Public Safety Committee on Feb. 25th, 2008

[Sgt Bruce Stuart]

Okay, I'll pare it down, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Sure.

[Sgt Bruce Stuart]

On January 10, 2008, consultation was led by Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing Services with the National Incident Management Intervention Working Group. That's a group of subject matter experts within the RCMP who meet twice a year to discuss policies, training, and anything else related to use of force. Other law enforcement partners, including the B.C. use-of-force coordinator, a representative of the Calgary Police Service, and Chris Lawrence from the Ontario Police College were also involved.

These discussions resulted in recommendations that would see the alignment of the RCMP's incident management intervention module with the national use-of-force framework, which was created by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. These changes have been presented to RCMP senior management, and their final decision on the implementation will be made in April 2008.

The CEW database for the RCMP was implemented on November 25, 2005, allowing reports of individual incidents involving the use of the CEW to be captured in an electronic database. Previous usage reports were uploaded into the database from as early as 2001. The RCMP recognized that the current CEW database had limitations regarding analysis of the collected data and that only CEW usages were captured. As a result, in 2006, the RCMP began researching a method of reporting all use-of-force intervention options within the incident management intervention module that members would deploy as the result of a subject's behaviour.

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP's interim taser report also cited the need for the RCMP to capture all use of force within an appropriate reporting format. The RCMP began working closely with partners, such as the British Columbia use-of-force coordinator, to develop standardized use-of-force reporting, entitled “subject behaviour/officer response reporting”.

I'll now turn the floor over to my colleague, Staff Sergeant Joel Johnston, and he'll comment further on this.

[S/Sgt Joel Johnston]

Subject behaviour/officer response reporting, or use-of-force reporting, became a priority in British Columbia when my position was implemented in November of 2005. It was established as our number one priority: to implement standardized reporting in the area of force response by police officers across the province, recognizing the reality that police officers respond to situations, that is, they observe with their own eyes. They're dispatched to or they're flagged down by citizens who need help because something bad is happening: a crime is being committed--violence, property crime, or some combination thereof.

Police go to these calls and they assess situations. Central to their assessment of the situation is their assessment of the person who's become the subject of police interest, hence the term “subject behaviour/officer response”. Police officers assess that situation. They assess the behavioural profile of the person or persons they're dealing with, they respond according to their training, their experience, their force options, and so on, and they attempt to create a successful resolution to the existing problem.

The problem with it has been that reporting across the country has been inconsistent at best. Some agencies report at a very high threshold, some agencies report everything, and the rest lie somewhere in between. Mr. Lawrence talked about the ability to glean valuable research data that will support or negate certain positions that exist within society, but we need to have a sound reporting system based on consistent terminology, which Sergeant Stuart talked about, the alignment of the RCMP incident management intervention module and the CACP's national use-of-force framework. If we expect to see this reporting system go national, we need to have unity with respect to our terminology.

So we're working on that. We're working on putting a comprehensive system of subject behaviour/officer response reporting so that the answers the public deserves with respect to police/citizen encounters will be there; they'll be available. We can also, as a policing agency, discover existing and emerging trends in behavioural profiles and we can proactively direct our training so that our responses are the best they can possibly be, in essence, to make the public as safe as they can be.

So that's where we're going with reporting. It's a partnership with 14 municipal police agencies across Canada and the RCMP at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

The usual routine now is to start with the official opposition, the Liberal Party. Then we'll move to the Bloc, the NDP, and over to the government for timed rounds of about seven minutes for questions and answers.

Mr. Dosanjh, you have indicated you would like to begin.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much.

First let me thank you all for being here and talking to us about this very important issue.

We all recognize that while policing is a fundamental need in society, it's very difficult to do. You have a very difficult job. Whatever we say here by way of preface to our questions is not meant to be critical. We're trying to elicit information or your thoughts.

One of the impressions I get from reading the literature is that when the Dziekanski matter arose, the VPD had bought 70 new devices. I believe the RCMP added 160 new devices after that. I also remember reading about a region in Ontario going ahead, or wanting to go ahead, to purchase dozens of these devices.

The impression that we as politicians got was that the police were saying, “Look, we're going to go slow and look at these issues. These are very serious issues.” But the actual events led me to believe that that didn't happen--so much so that the RCMP didn't fully implement Complaints Commissioner Kennedy's report.

I would like your response to the impression I've given you. If I'm wrong, please say so.

[A/Commr Darrell LaFosse]

Sir, thank you very much for your question.

I certainly can't speak to any agency other than the RCMP on the procurement side of things. For a number of months, if not years, we have been implementing training of our cadets at Depot Division, even up to today. Cadets at Depot Division are given only a familiarization period on the CEW as part of their self-defence program and instructions on the IMIM.

There are a lot of things we have to teach the cadets, and we only have five and a half months to do it, so something has to be dropped in order to put something else in. We're moving to the event that a cadet coming out of training and going to a detachment, wherever that may be, is fully trained in the complete IMIM with the taser, the CEW, as well.

There were plans on the procurement side of things to purchase equipment and to purchase CEWs for that purpose, so it kicked in at that time. There were also orders on the books through our procurement functions--the same as any government department, we have to go through Public Works--to replace the old M26s through the regular evergreening of the program itself. On the report that we were stockpiling or augmenting our arsenal with CEWs, it was just a timetable of procurement, sir.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Sergeant Groulx, you said this device is not supposed to be an alternative to deadly force.

I don't always want to talk about myself, but I was the Attorney General in B.C. when this device was first introduced in Victoria through a pilot project. I was given the impression that it would be used sparingly, as a second-last resort; that if under normal circumstances you would draw a gun to deal with a serious issue, this would take its place some of the time--of course, not in all cases.

On the way you've approached the issue, it seems to me that your remarks indicate there has been the usage creep that some of us believe has taken place with this device. Am I totally wrong or partly right?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

Since the very beginning, when the conducted energy weapon was approved, when we first began training, it was the very same message. The conducted energy weapon for the RCMP has never been a replacement to lethal force. So where an officer or multiple officers have to respond to a situation and the result of the current assessment is that the client or clients offer a potential to cause death or grievous bodily harm, the conducted energy weapon is not an option. There's nothing sure about the deployment of a conducted energy weapon, especially when a situation is dynamic. When it's dynamic, quite often the deployment will fail, which puts the officer at risk.

In order to maximize the success of a deployment, we need to cope with a person who is static. As I explained earlier, I assume a probe missed its point of impact or is embedded in loose clothing to the point where there is no circuit completed. There is no effect, so the client can close that distance in a very short period of time with a knife or a baseball bat or a weapon system that can cause death, putting the officer at risk. That's why it's never been the intent of the RCMP to introduce or approve that weapon system as a replacement for lethal force.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I have one more very brief question, if there's time, and then others can share it with me. You indicated you have been tasered several times, at five-second, 15-second intervals. Is there research to indicate that if you are not expecting something like this, what happens to you when you're tasered is perhaps somewhat different from what might happen to a police officer who, in training, is held by two comrades, one on either side, who is at least aware that it's coming and can get ready for it? Would you agree the reaction can be entirely different, both physiologically and psychologically?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

Personally, sir, I cannot answer that because I always knew I was going to be exposed. I think Mr. Lawrence would like to answer.

[Chris Lawrence]

Research requires ethical practices to be put into place. You have to have an ethics review and people have to be informed of what they're about to endure in anything when it involves human research. I know people would like certain research to be conducted. It's precluded by the ethics requirements that are lawfully in place for very good reason. It would be difficult to get experiments that are not under controlled circumstances. That's just the way it is.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

Sir, I can add that there is stress induced from the person who is about to be exposed. I can say that for sure. We're all human.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I believe you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to go over to the Bloc Québecois.

Go ahead, Ms. Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you for coming to testify this afternoon.

In your statements, you focused heavily on the need to ensure the safety, and protect the life, of officers, and this is a good thing. In the program Enquête, they indicated that you have stopped testing of tasers on officers in training as a result of a number of accidents during RCMP officer training. Can you explain why?

Moreover, if it's dangerous for officers in training, why wouldn't it also be dangerous for everyday people?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

We had an exposure program, and all members of the RCMP were invited to test the effects of the weapon in question. A couple of years ago, a member of the RCMP in New Brunswick was subject to exposure and received a discharge. He then complained of lumbar pain, in his lower back. Shortly after, he took a month's sick leave. Management then questioned the weapon-exposure program and decided to review it and to see if there was a way of continuing the program while making it safer, in order to avoid injuries to the back and joints, which is the type of injuries suffered by athletes.

The program was reviewed and another program was instituted whereby probes are attached to the body with the exception of the lower back. Most police officers wear a weighted belt at the hip and a high proportion of officers, across all police forces and not just the RCMP, end up developing back problems over the years. So, we didn't want to increase the likelihood of back and joint injuries akin to those which are the result of people playing sports. So an exposure protocol was instituted whereby probes are only attached to the front of the body, far from the joints, two inches from the clavicle and under the abdomen, at 45 degrees. The protocol has been in effect for the past two years.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Several studies have been carried out on the use of impulse devices. The majority, if not all, of these studies were commissioned, paid for, or carried out by Taser International. Have any independent studies been commissioned or carried out by the RCMP?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

The RCMP carried out a study in 2001. I'm not aware of studies that other police forces or organizations may or may not have carried out. I know that there have been studies, but I can't give you an exact figure. There have been hundreds of studies. The conductive energy weapon is the most studied law enforcement device in the world. It has been studied and reviewed more than any other device to date, but I can't give you any exact figures.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

What were the results of the 2001 RCMP study?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

It found that the weapon was very safe and that it could be used on members of the public and members of the RCMP.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Do you keep any statistics on the use of this weapon by your service, as you would with any firearm? Do you have to write a report every time the weapon is used, that is when the CEW is deployed?

[Sgt Richard Groulx]

Yes, we do. Nowadays, reports are written up. Every time an officer uses a CEW, he or she must report the incident and all the details associated with the use of the device. For example, even if the weapon is simply drawn and aimed at the ground, whether it's been activated or not, it must be reported; it has been used.