A SHOW OF FORCE
El-Chantiry needs convincing weapons are good use of limited funds
Constables Keith Martin, left, and Dave Cameron support Const. Ryan Weselake as he is Tasered at a conflict-resolution and use-of-force demonstration at Algonquin College on Wednesday. Above, Const. Darren Shore demonstrates a spit hood.
POLICE SERVICES BOARD CHAIR ISN’T SOLD ON BUYING MORE TASERS,
The Ottawa police board chair says he still has a lot of unanswered questions about Tasers and will need a lot of convincing before choosing to vote in favour of equipping front-line officers with the weapons and then spending money on them in an already tight budget.
Use-of-force trainers touted the benefits of Tasers Wednesday at a media event police board chair Coun. Eli El-Chantiry attended to try to get some of his questions answered.
Trainers said the Taser can quickly resolve situations and gain compliance in incidents that might otherwise require lethal force.
“Obviously, those folks, they are convinced that deployment of Tasers are a good thing,” El-Chantiry said.
‘I feel we could use more in the training side of de-escalating than having more hardware on our belts.’
COUN. ELI EL-CHANTIRY
The board chair once again made clear Wednesday that the choice to equip officers with Tasers and then pay for them has nothing to do with the budget the board and city council approved last week.
The budget makes no specific mention of how unallocated equipment funds of $500,000 would be spent and so, by approving it, the board hasn’t locked itself into approving the formal request to buy Tasers that police Chief Charles Bordeleau is expected to make in the new year. Bordeleau will present a report on Tasers and the province’s new use-offorce guidelines that increase Taser-training hours and require a provincial form to be filled out in more cases involving Tasers in the first three months of 2014.
Bordeleau has been quite clear that he wants to see front-line officers equipped with the tool and has said he’s not worried about any potential issues in rolling out the weapon’s widespread use.
El-Chantiry said he needs to see not just how many more Tasers police want, but why and how that purchase makes sense in a restrained budget.
“I caution him, he better have the report with full picture of pros and cons and costs and health and safety for the public,” El-Chantiry said. El- Chantiry said $500,000 could pay the salaries of at least five officers for a year. It’s not an amount he plans to take lightly.
While Bordeleau has said each Taser costs $2,000 and there would be soft costs of training, trainers at the media event Wednesday said the individual cartridges that hold two electrical probes and connective wires cost anywhere from about $20 to almost $50.
“Every one you use, you can only use it once and then you throw it out,” El-Chantiry said.
The councillor has attended use-of-force sessions twice before, but this time his primary intent was to listen to information about Tasers.
“I didn’t hear a lot about deescalation and I know officers are trained in de-escalation and the use of force,” he said. “I feel we could use more in the training side of de-escalating than having more hardware on our belts.”
That utility belt has become very full, with officers opting to carry some of the equipment in pants pockets.
According to provincial guidelines and an announcement from the province in August, it is up to individual police services and boards to make policies about Taser use and deployment, something El-Chantiry isn’t keen on.
He thinks the province should provide Taser training and should kick in some funds if it believes police forces could benefit from widespread Taser use.
El- Chantiry said he will wait for the report before making any final decisions, but previous reports show the tools available aren’t deployed often in terms of the number of calls police respond to.