Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for inviting me to come to this committee to give you my thoughts on the matter you presently have under study. It's my understanding that I've been invited to speak to you regarding my role as British Columbia police complaints commissioner in relation to conducted energy devices, sometimes referred to, colloquially, as tasers.
It may assist you, though, to know that my jurisdiction is with respect to all municipal police departments in the province of British Columbia. As such, I'm an independent officer of the legislature and report to the speaker of the legislature, and not to any minister of the crown. As you are aware, my counterpart, Paul Kennedy, has jurisdiction respecting complaints against the RCMP, both in British Columbia and across Canada.
In recent months, especially since the highly publicized event involving Mr. Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport last year, a number of investigations and inquiries have been announced by various organizations and governments. Very recently, British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal announced that former minister of justice, Thomas Braidwood, has been appointed as commissioner for a public inquiry concerning this very topic.
Given the recent escalation of interest in this matter, perhaps you would find it beneficial if I provided you with some background respecting my early involvement in commissioning a study on the use of tasers by the Victoria Police Department in British Columbia.
As early as 2004, reports that subjects had died shortly after the taser had been applied to them caused me to wonder whether there was any direct link between the use of the taser by police and the subsequent death of the subject. My concern was that if the police had mistakenly been using the taser in the honest belief that it was a non-lethal weapon, and therefore a safe alternative to lethal application of force, the matter should be investigated.
When Mr. Robert Bagnell died on June 23, 2004, shortly after Vancouver police had deployed the taser twice while trying to remove him from a locked hotel bathroom because they believed the hotel was on fire, I ordered an external investigation into the matter on August 5 of that year, to be conducted by the Victoria Police Department. I ordered the Victoria Police Department to investigate a matter within my jurisdiction where the Vancouver police had been involved.
In discussions with then-Victoria Police Chief Constable Battershill, he readily agreed to expand his investigation, which I did have jurisdiction to order, into the death of Mr. Bagnell, to include—and here I will read you a quote from the order that I made:
...review the present use of force protocol and make such interim recommendations as he deems appropriate for the use of the TASER by police officers in [B.C.] pending the results of emerging studies presently underway.
I pause here to reflect that even in 2004 there were a number of studies under way, but I wanted some answers right away—if I could possibly get them—for British Columbia municipal police.
You might ask, why Victoria? Well, Victoria was one of the first police forces in Canada to use the taser and was therefore the most experienced force I had available within my mandate to conduct the study. As you can appreciate, I use municipal police forces to do these sorts of things, although I do have the power under my legislation to order the RCMP to conduct certain investigations for complaints against municipal forces.
Now, the Victoria Police were extremely diligent in conducting this study, and Chief Battershill allocated significant resources to it. They produced an interim report on September 29, 2004, entitled Taser Technology Review & Interim Recommendations. That can be found on our website at www.opcc.bc.ca, under “Reports”, then “Archived Reports”, “2004” and “Victoria Police Department”.
Those interim recommendations from the Victoria Police Department included the following:
Based on our research to date, this Investigative Team is of the opinion that the TASER should be retained as an Intermediate Weapon for use by police in British Columbia, subject to any recommendations that may emerge from our Final Report. Our analysis of the field usages and the medical literature suggests appropriate use of the TASER presents an acceptable level of risk to subjects being controlled.
At the same time, we believe that more can be done to ensure uniformity of training across the Province, to provide enhanced levels of accountability, and to decrease the risk to those groups most at risk from sudden and unexpected death associated to restraint, whether or not the TASER is used.
You may have already heard about what they call excited delirium and positional asphyxia. They are often correlated with the use of the taser because it's exactly those types of people, under medical or other stresses, who act out, resulting in police involvement and use of the taser.
The interim report of September 2004 also made some recommendations on standardized training:
There appears to be significant inconsistencies throughout the province in the training of police officers in the use of the TASER.
If I may just pause there and ad lib, I believe that lack of consistency is not only in British Columbia but all over Canada. The only consistent thing is inconsistency in reporting, training, and use.
To go on:
Therefore, we are recommending the creation of a standardized Lesson Plan/Course Training Standard for TASER users in British Columbia. This Course Training Standard would be developed by the Justice Institute of British Columbia in consultation with Use of Force coordinators representing all municipal police agencies and the RCMP. This “core curriculum” would be delivered to all recruits and all in-service TASER users. Agencies would be free to provide training beyond the Course Training Standard, once that initial training had been received.
The second thing they recommended was mandatory reporting. Not all agencies in the province currently require officers to properly report taser deployment. Some agencies with a mandatory reporting policy may not be capturing all usages due to insufficient levels of supervision.
Because of time, I'll just give you the bullets on the recommendations. A copy of my speaking notes will be available to you afterwards.
Acquisition of new taser technology is the next recommendation. If agencies wish to acquire new taser technology, they recommended the X26 taser as opposed to the M26, which was the older version. The X26 apparently has a higher output—for lack of a better expression—due to its enhanced data collection capabilities and lower electrical output. So the newer version was deemed to be a better instrument for data collection and might be safer.
Then it said:
Although there is no evidence to suggest that the output of the M26 TASER exceeds acceptable levels, the X26 provides a greater margin of safety as documented in the Alfred studies.
That's one of the studies they used as part of their report.
They also recommended excited delirium training:
The phenomena of Excited Delirium still appears to be under recognized in the policing community. Although relatively rare, changes in patterns of drug abuse make it likely officers will encounter victims of Excited Delirium more frequently.
Again they recommended more training and a standardized lesson plan.
On restraint protocols they said:
Although medical evidence remains inconclusive, there does appear to be a linkage between restraint positions and enhanced risk to arrested subjects.
That was the interim report. The final report....
I hope I'm not going too quickly.