Braidwood Report on Taser Use Released
By 250 News
Thursday, July 23, 2009 01:13 PM
Prince George B.C.- Justice Thomas Braidwood has released his report on the use of Conducted energy weapons by police in BC.
While he agrees the CEW ( Taser) has a role to play in policing, he has issued 19 recommendations on how and when this “tool” should be used:
Seriousness of the matter threshold
1. I recommend that officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies be authorized to deploy a conducted energy weapon only in relation to enforcement of a federal criminal law.
Subject behaviour threshold
2. I recommend that officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies be prohibited from deploying a conducted energy weapon unless the subject’s behaviour meets one of the following thresholds:
• the subject is causing bodily harm; or
• the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the subject’s behaviour will imminently cause bodily harm.
3. I recommend that, even if the threshold set out in Recommendation 2 is met, an officer be prohibited from deploying a conducted energy weapon unless the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that:
• no lesser force option has been, or will be, effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm; and
• de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques have not been or will not be effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm.
Emotionally disturbed people
4. I recommend that the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General approve a curriculum for crisis intervention training comparable to that recommended by presenters at our public forums, and require:
• that it be incorporated without delay in recruit training for officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies; and
• that all currently serving officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies satisfactorily complete the training within a time frame established by the ministry.
5. I recommend that officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies, when dealing with emotionally disturbed people, be required to use de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques before deploying a conducted energy weapon, unless they are satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that such techniques will not be effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm.
Subject self-harm
6. I recommend that officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies be prohibited from deploying a conducted energy weapon in the case of subject self-harm unless:
• the subject is causing bodily harm to himself or herself; or
• the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the subject’s behaviour will imminently cause bodily harm to himself or herself.
Multiple deployments
7. I recommend that officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies be prohibited from discharging an electrical current from a conducted energy weapon on a subject for longer than five seconds, unless the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that:
• the five-second discharge was not effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm; and
• a further discharge will be effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm.
Requesting paramedic assistance
8. I recommend that paramedic assistance be requested in every medically high-risk situation, preferably before deployment of a conducted energy weapon or, if that is not feasible, then as soon as practicable thereafter. Medically high-risk situations include, but are not limited to:
• deployment in probe mode across the subject’s chest;
• deployment in probe mode for longer than five seconds;
• deployment in any mode against:
o an emotionally disturbed person;
o an elderly person;
o a person who the officer has reason to believe is pregnant; or
o a person who the officer has reason to believe has a medical condition that may be worsened because of the deployment (e.g., heart disease, implanted pacemaker or defibrillator, etc.).
Automated external defibrillators
9. I recommend that whenever a conducted energy weapon is assigned to an officer of a provincially regulated law enforcement agency, that the officer also have an automated external defibrillator readily available for use.
Provincial regulation
10. I recommend that the provincial government set province-wide standards relating to conducted energy weapons, including, but not necessarily limited to:
• which conducted energy weapon models are approved for use;
• the circumstances in which a conducted energy weapon may, or must not, be used;
• qualifications to begin training as an operator, instructor, or master trainer;
• the curriculum for operator, instructor, and master instructor training programs, including content, duration, pass/fail level, remedial training, and re-certification;
• mandatory reporting of each conducted energy weapon use, including what information must be reported and in what form; and
• periodic province-wide analysis of usage reports, with mechanisms to ensure that the results of such analysis inform policy development and training.
Training and re-training
11. I recommend that the Police Academy be responsible for training officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies in the use of conducted energy weapons, as an integral component of use-of-force training generally, and that training be conducted in accordance with the policies established by the provincial government, taking into consideration the medical risks discussed in this Report.
12. I recommend that the province’s standards relating to the curriculum for operator, instructor, and master instructor training and re-training prohibit a trainer’s or trainee’s exposure to the electrical current of a conducted energy weapon.
Certification of conducted energy weapons
13. I recommend that the Attorney General ask the federal minister responsible for administration of the Hazardous Products Act:
• to add conducted energy weapons to the schedule of restricted products under that Act; and
• to make regulations prescribing the circumstances and conditions under which such weapons may be imported into, and sold in, Canada.
Periodic testing of conducted energy weapons
14. I recommend that every conducted energy weapon used by officers of provincially regulated law enforcement agencies be periodically tested for electrical output, according to a testing protocol approved by an independent body and according to a schedule established by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and that the test include, but not necessarily be limited to:
• the number of pulses per second;
• the duration of each pulse; and
• the maximum current during each pulse.
Testing after a serious injury or death
15. I recommend that whenever there is a serious injury or death proximate to use of a conducted energy weapon by an officer of a provincially regulated law enforcement agency, the weapon be withdrawn from service and its electrical output be tested in accordance with, and for the matters referred to in, Recommendation 14.
Reporting on conducted energy weapon use
16. I recommend that the provincial Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, without delay:
• develop a province-wide conducted energy weapon incident report form that will capture enough information to permit the type of analysis undertaken by this Commission, as reported in Part 7 of this Report;
• require that the report form be completed whenever an officer of a provincially regulated law enforcement agency deploys a conducted energy weapon, even if deployment is limited to display mode only;
• develop a province-wide electronic system for the reporting and analysis of conducted energy weapon incidents;
• require that every completed report form be forwarded without delay to the ministry, and that the data on the report form be entered into the province-wide electronic system;
• review reported incidents, at least quarterly, for the purposes of informing the development of policy and training;
• publish, at least annually, a detailed report on conducted energy weapon usage by provincially regulated law enforcement agencies; and
• require each provincially regulated law enforcement agency:
o to implement a “sign out” policy whenever a conducted energy weapon and/or a probe cartridge is issued to an officer;
o to designate a specific employee to download the data from every conducted energy weapon at least once every month (matching the data relating to each deployment against the related incident report), and to report any discrepancies to that employee’s supervisor;
o to review the use of conducted energy weapons by its own officers at least quarterly, to determine compliance with policy; and
o to report at least annually, to the responsible provincial minister, and in the case of a municipal police department to the police board, on the agency’s use of its conducted energy weapons.
Further research
17. I recommend that the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General encourage the minister’s federal, provincial, and territorial counterparts to develop and fund a national research program for conducted energy weapons that will promote independent, science-based, and peer-reviewed research that attaches priority to:
• quantifying the medical risks associated with conducted energy weapon use;
• identifying the highest-risk subjects;
• identifying the highest-risk external circumstances; and
• developing recommendations for best practices, including but not limited to:
o deployments in probe mode across the subject’s chest;
o multiple deployments; and
o emotionally disturbed people.
Future review
18. I recommend that the Police Act be amended to require that a special committee of the Legislative Assembly, or an individual appointed by the Legislative Assembly, begin a comprehensive review of conducted energy weapons within three years after this Report is made public and submit to the Legislative Assembly, within one year after beginning the review, a report that includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
• the extent to which the recommendations contained in this Report have been implemented;
• new information about the medical risks associated with the use of conducted energy weapons, including new models of weapons that have become available since this Report was written; and
• recommendations relating to the circumstances in which it is appropriate to use conducted energy weapons, and to training of officers in the use of such weapons.
RCMP compliance with provincial regulation
19. I recommend that, as a precondition to the Province of British Columbia entering into new policing agreements with the RCMP in 2012, the provincial Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General require that the RCMP (in its capacity as the provincial police force) contractually agree to comply with the rules, policies, and procedures respecting conducted energy weapons that are applicable to provincially regulated law enforcement agencies.
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Posted by: Loki on July 23 2009 1:36 PM