Evidence of meeting #13 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was taser.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Mr. Palmer, are there any concerns about the different weight issues? Are there any directions about whom a taser can be used on or any restrictions in this country right now?
Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre
Again, we didn't set any real policy restrictions; those are provincial jurisdictions.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
In the material, you say that the taser is being used in correctional facilities. That's not in Canada, to my knowledge. Do you concur with that?
Conservative
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
I believe it's being used in correctional facilities in Canada--some, not all.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Thank you.
This is a very cold country in some parts right now, negative 40. Has any medical work been done about the effects of tasers in a very cold setting? Would there be differences?
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
We've done studies of the functioning of the weapon itself, and that's one of the reasons we use compressed nitrogen, so we can have them function in the cold. The batteries are really going to be the limitation, to manufacture the power supplies.
In terms of the medical studies, our direction was more on the concern that a taser application--and Ms. Priddy mentioned the acidosis--was more related to increasing body temperature, which we did not see in the research that was published. But in terms of the research that I'm aware of, we haven't tasered anybody who's been put into a cold environment .
January 30th, 2008 / 4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
A lot of Canada is cold in winter, and people are being tasered.
Mr. Palmer, have there been any studies done about the effects of various temperatures when this weapon is being used?
Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre
There may be some, but I'm not aware of any. Studies I've seen have looked at the mechanical electrical characteristics of the device in cold weather.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
From my reading of the RCMP materials, I see that multiple tasering is permissible right now. Why is it necessary to have more than one taser incident?
Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre
Each individual use of force is something that needs to be considered by the police officer at the scene and evaluated as to what is required to obtain compliance of the individual. Each case would be unique, and certainly the officer would have to identify why.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Mr. Smith, you manufacture a product that can continue the taser force for significant lengths of time. Why did you not produce a taser that automatically cuts off so there's no chance of an accidental continuous taser?
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
There's a twofold answer to that.
Number one, when we've done the science.... In a lot of our human studies now we're doing as long as 45- and 60-second continuous exposures so that we make sure medically we can show there's no higher degree of risk in those cases. On the practical application side, in working with the law enforcement community we don't want to limit.... Again, it goes back to what Mr. Palmer said, that we don't limit a guy hitting somebody with the baton twice or spraying with the pepper spray once, or shooting a single bullet. So we're giving them a tool that they will again, through policy and training, have to know how to implement and apply. And until we see medical research that says there's that certain risk, we've made the device work for a five-second cycle. At that time the officer will evaluate if they are going to have to use another application of the taser.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Mr. Palmer, are there any studies being done in Canada that you're aware of about the differences in impact of a multiple taser use as opposed to a single taser use?
Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre
A variety of studies have looked at the impacts, the physiological characteristics, of multiple uses, yes.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Could you provide these to the clerk of the committee so we can have them distributed, please?
Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre
Yes, I can provide you with the references, anyway.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I have a question on the technical aspects before we go over to the government side. It stems from this issue of when it's minus 40 outside.
Are there things that restrict your ability to use it, such as a lot of heavy clothing or this kind of thing? Is there something that people could do to protect themselves from being tasered?
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
There are, and we cover that very extensively in training.
Again, it goes back to the 50,000 volts that I mentioned at the beginning. That allows the energy to arc through up to two inches of clothing. We fire out two darts. So if you think of it as jumper cables, it's a positive and a negative. If you have only one of those darts making contact or if one of them is further than two inches or five centimetres from the body, it's not going to be able to arc the distance and connect to send the signal into the body.
In fact, in the studies we're seeing today, the number one reason for the taser not working in the field is a missed shot, meaning that only one dart hit or they were wearing a very thick coat so that, for example, if it swung away more than that distance, it would not make the connection and send the energy into the body. Then the officer would have to resort to another tactic with the taser, or another tool.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to ask Mr. Smith, why do your designers feel it is necessary to have the X26 waveform repeat at 19 cycles per second, given that a waveform is more than perfectly capable of locking up the victim with each cycle? Why not repeat the shock perhaps two or three times per second? What is the reason for that?
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
That's a great question. Actually, that was one of the reasons the original technology did not work that well. When we actually went into the lab to determine the level we needed for incapacitation.... The discharge of our pulse is really in the range of microseconds. The actual pulse lasts for about a microsecond. When you look at that, again, that release causes a single muscle contraction.
What we learned in the lab and what we actually even learned in our human testing early on is that if we used anything less than about 12 to 14 pulses per second, the individual was able to have enough recovery time of their muscle to be able to function, while being jerked around, but once we crossed that threshold we got the true incapacitation, in which the muscle would lock up to the point where they were not able to continue to incapacitate.
We came up with the 19 pulses per second because that was what was required in order to get incapacitation. If we went much beyond that, we didn't see any further lock-up. That was the optimal point where we got the lock-up of the individual. They couldn't fight through it. But going beyond that, there was no further benefit.
Conservative
Chairman, Taser International Inc.
The minimum is 12 to 14, and that's kind of on the edge. So 19, on a bell curve, is where we saw the maximum incapacitating effect of locking up the muscle response, where it would not be able to recover to the point of the individual being able to fight through the effect.