Posted on February 12 2014 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS: Following the death of three mentally ill Toronto residents who were shot by police – Reyal Jardine-Douglas, Sylvia Klibingaitis and Michael Eligon were all gunned down after approaching officers with knives or scissors – a coroner’s jury recommends that Police should “maximize emphasis on verbal de-escalation techniques” in their training. “If the […]
Posted on November 25 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS: IA discussion of some of the problems about tasers … In Canada, according to this post, “the taser is safe to use and poses little threat to the officers wielding them. What safeguards can be put in place to balance the safety of those deploying the weapon and the subjects who are […]
Posted on October 28 2013 by admin
[[ SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Abby Deshman of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is concerned with the threshold for taser use in Saskatoon, limited to “immediate need for control due to a high risk of death or serious bodily harm.” The Braidwood Inquiry wanted actually causing bodily harm or would imminently cause this. The police […]
Posted on October 20 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Greg Matters, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, died when he shot – not tasered – in Prince George, British Columbia, by heavily armed members of the RCMP emergency response team sent to arrest him on a charge of assaulting his brother. Like other inquest juries, this one is expected to recommend […]
Posted on October 15 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Summary of the just-released “Health effects of conducted electric weapons” report. Focus on the conclusion that respiratory and cardiac risks are limited due to a lack of high-quality evidence; still, the study states that “while fatal complications are biologically plausible, they would be extremely rare.” 9000 tasers in use in Canada, […]
Posted on October 7 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Activists and other local citizens – including from the mental health community, CCLA and the ex-mayor of Toronto, John Sewell – spoke out against plans to expand police use of conducted energy weapons, or tasers, in a public board meeting at Toronto’s City Hall on Sept. 24. Need to improive communication […]
Posted on September 13 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : At last, a realistic cost-evaluation of a roll-out of tasers to a police unit – following the green light to tasers by the Ontario Ministry of Community Affairs: 150 tasers + adequate training for the Hamilton Police is anticipated to cost $1,000,000. In Hamilton, tasers were deployed in 49 separate incidents […]
Posted on August 28 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : As province relaxes stun gun rules, police accused of putting too much faith in high-tech weaponry. Canadian Civil Liberties Association, criminologists, and mental health advocates are raising concerns about the Ontario government’s decision to allow frontline police officers to carry Tasers, warning that the powerful energy weapons could be over-used by […]
Posted on August 27 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Police and the province argue Tasers will save lives. Critics say they’re no cure for poor police skills when dealing with people in crisis. Toronto’s deputy police chief, Michael Federico, said that 12 coroner’s inquests involving police shootings have recommended wider use of Tasers (???).The Taser was used more than 270 […]
Posted on August 27 2013 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : Thee CCLA press release following the Ontario government’s decision to expand taser deployment in the province. Need for de-escalation training and mental health and disability crisis response teams not expanded taser use. While there are extreme situations in which the taser can be effective, misuse of the taser – it becomes […]
Posted on October 15 2012 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS: The TruthNotTasers (TNT) blog titles this report “TASER – The Whole Story” – and police psychologist Mike Webster directly attacks numerous serious fault-lines in “taser science” and how police have been misled about tasers. We recommend reading the whole 3100-word text. A few phrases are in bold: these were highlined in our source. […]
Posted on April 20 2012 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENT: Should tasers be used with psychiatrically disturbed patients? The death of Michael Eligon, who was shot by Toronto police after leaving the psychiatric ward of Toronto East General Hospital, has roused public outrage — to the point where one physician said she will now think twice about calling officers for someone in […]
Posted on April 12 2012 by admin
USA – Police website: “Special protocol for ExDS [“Excited Delirium”] response is valuable liability shield [Tasers appropriate in this context]” (2102-04-12) [[SUMMARY / COMMENT. The PoliceOne.com website informs US police officers that “the symptoms and dangers of excited delirium” – mysteriously labelled ExDS, as if this makes it sound more scientific – “now well-publicized and […]
Posted on April 12 2012 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENT. The PoliceOne.com website informs US police officers – their main readership – that “the symptoms and dangers of excited delirium” – mysteriously labelled ExDS, as if this makes it sound more scientific – are “now well-publicized and solidly confirmed by numerous research studies” (sic) – so they need a response protocol […]
Posted on December 2 2011 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : “Good news” are rare in the world of taser. But here is one such exception. Following the tragic killing of psychiatrically-disturbed Aron Firman after he received just one discharge by the police police in this community 300 km north of Toronto (see our report [here]), the police are moving towards crisis […]
Posted on March 21 2011 by admin
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS: used their Tasers some 61 times last year, compared to 73 and 68 times in the 2 preceding years. Police see it as a valuable but rarely used instrument in their arsenal, fiving them a “tactical advantage”, mental health officials says it is too violent with psychiatric population, often in contact with […]
Posted on August 30 2009 by admin
CSAPH Rep. 6-A-09 — page 1 ; REPORT 6 OF THE COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH (A-09): (Reference Committee D) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY [[SUMMARY / COMMENTS :This is the official AMA report on tasers, presented and distributed in 2009. We provide the “executive summary” as well as excerpts from the 16-page report (we have excluded the […]
Posted on July 9 2009 by admin
The 2009 summary/recommendations of Volume 1 (Restoring Public Confidence) of the British Columbia “Braidwood Inquiry” into the 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski. A long posting in which a great many of the issues of tasers are raised, following an Inquiry that heard some 80 expert witnesses and severely criticized police use of the taser. A […]
Posted on October 2 2008 by admin
Patrick Bolland: Was the Toronto Police Services Board misled into approving taser use? (2008-10-02) Department of psychology, Collège Montorency http://www.canadianmedicaljournal.ca/content/179/7/677.2/reply In a recent letter simply entitled «Tasers» (1), Alok Mukherjee, Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board presented the Board’s reasons for adopting tasers. This is a rejoinder to his letter. Mukherjee informed CMAJ readers […]
Posted on July 1 2008 by admin