Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[Steve Palmer]

It would be dangerous because an individual would still be able to fire his or her weapon with a taser. As a full use-of-force option other than a firearm, this could be dangerous.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

[Inaudible--Editor]...with the principle that it should be used only instead of a firearm, and only in circumstances where a firearm should be used.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Monsieur Ménard, you'll have another turn.

[Steve Palmer]

Sir, we don't write policy. We said that you have lethal weapons and you have less lethal weapons. When we did our evaluation, we said this was a less lethal technology and therefore it fit into the spectrum of intermediate weapon, not lethal force weapon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I think that's clear enough.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

Actually, I would suggest that the question is backwards. If the officers don't have a taser, it may result in their using a firearm. So it gives them one more tool, and that simply makes sense to me.

We talked a lot about excited delirium deaths. The whole issue of excited delirium deaths came up before the taser was used. My recollection is that back in the early 1990s when we were using oleoresin capsicum spray, or pepper spray as it's commonly known, we had excited delirium deaths then. Am I correct in that?

[Steve Palmer]

Yes, you are. The first terminology came up, I believe, in 1988, and the research literature goes back to the 1800s of identifying deaths of a similar cause.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

And that's not something where a police officer who is in the middle of a scuffle or a struggle, or whatever situation, is going to be able to say that the individual is suffering from excited delirium.

[Steve Palmer]

As you probably all know, police officers generally have basic first aid training. They're not trained medical professionals. So a detailed medical diagnostic is not something they'd be able to perform.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think one of the areas we've sort of gone off to is the excited delirium. To me, it's a little bit of a red herring in this issue. I think we need to hear from you folks about the research and what it is.

But if we look at the issues that seem to have developed here today, would I be correct in saying that most of those deal with training and discipline with respect to the use, the discipline that follows the training? When we talk about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it, and all those things, those deal with training.

There's just one little thing I'd like to say. When you were talking about the use of force, Mr. Palmer, I think you talked about four or five officers piling on. There are a lot of police officers in this country who would be happy to have three or four officers with them, so that option is not necessarily viable in a lot of cases.

Tasers in Canada are primarily handled by officers who are specifically trained in their use and in the use of force, ordinarily parts of containment teams, tactical teams, or supervisors as opposed to everybody on the street. Would you have that knowledge, or could you comment on it?

[Steve Palmer]

Again, sir, it varies from province to province. In most provinces, it is at the supervisor or special team level.

To add to your question, if I may, when the police community asks us to look at something, they say, what we want from you is to understand what the medical issues are, how does this work, and are there areas where it doesn't work? They take that information and then they build their policies. From their policies they build their training. The next step is the reporting and the feedback to ensure the quality of service for their communities.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Perhaps I'll just go back to the excited delirium. My recollection, going way back, is that we had incidents of people handcuffed and dying in police cars. At the time, we weren't sure why, but I think, after the fact, medical people started to talk about this phenomenon called “excited delirium”. They weren't necessarily people who'd had any particular force used on them.

I wonder if either of you could comment, if you're aware or if you could confirm that in fact that has been the case in the past.

[Steve Palmer]

It's difficult to comment on anecdotal information that isn't well documented. I will say I have received phone calls from police officers who said, “Steve, I read your report. Thank you, because I had an incident last night. We got the individual to the hospital and they're alive.”

As you also know, there were two fewer victims: one is the subject and the other is the police officer with an in-custody death investigation hanging over his head.

[Tom Smith]

I can tell you, again anecdotally, that police and the law enforcement community have been dealing with the subject of in-custody death since the 1800s, since policing started. I think the new thing now is trying to understand, medically, how we can minimize the occurrence of those incidents. I think that's where a lot of the research is going today.

How do we recognize that? How do we train a law enforcement officer, who's not a doctor, to recognize in a scenario that's going on that they need to get some medical attention? I think that's where a lot of the research is going today. Whether a taser is there or not, that incident has been around for many, many years. Unfortunately, it's not going to go away.

We also have law enforcement officers who have to implement our laws, have to take people into custody who may choose to fight with them. I've said this before. The way not to get tasered or subjected to any use of force is to not fight with police. I think if you start to look at the body of medical research that's being done today and a lot of the policies, the feedback loop in place to implement better procedures and training so we can get these people help, I think we're going to see a decrease. Unfortunately, I think that's the side of policing you just aren't going to be able to eliminate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Briefly, very briefly.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I know it's impossible to prove the negative, but one of the advantages of a taser--and it's kind of the opposite of Mr. Ménard's statement--is that we would have no way of knowing, I suppose, how many people may not have had the use of lethal force because the officer had the option of using a taser, and that would be the intent of the taser.

[Tom Smith]

Absolutely. In the United States, with the National Institute of Justice, they're struggling with that question. How do you confirm that this avoided that particular outcome? It ends the confrontation so that the officer isn't getting hurt, the suspect isn't getting hurt.

As Mr. Palmer mentioned, I have travelled the world and heard from law enforcement officers, “Thank you for this technology, because I didn't have to get hurt and I was able to take this person into custody without incident.” Again, that's why this tool is available.

It's not perfect; none of them are. It's a very difficult situation. It's giving them another tool in the tool box.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Palmer, you had a comment.

[Steve Palmer]

Yes, I would just like to say that it's one of the intents of our restraint study. We're doing a prospective study, which means we're going to be looking at different cities over the course of a year and looking at all cases where there is assaultive behaviour on an individual...[Inaudible--Editor]...or greater, with a police officer. We'll look at the medical records, we'll look at the outcomes. In a year we'll be able to answer that question factually.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll begin the next round now.

Ms. Barnes, please.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you for coming today.

What is the weight of a person who could be safely tasered? We come in all shapes and sizes. What do you consider a safe weight for your taser to work without harming?

[Tom Smith]

Again, in the medical research we've done, the smallest I've seen so far has been in the 60-pound range to upwards of 300 pounds. One of the advantages to this technology is that it's not like a drug where it's dose-dependent based on the size or weight of the individual. Again, the signal that exists within the body exists whether you're small or large. We're just causing a stimulation to occur. In the research we've seen, it's between the 60-pound range and several hundred or 300-pound range.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Sixty pounds would be children's weights. You're not suggesting this should be used on a child.

[Tom Smith]

Again, we're relying on the scientific evidence of what we've looked at per se. Obviously there are certain scenarios in the policy and training where you don't want to have to use force, but what are the options available? So we have to rely on the research.