Canadian police admit tasers have been misused

Canada’s main police associations have launched a vigorous defence of Tasers and declared that every officer in the country should be authorized to carry one.

But they also admit that officers have used Tasers too often, stunned peaceful suspects, and not been transparent enough in reporting how they’ve used the weapon. The Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police held a news conference Tuesday to outline a 13-point position paper on conducted energy weapons.

They spent almost the whole event defending the devices, and lashed out at claims they’re potentially deadly. They cited two cases where Tasers might actually have stopped people from killing themselves.

Ontario Provincial Police chief Julian Fantino taunted Taser critics, saying they’d never walked in an officer’s shoes and probably couldn’t even pass a basic training course.

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Posted by Larry Fedja on 26/02/2009. Filed under Police Brutality & Killings,Police Corruption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.