, they did try talking to him first and HE ended that. But as far as if they did not have a taser, then they would have had 2 options, OC spray and Batons.

OC spray would almost be guaranteed to have no effect on him because of the state of mind he was in, so they would have had to go to batons and fists/takedowns.

judging by how much of a fight he put up even after being tasered, i imagine it would take a few baton his and some solid wrestling to get him down on the ground and under control. End result, broken bones for sure from the baton strikes, as well as potential injury to whichever officers got in close to him, the prolonged fighting to get him handcuffed would have probably resulted in the same end effect of his heart stopping. Of course we will never know that for sure, thats just my opinion.


rosencretz said

DeanK- Bingo- that is exactly what I saw in the video. Lazy, RCMP, who
believed that there was no danger in tasering a person, and that the
taser was the "easiest" method to subdue a person

RCMP beleived that there was no danger in tasering a person and that the taser was the easiest method to subdue a person because at that time, IT WAS. Thats what they were trained to do, there was no evidence to link tasers to deaths, and tasers had been used for years by other police agencies around the world without the fuss we are having here.

This is not the fault of the police, they follow their training. If you want to blame someone blame the people writing the policies and doing the studies on this product.

and Rosencretz, please explain to me, watching that video, how anyone could think that this man did not need to be subdued. Tell me what you would have done differently with an individual that was throwing equipment and furniture around, who you cant communicate verbally with, and who ignores what you say and instead picks up an object which you feel threatened by.

Im very curious to hear the 'proper' way of dealing with that situation.

So 1 man against how many officers is justifible to blast him aleast 5 times with a taser? I find your logic troubling.

Thanks AdamX, that is a tremendous analysis of the events

"around 5:22 you can hear officers talking, trying to figure out why robert was 'freaking out' and throwing computers around. you clearly hear one saying "nobody knows why...he doesnt speak, he speaks french, nobody knows why" and at 5:32 "no rhyme or reason for it"


I would like to beleive that if he was in Vancouver that atleast one other person around that area would know french and know that is not what he is speaking! lol He speaks french...

have you ever in your life been shocked by electricity? kind of hard not to respond by twiching eh? oo wait thats fighting back

oh and that officer striking some sort of evidence with his baton a number of times at 531? whats that about?
331 officers arrive...341 Robert walks away.. puts his hands up...ie "I am no threat to you" 345 the officer draws his weapon 350...they taZe him.. 19 seconds.. yup they really tried..

We'll just agree to disagree.

The man had been holed up in that confined space for a very long time. It appeared that no one felt threatened. But sure he could have thrown something through the glass. I'm willing to bet that glass was tempered glass and very little harm would have come anyone's way as very few people were in harms way.

You mentioned that the security guards were talking to him. I won't argue that. But I did not see the police make a concerted effort to talk to him in an effort to understand what was troubling him.

That is the entire extent of my position. The police could have spent hours in an effort to resolve the situation. They did not.

One might argue they have other things to do. Sure. But this situation is one of those other things. This is why they are there.

Deank wrote:
oh and that officer striking some sort of evidence with his baton a number of times at 531? whats that about?

seriously? see this is what i mean about people watching and forming opinions about stuff they know nothing about.

that officer banging his baton on the floor, thats called closing it. you can tell by the way it starts out extended and after he bangs it on the floor, its closed.

have you ever in your life been shocked by electricity? kind of hard
not to respond by twiching eh? oo wait thats fighting back

He was shocked until he went down, he was not flopping on the ground being fed a continous stream of electricity, he was on the ground, trying to keep his arms from being pulled back behind his back while all 4 officers are on top of him trying to make him do just that.

The effects of the taser are gone when the trigger is let go, those volts do not make you flop around on the floor trying to keep your arms tucked in for a full minute after its done, thats not how electricity works.

DeanK you are a prime example of why i say that there will always be a vastly differing opinion on things like this. you see what you want to see, and you ignore everything else and any other explanation that might go with it, regardless of the information you do or dont have about the circumstances. its pretty clear that you just see cops walking in with tazers drawn and killing a guy, rather than looking at the whole picture and all the little things that happen in those quick seconds.

which is fine, you are entitled to your opinion, but why even get involved in a discussion about it then? why not just say up front "i've made up my mind, i'm not going to bother considering any other explanation but the one i've come up with in my head" and then people will know not to bother trying to debate with you



Grumpy, your right, it didnt appear that anyone felt particularily threatened, but i guess my logic is that the cops were called for a reason right? the airport security officers there obviously were not comfortable in going in and dealing with him.
And i'm not so much saying that what happened was right, i think there is all kinds of things that might have changed this tragic outcome, i'm just saying that the police officers who arrived followed their training, practically to the letter from what i see. I think its unfair to blame them and start calling police officers murderers, and we should rather be blaming the policy writers and the people who distributed the taser without doing proper studies on it.

IG Guy wrote:"around 5:22 you can hear officers talking, trying to figure out why robert was 'freaking out' and throwing computers around. you clearly hear one saying "nobody knows why...he doesnt speak, he speaks french, nobody knows why" and at 5:32 "no rhyme or reason for it"


I would like to beleive that if he was in Vancouver that atleast one other person around that area would know french and know that is not what he is speaking! lol He speaks french...

heh, whats happening there is that the officer has just been wrestling for almost a full minute and his adrenaline is going and his stress level is up. He is trying to articulate that the guy doesnt speak english, but what comes out of his mouth is that he speaks french, i guess thats the first other language his brain thought of.

its funny and very interesting how many things in your body and your mind change when you are under stress.