Canadian judge calls for tight Taser controls

AFP
Friday, July 24, 2009

VANCOUVER, Canada — A Canadian judge has recommended tight controls on the use of Taser stun guns as part of an inquiry into the death of a Polish passenger at Vancouver airport two years ago.

But Justice Thomas Braidwood did not call for a ban on police use of such weapons in his first report into the death in 2007 of Robert Dziekanski after he was Tasered and subdued by four police officers.

“A police officer’s job has become far more demanding and much more dangerous,” and officers need tools, Braidwood wrote in his report released Thursday.

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But “because we give police officers extraordinary powers of search, arrest, and use of lethal force, we are entitled to expect that they will use these powers prudently and with restraint.”

He argued however that in “the great majority of deployments, the conducted energy weapon is effective.”

Full story here.

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