Evidence of meeting #19 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 board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
S/Supt Michael Federico
Typically, in our experience, it's been applied once. In the data I have, I'd have to research to find out if we've had to apply it twice. The only justification for applying the current twice is to get control.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
In your record-keeping, do you note exactly how many times someone is tasered?
S/Supt Michael Federico
Yes. I'm glad you asked that because the device we've acquired has several redundancies, so we can capture quite categorically when it was used, how it was used, and what motive was used. A couple of features on the device we have are worth noting. I'm pretty sure they're common, and you may have heard this.
First of all, in Toronto the device is issued individually to the member, so the member is responsible for the device. The air cartridges that project the darts are serial numbered. The taser has a computer memory in it that records the exact time, the exact duration, the amperage, and the conditions under which it was fired or activated. When the darts are discharged, confetti or little markers are distributed at the scene. They can be traced, so we know exactly what device was used. So there are those redundancies.
The officer is required to immediately, or soon thereafter, report the activation to their officer in charge. The device memory is then taken and downloaded. We randomly check the devices that have been issued, using the downloaded data to scan the device for use. Then a mandatory use-of-force report is required.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
One of my concerns from listening to this, and especially to Mr. Smith when he came here, was the lack of research, from my perspective, done here in Canada on this device. To my knowledge, there's never been any follow-up research on what happens to somebody psychologically after they've been tasered once. There was no known research available on that.
I'm surprised we're using this device in Canada when there's no made-in-Canada research. We wouldn't do that with many, many other pieces of equipment or medications, or any number of things.
I would like to hear the chair of the board's comments on this, because it sounds like he did go looking for the research.
Chair, Toronto Police Services Board
I did, and I was disappointed by the dearth of research. When Mr. Smith came to Toronto, he agreed that a lot more research is needed. We don't know enough about the long-term physiological, neurological, or the other psychological effects of taser use, especially for persons with certain conditions.
We had asked our Toronto medical officer of health for a report when the board was in the process of discussing whether or not to approve taser use. That was his finding also.
We had talked about the idea of having, probably, a cross-disciplinary team that could monitor use of the taser, take the data, and create a database they could look at. The proposal did not get too far. But very recently I met the medical officer of health again, and he remains interested in participating in any such work.
There is some work being done, for example, at the trauma centre at Sunnybrook Hospital, which has developed good expertise in dealing with the use of tasers. There's some work being done there, but it's not yet enough and it's not reported publicly, so we don't know what their findings are.
That remains an area of concern to me and my board members.
February 27th, 2008 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Your time is up, I'm sorry.
We'll now go over to the Bloc.
Mr. Vincent.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you.
Good afternoon. It was the Taser use in your presentation that caught my attention. For 2005, you said 73 times; for 2006, it was 174 times; and from January to July 2007, it was 217 times. Its use is doubling annually.
Could you tell me what is the best way to use this weapon, how it is used during an arrest, and why it is used so often?
S/Supt Michael Federico
It's a function of two factors. One is that we have expanded the use to our front-line supervisors, so that encounters in the past that might have prompted another use-of-force option, typically the baton, or perhaps even the firearm, have been replaced by the use of a taser. But it's a function of the number of officers now who have the device and the circumstances they're presented with. So the increase in use, in our opinion, is reflecting the fact that it's the encounter that's driving the choice—but we also now have more officers equipped with it. The result is that the taser is being deployed when another force option might have been chosen in the past. As the doctor indicated, that choice in the past might have been to use the firearm.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Do you not think that officers are going to take the easy way out? Let us say, for example, that someone is arrested and charged, and takes exception to that. You said that as soon as the person raises his fist, or does something similar, you could use the weapon to give him a shock. Is that not the easy way out for the officer? Instead of discussing the matter and taking concrete steps to ensure an arrest with no problem, the officer uses the Taser when the suspect does not want to cooperate. He shocks him, he handcuffs him, and Bob's your uncle.
You said that you have to call the ambulance. I was wondering if the municipality pays every time someone is taken to hospital by ambulance. If the Taser was used 215 times between January and July, we can say 500 times. If the municipality has to pay for 500 ambulance trips because of Taser use, it may want to stop paying ancillary costs because they are getting too high.
Chair, Toronto Police Services Board
First of all, the situation you described of somebody driving and getting into an altercation with a police officer is unlikely to happen, for the simple reason that we have restricted the deployment of tasers. In Toronto, members of certain units, called emergency task forces, and front-line supervisors are the only ones who have tasers.
Front-line ordinary police constables do not have tasers. So if a constable stopped a driver and got into an altercation, he or she would not have a taser to use on that individual.
Secondly, these front-line supervisors and ETF members are called to attend a scene when it escalates and gets to a certain point that requires more use-of-force options.
As to the availability of medical services, that was one of the issues that the board dealt with, namely that given the lack of knowledge about the effects of tasers, we wanted to make sure that whenever a taser was used by somebody from the Toronto Police Service, there was access to medical attention immediately.
As you've said, it's a cost on the taxpayer. Well, policing is a cost on the taxpayer. It's paid for by the property taxpayer. If somebody dies because there was not a taser available and the people attending the scene used a gun, the costs are even higher. All kinds of investigations take place--there are criminal cases; there are coroner's inquests. So one way or another, doing a cost-benefit analysis might be very interesting, but there is a public cost involved whenever force is used.
If the taser can be demonstrated to be beneficial in terms of saving lives in particular situations, we have to consider that as perhaps more important than some of the costs that may be associated with or attendant upon the saving of that life. So it's a balancing act, basically, that from a policy perspective we have to look at and then try to fit the best possible framework, the best possible resources, so that we can deal with any after-effects of the use of a taser.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. Thank you very much.
There are no more questions on this side. The next person on my list would be Ms. Brown.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Some of us have been kind of shocked at the way some of this use has been described, particularly by the seller of the taser. Certainly your presentation has put a lot of my fears to rest, because I think I sense in it very strong civilian oversight for the use of this rather new device. So I congratulate you on that, particularly on the fact that every use of force has to be reported on paper.
You can understand our...not exactly confusion, but we're getting a dichotomy here from what we observed happen at the Vancouver airport. My conclusion, from what you have said about it, is that those people wouldn't be allowed to operate that way in your force. Would you agree with me?
Chair, Toronto Police Services Board
I would, and without commenting on the Vancouver situation, I found it very enlightening to read the report of the RCMP public complaints commissioner, Mr. Kennedy. What he talks about in the report as the things the RCMP needs to put in place are very much the kinds of practices and governance frameworks that we have talked about that we did put in place before we allowed the use of tasers.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
Yes, and your slowness in moving forward...in other words, having 50 tasers or so, and having these pilot projects and so on to establish this idea of a reticence on the part of the people who are carrying these tasers to actually use them.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
Just so I can continue to feel comfortable about this—and being from the Toronto area, it makes me feel very good—how about the use of firearms? If, in 2007, you had 215 uses of tasers, some of which may have only been demonstrations, how many times did officers draw their handgun?
S/Supt Michael Federico
I don't have an exact number, but it would be extremely small. Literally every time a police officer in Toronto uses his gun, there is such public scrutiny around that, including an SIU investigation, that we'd be very familiar with it.
As to 2007, I'd be at a loss to give you a number now. It's extremely rare.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
Maybe you could just drop a note to the clerk later and tell us that. I'm sure it's written somewhere. With all these reports, somebody must be summarizing.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
That's good, because I wondered if the fact that every officer has one might mean that in actual fact there were more guns drawn than tasers used, simply from the point of view of availability.
S/Supt Michael Federico
No. Again, it's not so much the device that is of concern but the judgment the officer exercises in using a force option. The same controls apply to firearms. I'm happy to say that the instances where police officers have to make that ultimate decision to discharge firearms are, thankfully, rare.
The taser is not a replacement for the firearm--there's still a need to have firearms--but it's within that continuum where the options available to a police officer to control the situation may be such that, in our opinion, the taser is an appropriate and effective tool. But there's not a direct correlation between the choice of a taser and a firearm. There's a big distinction between the two.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
I just wanted to see the comparison. I wanted to see whether something that everybody has gets used more, even though it's more serious. But that obviously isn't the case.
S/Supt Michael Federico
If you wouldn't mind, I would like to pick up on that, because that is really at the essence of what the doctor and I are saying today: the protocols, the supervision, and the monitoring are so important. If the board and the chief did distribute the devices throughout the service generally, the same protocols that we've discussed would apply. The device would still have to be used responsibly and justifiably, just like the other force options we have.
A few questions are at the crux of the issue--are there good policies, is there good training, is there supervision, monitoring, and accountability--and they have to be there no matter how many devices you have, one or hundreds.
Liberal
Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON
I sense, Mr. Chair, that if there are about 500 tasers out there in the Toronto police force, and in 2007 they were used only 215 times, that is a very good statistic. It means that more than half the people who carried tasers never used them. I'm sure that's the case with handguns too, although it would be more than that; probably three-quarters, or more, never used them.
S/Supt Michael Federico
And many of the taser uses were just as part of a demonstration, as the doctor emphasized. So the actual application of the charge, the actual electric shock, occurred minimally.