Limit Taser shocks

There’s a place for Tasers in the hands of police, giving officers another non-lethal option for subduing violent offenders, in addition to pepper spray and the baton. But new statistics on how these “conducted energy weapons” are being deployed in Toronto should spark concern.

Records obtained by the Star through freedom of information requests show Toronto officers using Tasers often deliver jolts of electricity lasting longer than five seconds, or in repeated blasts. That’s a worrisome pattern given society’s limited understanding of the health impact of extended exposure to Taser shocks.

As reported by the Star’s Stephen Spencer Davis, an examination was made of 41internal conducted energy weapon reports filed by Toronto police between January and June of 2014. Twenty-one cases involved multiple deployments of a Taser, and 11 reports described three or more blasts from a single weapon.

That result echoed a public report from the Toronto Police Service that found Tasers were fired for a single cycle in 44 cases in 2014, and used in multiple cycles in 43 incidents.

To be fair, this doesn’t mean scores of people were actually subjected to multiple jolts from a Taser. It’s not clear how often officers fired again because they missed the first time, or because the Taser dart failed to connect with an offender’s body.

That said, the use of a conducted energy weapon isn’t without risk, especially when delivering multiple cycles of high-voltage electricity to the vicinity of the heart. The precise extent of this danger remains unknown, but when things go wrong tragedy can very quickly result. In one notorious incident, Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died of a heart attack in 2007 after being zapped five times by RCMP officers at Vancouver’s airport.

That’s why police supervisors and the Toronto Police Services Board need to keep close watch on how often officers subject people to extended or multiple blasts of a Taser. Clear differentiation should be made between a miss and when the Taser’s darts succeed in delivering a jolt. A concerted effort should be made to limit zapping to the bare minimum necessary for officers to uphold the peace.

The last thing anyone wants to see is a repeat of the Dziekanski case on the streets of Toronto.

New studies on how they are being deployed in Toronto should spark concern