Questions on Use of Tasers

From the Ideas section of the Toronto Star, Thursday, November 29, 2007, an article about questions raised about the safety of the use of tasers by law enforcement officers:

QUESTIONS PERSIST ON USE OF TASERS

Alok Mukherjee

The death of Robert Knipstrom in Chilliwack, B.C., is certain to intensify the public discussion about Tasers that was unleashed by the unnecessary death of Robert Dziekanski.

Let me declare my bias right away. During 2004-05, based on medical and other research into Taser technology. I opposed the Toronto Police Service's proposal to acquire Tasers.

One such study was done in 2003 by Dr. Anthony Bleetman and Dr. Richard Steyn of Birmingham Heartlands Hospital in the U.K. Taser International had engaged them "to draw conclusions on the device's relative safety and to identify potential medical issues in deploying this product." Their pronouncement that "the device is essentially safe on healthy people" clearly begged the question: What if the Taser is used on someone who is not healthy?

Bleetman and Steyn identified "several ways that the Taser might cause injury," including electrical injuries, injuries from barb strikes, burns, indirect injury from falling uncontrollably and spontaneous abortion.

Their carefully worded conclusion was that it was "impossible to accurately calculate how much electrical energy the Advanced Taser delivers into the the human body ... More work is required to record the effects of the Taser on physiological variables and ECG tracings."

An article in The Lancet, the British medical journal, urged further investigation of effects such as ocular- or blood-vessel-related injuries and metabolic acidosis.

Other studies suggested that the Taser had not caused the reported deaths, but other factors, such as drug use, heart condition or excited delirium, were to blame.

After much debate, a majority of my colleagues voted to allow Tasers in the Toronto Police Service. However, it was to be a restricted distribution supported by through training, clear procedures, strict monitoring and regular reporting.

In Toronto, Tasers are provided to front-line supervisors and members of the Emergency Task Force. The weapon has been used more than 200 times, and there have been no deaths and very few injuries that can be called serious.

Today, my position is best described as cautious and evolving.

I am in complete agreement with Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair that good training, strong procedures, good training, strong procedures, close monitoring, regular reporting and public accountability are prerequisites for responsible use of Tasers. I also sympathize with the view of people from the mental health community that Tasers can be useful when dealing with people suffering from such an acute state of mental illness that they can do harm to themselves or others.

Yet I remain uneasy.

I am concerned that we do not have the necessary knowledge to say authoritatively that the Taser is safe in all circumstances and on all persons, regardless of their physiological, neurological, medical or psychological condition, age, ethnicity, ability or gender.

I also worry that the Taser could lead to lazy policing.

The Taser cannot be the first weapon of choice, unless it is absolutely essential. It should not be used, for instance, to control a crowd or to subdue an individual causing a disturbance who does not pose a threat to anyone.

It must be drilled into police officers that the Taser is not a completely harmless weapon. Above all, police organizations must make haste slowly in making the Taser available to their personnel.

Let us keep in mind that the Taser was originally developed as a military weapon. Surely, we owe a very great duty of care when deploying it on the civilian population in our own communities.

Alok Mukherjee is chair of the Toronto Police Services Board.