Tasers- A Critique
The Following Essay was written by OCAP member Don Weitz partially as a submission to the Toronto Police Services Board.
September 28, 2006
A Reply to "Statistical Analysis of the 2005 Annual Report:Use of Tasers by the Toronto Police Service"(August 15, 2006), and Recommendations Concerning the Taser
by Don Weitz
Two major findings emerge from the statistics provided:
1.. Toronto police - particularly the ETF - tasered (fully deployed) a disproportionately large number of psychiatric survivors- "emotionally disturbed persons"/"EDPs",
2. The overwhelming majority of people tasered posed no immediate or serious threat to the oficer's life or personal safety. In 6 divisions involved in the TASER pilot project in 2005 - 11, 14, 51, 52, 53, 55 - ETF and PSU police tasered ("fully deployed") 11 emotionally disturbed people out of a total of 33. In other words, 33% or one-third of the TASER-targets
were psychologically vulnerable people - these figures challenge Chief Bill Blair's conclusion, "there is no correlation between TÅSER use and EDPs" (August 15, 2006, p.3. I strongly disagree, 33% or one-third is highly significant.
Now let's take a look at another section of Chief Blair's 2005 report on police use of the TASER by the ETF - not the PSU. This report provides details re the police divisions involved, the nature of the "incident"where TASERS were used, the reasons, and injuries. Again, we find the TASER targeted a disproportionately large number of psychiatric survivors or emotionally disturbed persons ("EDPs"). According to this report, among 65 people tasered in Toronto in 2005, 26 or 40% were "EDPs". Another disturbing finding is that among these psychologically vulnerable people, nine or approximately one-third were classified as "suicidal." In short, police threatened to use tasers against or actually tasered suicidal citizens! To say the least, this is retraumatizing, this is police overkill!
Let's also look at the reasons listed for police deploying or using the TASER - "assaultive behaviour" is listed 39 times or roughly 67% of the time. This term is not. explained. Was the assault life-threatening? We don't know, because "assaultive behaviour" is not specified. If the assault was not life-threatening, TASERS should not be used according to international standards, "set out under the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by law Enforcement officials. These require that force should be used as a last resort and that officers must apply only the minimum amount of force necessary to obtain a lawful objective. They also provide that all use of force must be proportionate to the threat posed as well as designed to avoid unwarranted pain or injury." ("Canada: Excessive and lethal force? Amnesty International's concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers", November .30, 2004, p.1)
Some of the other reasons listed for police use of the TASER included possession of a "knife", "357 Magnum handgun", "large pipe", "shooting suspect", "running in traffic", "threatening suicide", "subject put head and hand through plate glass window", "broken bottle", "edged weapon-mirror", "2 meat cleavers".. However, there was NO MENTION OF ANY ACTUAL OR IMMEDIATE LIFE-THREATENING EVENT before police used the TASER. -such as firing a gun, using or lunging with a knife, or using any other weapon against a police officer. None of these reasons qualifies as a life-threatening event. Nevertheless, the TASER was used. Further, only 5 instances of injuries were listed - 2 self-inflicted cuts such as "slashed wrists" and 3 instances of cuts inflicted by the police. This low number of injuries is suspect, it neglects to mention any serious medical problems or emergencies such as arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, or respiratory problems that TASERS have frequently caused or triggered - according to the medical literature. Also no deaths were reported.
These reports from Police Chief Bill Blair on Toronto police use of TASER are not totally accurate, informative or credible. "Assaultive behaviour" and other unspecified reasons do not justify using TASERS to subdue or forcibly control citizens, including psychiatric survivors or "emotionally disturbed persons", judged allegedly dangerous, threatening or "emotionally
disturbed"
"Where officers have reasons to believe that a disturbed individual may be acting in a violent or threatening manner as a result of mental illness, efforts should be made to involve mental health specialists in dealing with the disturbed person. Policing methods based on force should only use as a last resort." ('Additional recommendations", Amnesty International,
November 30, 2004)
It's clear that Tasers have sometimes been used as a first resort - not last resort - against allegedly "mentally ill" or "emotionally disturbed persons" in Toronto.
RECOMMENDATIONS: PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES TO TASERS
1.TASERS should be immediately banned in Toronto and across Canada, because these allegedly non-lethal weapons are frequently harmful and deadly, despite claims of safety and effectiveness by the police and TASER
manufacturers. They should be banned for these reasons:
a. TASERS have caused or been implicated in triggering life-threatening crises including cardiac arrest, ventricular arrhythmia and respiratory problems;
b. TASERS have caused several sudden deaths of people in police custody and on the street - at least 9 deaths reported so far in Canada and over 200 in the USA; and
c. There are no credible, independent and scientific studies proving that TASERS are medically safe and can save lives.
2. The Toronto police, including the Emergency Task Force (ETF) and Public Safety Unit (PSU), should not be called or expected to respond to people experiencing an emotional crisis, a suicide attempt, or drug withdrawal crisis, mainly because the police generally lack crisis-counselling skills and are not trained to use non-threatening, non-violent, and no-force methods. People in these crises frequently act in a highly agitated, impulsive, extremely fearful or panic-stricken state, which the police sometimes misinterpret or exaggerate as personal threats to their safety. Further, the appearance of a uniformed police officer, a badge, a warrant, or any visible sign of state authority could easily aggravate the person's emotional state.
3. Instead of the police, mobile crisis-response teams consisting of psychiatric survivors, street nurses and community workers trained in crisis counseling, trauma counselling and/or conflict-resolution should be available to respond to people-in-crisis on the street using non-violent, non-threatening, non-confrontational, and supportive methods.
4. Community-based 24-hr crisis centres and 24-hr dropins staffed with psychiatric survivors, community health-outreach workers and street nurses trained in crisis or trauma counseling and/or conflict-resolution should also be available to provide safety and emotional support to citizens undergoing an emotional or traumatic crisis. Except in medical emergencies, referral to a hospital emergency department is generally not helpful to people going through a life crisis including attempted suicide, mainly because common personal crises are frequently pathologized as "mental illness" and treated with hi-risk psychiatric drugs.
5. 24-hr withdrawal centres should be available to people undergoing withdrawal from addictive 'street drugs' and psychiatric drugs; these centres should be staffed with trained health workers including street nurses, psychiatric survivors, and on-call medical doctors. These withdrawal centres should be strategically located and wheelchair-accessible in the downtown core and GTA.
I ask the Board to discuss and support these proposals as constructive and humane alternatives to TASERS, as well as "nonlethal" PEPPER SPRAY that has also caused several injuries or medical complications and deaths in Ontario and other provinces.
Postscript: Shortly after my deputation on September 28, the Toronto Police Services Board approved Chief Bill Blair's request to order approximately 500 "Advanced X-26" taser-guns for all "frontline officers". On November 23, the last day of the inquest into the death of Otto Vass on August 9, 2000, the Coroner's Jury strongly recommended the Toronto police be equipped with and use tasers.
Biographical note: Don Weitz is a social justice and antipsychiatry activist, member of OCAP, and co-founder of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assalt (CAPA) in Toronto.
September 28, 2006
A Reply to "Statistical Analysis of the 2005 Annual Report:Use of Tasers by the Toronto Police Service"(August 15, 2006), and Recommendations Concerning the Taser
by Don Weitz
Two major findings emerge from the statistics provided:
1.. Toronto police - particularly the ETF - tasered (fully deployed) a disproportionately large number of psychiatric survivors- "emotionally disturbed persons"/"EDPs",
2. The overwhelming majority of people tasered posed no immediate or serious threat to the oficer's life or personal safety. In 6 divisions involved in the TASER pilot project in 2005 - 11, 14, 51, 52, 53, 55 - ETF and PSU police tasered ("fully deployed") 11 emotionally disturbed people out of a total of 33. In other words, 33% or one-third of the TASER-targets
were psychologically vulnerable people - these figures challenge Chief Bill Blair's conclusion, "there is no correlation between TÅSER use and EDPs" (August 15, 2006, p.3. I strongly disagree, 33% or one-third is highly significant.
Now let's take a look at another section of Chief Blair's 2005 report on police use of the TASER by the ETF - not the PSU. This report provides details re the police divisions involved, the nature of the "incident"where TASERS were used, the reasons, and injuries. Again, we find the TASER targeted a disproportionately large number of psychiatric survivors or emotionally disturbed persons ("EDPs"). According to this report, among 65 people tasered in Toronto in 2005, 26 or 40% were "EDPs". Another disturbing finding is that among these psychologically vulnerable people, nine or approximately one-third were classified as "suicidal." In short, police threatened to use tasers against or actually tasered suicidal citizens! To say the least, this is retraumatizing, this is police overkill!
Let's also look at the reasons listed for police deploying or using the TASER - "assaultive behaviour" is listed 39 times or roughly 67% of the time. This term is not. explained. Was the assault life-threatening? We don't know, because "assaultive behaviour" is not specified. If the assault was not life-threatening, TASERS should not be used according to international standards, "set out under the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by law Enforcement officials. These require that force should be used as a last resort and that officers must apply only the minimum amount of force necessary to obtain a lawful objective. They also provide that all use of force must be proportionate to the threat posed as well as designed to avoid unwarranted pain or injury." ("Canada: Excessive and lethal force? Amnesty International's concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers", November .30, 2004, p.1)
Some of the other reasons listed for police use of the TASER included possession of a "knife", "357 Magnum handgun", "large pipe", "shooting suspect", "running in traffic", "threatening suicide", "subject put head and hand through plate glass window", "broken bottle", "edged weapon-mirror", "2 meat cleavers".. However, there was NO MENTION OF ANY ACTUAL OR IMMEDIATE LIFE-THREATENING EVENT before police used the TASER. -such as firing a gun, using or lunging with a knife, or using any other weapon against a police officer. None of these reasons qualifies as a life-threatening event. Nevertheless, the TASER was used. Further, only 5 instances of injuries were listed - 2 self-inflicted cuts such as "slashed wrists" and 3 instances of cuts inflicted by the police. This low number of injuries is suspect, it neglects to mention any serious medical problems or emergencies such as arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, or respiratory problems that TASERS have frequently caused or triggered - according to the medical literature. Also no deaths were reported.
These reports from Police Chief Bill Blair on Toronto police use of TASER are not totally accurate, informative or credible. "Assaultive behaviour" and other unspecified reasons do not justify using TASERS to subdue or forcibly control citizens, including psychiatric survivors or "emotionally disturbed persons", judged allegedly dangerous, threatening or "emotionally
disturbed"
"Where officers have reasons to believe that a disturbed individual may be acting in a violent or threatening manner as a result of mental illness, efforts should be made to involve mental health specialists in dealing with the disturbed person. Policing methods based on force should only use as a last resort." ('Additional recommendations", Amnesty International,
November 30, 2004)
It's clear that Tasers have sometimes been used as a first resort - not last resort - against allegedly "mentally ill" or "emotionally disturbed persons" in Toronto.
RECOMMENDATIONS: PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES TO TASERS
1.TASERS should be immediately banned in Toronto and across Canada, because these allegedly non-lethal weapons are frequently harmful and deadly, despite claims of safety and effectiveness by the police and TASER
manufacturers. They should be banned for these reasons:
a. TASERS have caused or been implicated in triggering life-threatening crises including cardiac arrest, ventricular arrhythmia and respiratory problems;
b. TASERS have caused several sudden deaths of people in police custody and on the street - at least 9 deaths reported so far in Canada and over 200 in the USA; and
c. There are no credible, independent and scientific studies proving that TASERS are medically safe and can save lives.
2. The Toronto police, including the Emergency Task Force (ETF) and Public Safety Unit (PSU), should not be called or expected to respond to people experiencing an emotional crisis, a suicide attempt, or drug withdrawal crisis, mainly because the police generally lack crisis-counselling skills and are not trained to use non-threatening, non-violent, and no-force methods. People in these crises frequently act in a highly agitated, impulsive, extremely fearful or panic-stricken state, which the police sometimes misinterpret or exaggerate as personal threats to their safety. Further, the appearance of a uniformed police officer, a badge, a warrant, or any visible sign of state authority could easily aggravate the person's emotional state.
3. Instead of the police, mobile crisis-response teams consisting of psychiatric survivors, street nurses and community workers trained in crisis counseling, trauma counselling and/or conflict-resolution should be available to respond to people-in-crisis on the street using non-violent, non-threatening, non-confrontational, and supportive methods.
4. Community-based 24-hr crisis centres and 24-hr dropins staffed with psychiatric survivors, community health-outreach workers and street nurses trained in crisis or trauma counseling and/or conflict-resolution should also be available to provide safety and emotional support to citizens undergoing an emotional or traumatic crisis. Except in medical emergencies, referral to a hospital emergency department is generally not helpful to people going through a life crisis including attempted suicide, mainly because common personal crises are frequently pathologized as "mental illness" and treated with hi-risk psychiatric drugs.
5. 24-hr withdrawal centres should be available to people undergoing withdrawal from addictive 'street drugs' and psychiatric drugs; these centres should be staffed with trained health workers including street nurses, psychiatric survivors, and on-call medical doctors. These withdrawal centres should be strategically located and wheelchair-accessible in the downtown core and GTA.
I ask the Board to discuss and support these proposals as constructive and humane alternatives to TASERS, as well as "nonlethal" PEPPER SPRAY that has also caused several injuries or medical complications and deaths in Ontario and other provinces.
Postscript: Shortly after my deputation on September 28, the Toronto Police Services Board approved Chief Bill Blair's request to order approximately 500 "Advanced X-26" taser-guns for all "frontline officers". On November 23, the last day of the inquest into the death of Otto Vass on August 9, 2000, the Coroner's Jury strongly recommended the Toronto police be equipped with and use tasers.
Biographical note: Don Weitz is a social justice and antipsychiatry activist, member of OCAP, and co-founder of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assalt (CAPA) in Toronto.
posted by miked at 11:13 a.m.
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