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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080415.wbc-transit16/BNStory/National/home
Vancouver transit riders tasered for not paying fares
ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
April 16, 2008 at 5:31 AM EDT
VANCOUVER - The country's only armed transit police have been tasering
passengers who try to avoid paying fares.
According to documents provided in response to a Freedom of Information
request, police patrolling public transit in the Metro Vancouver area have
used tasers 10 times in the past 18 months, including five occasions when
victims had been accosted for riding free.
In one incident, a non-paying passenger was tasered after he held onto a
railing on the SkyTrain platform and refused to let go.
"After several warnings to the subject to stop resisting arrest and the
subject failing to comply with the officers' commands, the taser was
deployed and the subject was taken into control," said the report provided
by TransLink, the region's transit authority.
An internal review of the incident concluded that the action taken by
transit police officers complied with the force's policy and was within
guidelines "set out in the National Use of Force Model," the report said.
On another occasion, a passenger was tasered when he fled from police who
found him without a payment receipt during a "fare blitz." This time,
however, the passenger got away because, as recounted in the report, "the
Taser was ineffective due to the subject's clothing and [he] escaped the
custody of the officers."
Politicians and civil-liberties activists alike decried the use of tasers on
individuals who were attempting merely to avoid paying a fine for not buying
a ticket to ride.
"I think it's absolutely uncalled for, absolutely reprehensible, and the
police should not be doing that," federal Liberal public safety critic Ujjal
Dosanjh said in Ottawa yesterday.
On the face of it, the use of tasers by transit police here is far outside
guidelines that say they should be used only if someone is suicidal, violent
or about to injure himself or someone else, Mr. Dosanjh said.
"Their current use is absolutely inappropriate," he said, adding that the
latest revelations, coming after a storm of recent controversy over taser
use by regular police forces across the country, have brought him close to
calling for a moratorium on the powerful stun guns.
"This is the kind of example that would lead people like me, who have so far
resisted asking for a moratorium, to actually call for that," he said.
Murray Mollard of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which supports a
moratorium, said he was shocked by the news of transit passengers being
tasered.
"To apply a taser on someone fleeing the scene while trying to evade a fine
is, quite frankly, an outrageous abuse of this weapon," Mr. Mollard said.
"Do we really need police officers with guns and tasers using them in the
context of fare evasion? I don't think so. This really is very hard to
believe."
But he stopped short of blaming the police. "They do what police do," he
said. Instead, he pinned the fault on cabinet ministers responsible for the
police who refuse to restrict taser use.
In a move that sparked heated debate in the province, the government gave
the green light for transit cops to carry weapons 2½ years ago. There are
about 125 officers on the transit force.
The region's popular, elevated SkyTrain system operates on a partial honour
system, without turnstiles. However, riders caught without a ticket are
subject to heavy fines, as high as $175. Officers ask passengers at random
for proof of payment.
Yesterday, the head of the RCMP admitted the police force did not do a good
job making information public about taser use, and vowed that changes will
be made.
"Frankly we did not handle this matter very well," Commissioner William
Elliott told the Canadian Club of Ottawa. "We should not have needed two
kicks at the can. We must learn from that and do better."
The taser controversy will be in the spotlight again today - the mother of
Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died after being tasered by the
RCMP last year at Vancouver International Airport, is expected to testify
before a parliamentary committee in Ottawa.
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