Even before Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976, it never used the electric chair as a form of capital punishment. And yet, at least 20 people have died in this country in the last four years when agents of the state passed electrical current through their bodies.
As many people are by now aware, this is a reference to the police use of Tasers – the brand name stun gun that gained worldwide attention after amateur video was released showing the death of Polish citizen Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport. While Dziekanski died in mid-October, it wasn’t until the video was returned to its owner from the RCMP a few weeks ago and then broadcast to the world that the shock and outcry of the Canadian public was felt.
The 10-minute video filmed on a digital camera shows a distraught but non-violent Dziekanski being shot with a Taser when confronted only 25 seconds after the arrival of RCMP officers.
Following the tape’s release, police officials asked the public to withhold judgment, arguing the video does not necessarily reveal all sides of the story. But it is doubtful that anything more can be said to convince the majority of people this wasn’t a gross miscarriage of justice.
The officers involved in the incident are now facing the possibility of criminal charges – as they should if it is found they were negligent. All too often, officers are protected by lenient legislation for incidents in which they become involved in the “line of duty.”
Just last month, Ottawa Police Const. Dan Bargh was ordered to forfeit just eight days of pay after being found guilty of using an “unreasonable and therefore unnecessary” level of force when he punched, kicked and dragged 62-year-old Laurent Duhamel by the handcuffs at the Shepherds of Good Hope shelter last spring.
Like the Dziekanski incident, the abuse was caught on surveillance video, which shocked many of those who viewed it. The lenient verdict should be cause for an equal amount of dismay. The rule of law must apply to all, including police officers, perhaps even more so to those entrusted with so much power.
But the problems at the root of the Taser incident go much deeper than individual police culpability. Their use and deployment is ultimately governed by the police forces which choose to use them.
A wide number of inquiries into the use of Tasers have been called by federal and provincial governments and a number of police forces. Generally, there has been a complete rejection of a call for a moratorium. Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has been leading the charge to suspend the use of Tasers until conclusive studies have been done to examine their effects.
Since Dziekanski’s death in October, two other people in Canada have died after being Tasered. Which is why the need for a moratorium is that much more obvious. The recent decision of the Harper government not to co-sponsor a United Nations resolution calling for a global moratorium of the death penalty, as well as it’s refusal to seek clemency for a Canadian on death row in the U.S., has raised afresh a debate many thought was settled in this country more than three decades ago.
But the use of Tasers and the deaths that have followed should convince anyone that this issue is still alive in Canada today.
–Garrett Zehr