Taser inquiry hears police need training and weapon needs more study

By: Terri Theodore , THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - Police across North America have earned the moniker "psychiatrists in blue" for their constant intervention with the mentally ill.

It's for that reason that the Canadian Mental Health Association implored the head of a B.C. public inquiry into the use of Tasers by law enforcement Wednesday to convince police to talk more and use the Tasers less.

Yet an official with the provincial solicitor general's ministry told the inquiry there has actually been "slippage" in the threshold for the use of the shock weapons.

Kevin Begg, assistant deputy minister for the B.C. Solicitor General's Ministry, said police officers seem to be moving too quickly to use force rather than trying to calm the situation.

The Taser was never meant to be used as a compliance weapon, he said, and the government had been contemplating changes even before a man died at Vancouver's airport last year.

"Our view is that Taser needs to be up further on the continuum (of force) and should be used on the assaultive level."

Camia Weaver, of the Canadian Mental Health Association, told commissioner Thomas Braidwood that police may not want to be in the position of front-line mental health workers, but that's the reality.

"We certainly recognize that police in British Columbia, actually across North America, are increasingly first responders to mental-health crises," Weaver said.

Statistics show that over 30 per cent of people in B.C. who are receiving mental health services got there by having some kind confrontation with police first.

Weaver said police get very little training on how to deal with the mentally ill or how to "de-escalate" a confrontation with someone who is in mental distress.

About a year ago the provincial public safety ministry and B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police asked for a review of Taser policy in response to concern the weapon was being used in lower-risk encounters.

Begg told the Taser inquiry that plans for any changes have been put on hold until the government gets input from the inquiry.

The mental health association recommended that standardized crisis training - 40 hours worth - be introduced for those municipal and RCMP officers who want it.

That's far more than the smattering of a few hours of mental illness training recruits get at the Justice Institute of B.C.

Some crisis intervention training is already being done for Lower Mainland police and Weaver said a few hundred police, ambulance personnel and emergency call operators have gone through the program.

Dr. Nancy Hall, a consultant with the mental health association, said all police officers must have training in how to respond to the needs of someone in a mental health crisis.

Hall told the inquiry that the mentally ill are often in and out of hospital and have more than one confrontation with police.

"Hence our position that it's important that it be a good experience and that it work well and that police officers and family members know how to de-escalate," she said.

The standardized training was one of three recommendations the association made to the inquiry.

Braidwood wanted to know where Hall thought the use of a Taser should be on the police's use-of-force scale.

"I think one of the issues we have is the whole issue of creep of usage," Hall replied.

She added that if police feel using the the shock weapons is absolutely necessary, then it shouldn't be used more than once on a person.

The association's final recommendation was a call for much more "independent" study on the Taser.

"In the world of health care, doctors would not use technology based solely on the advice of the manufacturer," she said, referring to studies by Taser International that say the weapon is safe.

Hall said studies should be subjected to trials and should also look at the impact on people who survived being shocked by a conducted energy weapon.

The inquiry was announced following the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport last fall.

An agitated Dziekanski was hit twice with an RCMP Taser after four police officers responded to a call of a man acting erratically at the airport arrivals area.

The first part of the inquiry will focus on the medical and police aspects of the weapon and a second phase will address circumstances surrounding Dziekanski's death.