Former Toronto mayor faced Taser in 2010

March 3, 2011
Henry Stancu, Toronto Star

Former Toronto mayor John Sewell was one of 226 people to face the business end of a police Taser in 2010.

The Toronto Police Services Board listened Thursday as he described his unexpected encounter with a Taser-toting Toronto officer.

“It should happen to every member of this board. It would change your opinions about how this weapon is used,” Sewell told them.

“I believe this is what happens a lot of the time.”

He was responding to a report by Chief Bill Blair that states while 545 Toronto officers packed Tasers in 2010 fewer people got zapped or had the weapons pointed at them than the year before.

The X-26s Taser has been issued to emergency task force members and supervisors in high-risk units such as the holdup, drug and fugitive squads.

“Officers are using good judgment under difficult circumstances and making appropriate decisions to use the minimum force to resolve often tense and dangerous situations,” Blair’s report states.

Sewell’s situation last October was hardly dangerous. The former mayor, who heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, was outside an apartment building with a man police were coming to arrest on a criminal harassment charge stemming from a relationship breakup.

An officer ran at them pointing the device and shouting: “You’re under arrest. You’re under arrest.”

After they both identified themselves, the man, who Sewell was representing as a lawyer, was forced to the ground by three officers and handcuffed.

“The (chief’s) report says the use of the weapon was effective. What it did was terrify us. Does that mean this in fact is happening a lot of the time?” Sewell asked the board.

Despite his experience, Sewell would rather see police use Tasers over lethal firearms, but calls for better training and restrictions on their use.

He did not file an official complaint, but the board members agreed to accept his deputation for their consideration.

In his report, Blair said the weapon was used 236 times in 210 cases, with 95 incidents (45.2 per cent) resolved by officers merely pointing the devices, but not firing.

By comparison, Tasers were used 307 times in 273 incidents in 2009. In 45.4 per cent of those cases, people complied when the devices were just shown.

No deaths resulted from Taser use and only three minor injuries occurred, including cuts to a chin, lip and cheek when jolted subjects fell to the ground, the report states.

In about half the cases, officers used Tasers when they felt a person’s behaviour was threatening and 29 per cent of the incidents involved armed suspects, the report says.

“Upon review, some of these incidents were life-saving events (including suicide attempts), and most certainly officer injury was avoided,” Blair said in his review.

Last May, two handcuffed men were threatened with a Taser by an officer trying to get information from them.

Police cruiser cameras showed Const. Christopher Hominuk, 37, pressing a Taser against a man’s neck and pointing it at another man’s groin.

Hominuk, who pleaded guilty to threatening bodily harm, is to be sentenced June 14.

Toronto Police detail taser use

March 1, 2011
Tom Godfrey, Toronto Sun

Toronto Police used their Tasers 236 times last year, during which the device was fired 130 times by officers against suspects in life-threatening situations, says Chief Bill Blair.

The chief said his officers relied on Tasers as a threat 106 times — 45% of the total number times they were used.

Blair’s report — to be presented to the police services board on Thursday — said 545 Taser X-26s were issued in 2010 to supervisors of the Emergency Task Force and other high-risk units, such as the hold-up and drug squads.

“The device is used strictly to gain control of a subject who is at risk of causing harm,” Blair said in a submission that was released on Monday. “The weapon is used in full deployment or drive stun mode when the subject is assaultive.”

The report notes an incident where a cop threatened to Taser two suspects’ testicles to obtain information. Const. Christopher Hominuk has pleaded guilty to threatening bodily harm and will be sentenced in June.

The report said Tasers were used in 210 incidents involving 226 subjects. It said officers at 31 Division were the highest users of the devices having relied on them 26 times last year. Officers from 41 Division were next with 24 times and 23 Division used them 11 times.

The report said 56 suspects in incidents where police used Tasers were believed to be emotionally disturbed.

“In 51% of the incidents officers perceived the subject behaviour as assaultive,” the report said. “In 30% of the incidents, officers believed the subject behaviour was likely to cause serious bodily harm or death.”

Police said in one case, a suspect who had just robbed a cab produced a knife and held it to his throat in a bid to evade police.

“Because he believed the suspect was about to further harm himself, the sergeant used his (Taser) in full deployment mode,” the report said. “The suspect was arrested and received immediate medical attention.”

Police believe suspects who are Tasered are armed about 58% of the time.

The report said when deployed in the drive stun mode, the taser can leave “minor burn marks” on the skin where it makes contact.

Call for police watchdogs growing across Canada

July 27, 2010
Shannon Kari, National Post

Standing on the front steps of the sandstone facade of the Osgoode Hall courthouse in downtown Toronto, Evelyn Minty grieved openly about the loss of her son, Douglas, who was fatally shot by an Ontario Provincial Police officer last year.

"I want answers. I want to know what happened with my son," she said outside a court hearing this spring. "I don't want mothers to go through what I have gone through. It's been a year. I can't forget it. I can't sleep nights."

Her developmentally disabled 59-year-old son had a knife and was allegedly approaching an officer in the small community of Elmvale, about 120 kilometres northwest of Toronto, when he was killed.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the civilian agency in Ontario that probes incidents of serious harm or death involving police, ultimately decided not to charge the officers involved. It was not an unexpected decision: No criminal charges have been laid against a police officer in Ontario in any of the 45 fatal shootings of civilians over the past decade.

Frustrated by the lack of information about the case, the Minty family and relatives of Levi Schaeffer, another man fatally shot last year by police, went to Ontario Superior Court. They want the court to order an end to practices such as officers consulting with lawyers before drafting their notes in these types of cases. What is unusual is that the families have the support of the SIU. Its director, Ian Scott, agreed that the vetting of notes and the potential for collusion when several officers retain the same lawyer are preventing the agency from conducting independent and timely investigations.

It is the first time in the two decades since the SIU was created that its director has complained publicly about impediments to investigating police.

Standing on the other side of the court aisle were lawyers representing every major police organization in Ontario.

"We have a pretty good model," said Ron Bain, executive director of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, in an interview. "The SIU has evolved over time to be more operationally sound. I am not hearing anything out of the Atttorney-General's office that the SIU needs changing."

Resisting change, however, may be a futile pursuit. The call for better police oversight is growing.

The Alberta and Manitoba governments are moving to greater civilian oversight of incidents of serious injury or death to a civilian involving police. The Toronto Police Services Board has agreed to a review of the actions that led to the arrest of hundreds of people at the G20 summit in June.

Perhaps most prominent are the recommendations of Thomas Braidwood, who presided over the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being Tasered at Vancouver International Airport in 2007. He is calling for the creation of an oversight agency with the broadest powers in the country. "The debate is no longer whether British Columbians should have a civilian-based investigative body, but what it should look like," wrote the retired B.C. Court of Appeal judge in his report released last month.

One recommendation, which by Mr. Braidwood acknowledges is potentially controversial, is that the new agency would eventually be made up only of civilian investigators. This is not the case in Ontario, where most SIU investigators are retired officers.

This is not something police in B.C. would necessarily oppose. "Our concern is only that the investigators have the proper training and expertise," said Clayton Pecknold, president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police.

The association first said last fall that it supported a civilian oversight agency in B.C. "These investigations take up a lot of resources. We are happy to have an agency take this one on," said Mr. Pecknold, who also serves as deputy chief constable of the Central Saanich Police Service.

"While we have confidence in our past investigations, we need to deal with public perception. Let's get this up and running."

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is also urging the province to move quickly to implement the Braidwood recommendations. "I am very optimistic. This is what the public wants," said Robert Holmes, president of the civil liberties group. "Oversight is not about criminal charges [against police], it is about public confidence."

For its part, the B.C. government indicated the new oversight agency would be up and running within a year. Attorney-General Michael de Jong declined a request for an interview.

Julian Falconer, who represents the Minty and Schaeffer families, said better oversight will increase public confidence in police. "It does police services no good to justify or conceal bad policing. Good police officers should not be left out of the equation of those who benefit from effective oversight," Mr. Falconer said.

In Ontario, there may also be political obstacles for the SIU, as well as the relatives of Mr. Minty and Mr. Schaeffer.

Superior Court Justice Wailan Low ruled recently that it was not for the courts to decide on whether the vetting of notes and one lawyer representing multiple officers violate Police Act regulations. While two provincial reports recommended an end to the practices, "whether the government adopts the suggestions in the reports and enacts laws to implement them is within its province alone," she concluded.

Lacking confidence that the Ontario government will act on those two reports, the families recently filed an appeal of Judge Low's ruling. That appeal is unlikely to be heard until the fall.

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SIU FACTS

Often described in other provinces as the "gold standard" for civilian oversight of police panels, the Special Investigations Unit in Ontario, however, has been beset by controversy since it was created in 1990. Some facts:

-No fewer than seven government-commissioned reports have examined policing, oversight and the complaint process since the SIU was created.

-Its annual budget of $6.8-million (according to its 2008 annual report, the most recent available) is less than half that of the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, even though Ontario has seven times the population.

-Between 2003 and 2008, criminal charges were laid against police in less than 2% of the more than 1,000 cases investigated.

-A 2008 report by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin, himself a former SIU director, suggested it was still a "fledgling" organization that was "administratively and technically challenged."

Tasers often used on mentally ill, police disclose

April 20, 2010
Kelly Grant ,Globe and Mail

Toronto police zapped or threatened with stun guns at least 50 people with mental-health problems last year, according to a new report that provides the most detailed information yet on how local officers use the controversial weapon.

The 50 suspects escorted to a psychiatric facilities after tasering incidents in 2009 are part of a broader category of 80 “emotional disturbed” subjects who make up about one-third of those tasered by Toronto Police.

They narrowly edged out drunks and drug users as the most frequent targets of conducted energy weapons, but most of the at least 246 citizens who wound up on the wrong end of a taser last year had some combination of substance abuse, mental illness or emotional trouble.

Hilary Homes, a security campaigner for Amnesty International Canada, called the report a rare instance of hard numbers on tasers and the mentally ill that confirms the group’s suspicions.

“Even though we’re at a point where there definitely has been advances in the testing and understanding of the device, there’s still a recognition they’re more likely to be used on vulnerable groups,” she said.

The new mental-health statistics are part of a police annual report on stun guns, which concluded officers deployed the weapons less often last year than the year before.

In 2009, tasers were used 307 times in 273 incidents, down from 367 times in 329 incidents in 2008. Of the 273 incidents last year, 18 involved officers accidentally firing the machine’s electronic probes during tests and nine involved animals, mostly dogs. That brings the number of people either threatened, stunned or shot with a taser down to at least 246. More than one person was involved in some of the incidents.

In 45 per cent of the 2009 cases, officers simply threatened people with a lit-up taser; in the rest they either jolted subjects directly or shot the device’s electronic probe from a short distance away. Of the 50 Mental Health Act taser incidents, only 26 involved police actually using the taser.

“The fact that [some suspects] may be taken to a hospital under the Mental Health Act simply means that after the situation was made safe, the officer believed the best place for this individual was in a psychiatric facility,” said Staff Superintendent Mike Federico, manger of Toronto Police’s conducted energy weapon program. “It’s not the condition that prompts the officer’s response, it’s the behaviour. That’s what they’re trained to do.”

Staff Supt. Federico said he couldn’t explain the overall decline. The force hasn’t formally studied why officers are using less frequently a weapon that has been the subject of intense public scrutiny since the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died after being shocked repeatedly at the Vancouver airport in 2007.

“It’s no doubt officers’ good judgment being exercised, but it could just as easily be the result of fewer incidents where police are called,” he said. “It’s certainly not due to any change in policy, practice or training.”

There has been a change, however, in the level of detail Toronto police provide in their yearly taser disclosure. Last year the Toronto Police Services Board, which will review this latest report at its meeting Thursday, ordered senior brass to add the mental-health data as well as data about how many taser subjects are “believed to be armed” or actually armed. The report determined police believed the suspect had a weapon in 64 per cent of the cases, but Staff Supt. Federico said the force didn’t have up-to-date numbers on how often weapons were confirmed.

The report also reveals that Toronto police used stun guns most often in 14 Division on the west side of downtown and that the device was used on two 15-year-olds, three men older than 60, 15 women, one deer and one especially feisty raccoon.

More details demanded on (Toronto) police Taser use

March 31, 2009
TORONTO STAR STAFF

The civilian body overseeing Toronto police is asking the force for more details about the 179 times officers Tasered people last year, including two 15-year-olds.

Pam McConnell, who led the Toronto Police Services Board meeting yesterday, said yesterday she's proud Toronto police disclose Tasering information, but acknowledged several facets of its recent report on use of the stun gun are vague and misleading.

The board ordered more improvements, fixes and changes to the document that has undergone several revisions in the past year – from issuing the report semi-annually, to spelling out exactly what certain statistics mean.

The report fails to reveal where and when some incidents occurred, as well as explicit details of events leading up to confrontations.

Board members pressed Police Chief Bill Blair for clarification on why the device was used on two 15-year-old boys and shown to a 12-year-old boy.

Blair said one 15-year-old was trying to commit suicide and the other lunged at officers with a knife.

Showing the 12-year-old the Taser's blue electrical current halted a fit of violence, Blair said.

"We report far greater detail than anyone else in the country and in North America," Blair said. "I think it's appropriate. The public has a lot of questions and needs explanations and we're trying to make sure they get that."

Toronto police officers fired Taser darts at people 122 times last year and used it in "dry stun" mode, pressing it against a person's skin or clothing, 57 times.

Police use of Tasers has been under the microscope since 2007 when Polish visitor Robert Dziekanski died of cardiac arrest in Vancouver's airport after being jolted by RCMP members. An inquiry is probing that incident.

More than one-third of the 329 times that Toronto officers deployed Tasers – that includes showing its current, firing the darts and pressing it against a person – involved Emotionally Disturbed Persons, the report states.

Blair told the board the term doesn't necessarily refer to a mentally ill person, but to irrational, angry and violent behaviour.

"It is a perception," he said yesterday. "Not a diagnosis."

While the report concludes "few" of those classified as emotionally disturbed were apprehended under the Mental Health Act, board members want more detailed statistics.

Board members have raised the issue of Taser transparency several times in the past, but they decided yesterday to leave specific changes to the report up to Blair and board chair Alok Mukherjee.

EDITORIAL: Firing Tasers in Toronto

March 20, 2009

Police say stun guns prevent injuries, sparing the lives of officers and those who are zapped with 50,000 volts of electricity. Amnesty International says 25 Canadians have died after being stunned.

Clearly, we're still in a phase of exploring the benefits and the dangers of these weapons. As such, it's welcome news that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has produced a comprehensive accounting of the circumstances of Taser use by his officers.

Last year, Toronto police used Tasers on 312 people (and five dogs) according to the report prepared for next week's Police Services Board meeting. In the vast majority of cases, police deployed the stun guns – defined as everything from unholstering and aiming the weapon to firing the probes – on people who were violent or likely to cause serious bodily harm or death to themselves, an officer or someone else.

Yet, 11 people who displayed no aggression at all but simply refused, verbally or by not moving, to follow police direction were subjected to "demonstrated force." That can include having the Taser pointed at them and electric sparks shown.

Police rules allow for this but given the growing controversy over Tasers, the police board would do well to give this policy a second look. If it's unacceptable for police to threaten passive people by pointing their handgun at them, why allow it with a Taser?

Greater care must be taken to ensure Tasers are used only in cases where the danger is real and immediate, not as a first response.

Boys, 15, Tasered by Toronto police, stats show

March 20, 2009
JONATHAN HAYWARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Toronto Star

A 71-year-old man and two 15-year-old boys were among the people Tasered by Toronto police last year, new figures indicate.

While a police report says 122 people were Tasered in 2008, it fails to reveal where and when each incident took place and more explicit details of the events leading up to the confrontations.

Police are refusing to comment on the contents of the 21-page report until it is presented at a March 30 Toronto Police Services Board meeting.

Despite the lack of detail, board chair Alok Mukherjee called it one of the most comprehensive Taser reports ever created in the country. Nevertheless, he admitted there could be a need for the release of more information in the future.

In the last year, the issue of Taser transparency has come up at several board meetings, leading police to provide more information about incidents involving the conducted energy weapon.

"I won't be surprised if we have a similar discussion again after board members review this report and have issues that they want probed further," Mukherjee said. "I won't be surprised if the chief has to consider (more) improvements."

The current report entitled Use of Conducted Energy Weapons provides at least three times the information contained in the 2007 document. Whereas the previous report indicated only brief reasons for using the controversial weapon and the type of deployment chosen – showing the current, pressing it against a subject or shooting the darts – the new document reveals better description of the incidents and subjects by age, condition, behaviour and the threat officers believe they posed.

It also includes information about whether another type of force, such as a gun or baton, was used before officers decided to deploy a Taser. Whether training issues may have factored into an officer's decision and if an injury resulted from the interaction, are also contained in the report.

Last year, the report shows, Emergency Task Force officers shot the weapon's darts into the 71-year-old man after responding to a weapons call. They had deemed the man an emotionally distressed person in danger of doing harm to himself or others – grounds, according to the police Use of Force Model, to use lethal force, even a gun.

In two other instances, front line supervisors stunned two teenagers. One 15-year-old boy was deemed suicidal. The other was armed with a knife. On yet another occasion, to quell a 12-year-old boy who police perceived was in danger of causing bodily harm to himself or others, the report shows officers pulled out their Tasers and displayed its threatening blue current.

Police spokesperson Mark Pugash would not comment on details of the current report, but said it is the behaviour of a subject that influences how an officer reacts and with what type of force – not the subject's age, mental status or motivation. "Age doesn't matter. A 13-year-old is able to pose as great a threat as a 60-year-old," Pugash said. He said the same applies to those deemed EDP, emotionally disturbed persons.

Last year, police used Tasers in one of its three modes 376 times in 329 incidents. It's a slight reduction from 2007, when the conducted energy weapon was used 404 times in 368 incidents.

In 2008, 312 people came into some contact with a police Taser, down from 347 people in 2007.

Of the 2008 incidents, the report indicates officers classified 112 subjects as emotionally disturbed. But, the report says "to conclude (Tasers) are used primarily on those with a mental disorder would be inaccurate" because few of the same subjects were subsequently arrested under the Mental Health Act.

In at least one 2008 incident, police appear to have stunned someone unlawfully, the report shows, by fully deploying the device on a person classified as active resistant. In lay parlance, that means a subject was refusing to cooperate with police by actively pulling away or trying to escape.

Only a handful of highly specialized officers are permitted to holster a Taser and can only shoot its darts if a subject is assaultive – threatens or gestures violence – or is perceived as capable of causing serious bodily harm to self or others.

Toronto police used Tasers 367 times in 2008: statistics

March 19, 2009
CBC News

Toronto police fired Tasers 367 times to subdue people in 2008, more than double the number of times the stun gun was used by frontline officers in 2006, according to the force's statistics.

The statistics, revealed by Toronto police Chief Bill Blair this week in an annual report to the Police Services Board, also show that 34 per cent of last year's 329 different incidents in which Tasers were used involved people officers believed to be emotionally disturbed.

The figure rises to 41 per cent when combined with subjects believed to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Blair's report said.

The figure leaves advocates of the mentally ill worried that the use of the stun guns, which use electro-shock to temporarily incapacitate a potential assailant, is still too high.

Linda Carey, who works with Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office, an Ontario mental health advocacy group, said she wonders if police are being too quick to draw on their Tasers.

"If you looked at it and you contained the situation, in other words where you had the person in an area where they not going to hurt another person, or harm themselves, things might actually calm down," Carey told CBC News.

In the report, Blair said officers are using "good judgment under difficult circumstances and making appropriate decisions to use the minimum force necessary" when it comes to using Tasers.

He said that in 65 per cent of the cases, officers "perceived the subject behaviour as assaultive." In some of the other cases, Blair said, the person struck with a Taser "was likely to cause serious bodily harm or death."

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash told CBC News officers must act quickly to prevent harm to themselves, the subjects and the public.

"It would be silly, for example, to suggest that if somebody is threatening you with a knife, that you were to question them to find out or not they were emotionally disturbed," he said.

The annual report is part of the agenda for the next Police Services Board meeting to be held later this month.