Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

43. Commissioner Braidwood found that the thresholds for both “subject matter”
(the offence that the subject has committed) and “subject behaviour” (the person’s
conduct toward the officer or others) should be increased before the use of a CEW be
considered justified. He concluded that CEWs should only be used in connection with
the commission of criminal offences, not regulatory violations.
44. Further, the Commission found that the existing threshold for authorized use of
CEWs against people demonstrating “active resistance” was not proportionate to the
medical risks and pain the device can inflict. The Commission Report recommended
that a CEW be used only when the subject is causing bodily harm or the officer is
satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the subject’s behaviour will imminently cause
bodily harm. Even then, the Commissioner held, an officer should not deploy a CEW
unless satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that no lesser force option, de-escalation or
crisis intervention technique would be effective. De-escalation efforts were emphasized
for people in crisis: the Commission’s Phase 1 Report recommended that officers be
required to use de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques before deploying a
CEW unless they are reasonably satisfied that such techniques will not eliminate the risk
of bodily harm.
45. The Report recommended that officers be required to stop using a CEW after the
first five seconds of charge in order to re-assess the situation, and that all officers
equipped with CEWs be required to have an automated external defibrillator available.
46. Phase two of the Braidwood Commission reviewed the circumstances
surrounding Mr. Dziekanski’s death. The Commissioner noted that incidents of
excessive force by police, especially incidents in which the officers involved are not
completely forthright about the circumstances in their use-of-force reports and
debriefings, have far-reaching repercussions. In particular, a single fatality at the hands
of police can galvanize public antipathy against an entire police service, its members,
and the weapon used on the subject. As the Commission Report noted, the resulting
crisis of confidence can be devastating for the vast majority of police officers who do
their job fairly and protect lives, as the most important weapon in the arsenal of the
police is public support. 46
(c) Conclusions on the state of current scientific evidence
47. The Goudge and Braidwood reports highlight the absence of authoritative
research on the health effects of CEWs. Although the medical evidence is inconclusive as
to a link between CEW use and death, it appears to be accepted that fatal complications
are biologically possible. The paucity of reliable data regarding the effects of CEWs on
individuals with medical conditions, people in crisis and subjects with prescription
medications, illegal drugs or alcohol in their system makes it difficult for police to
predict whether a given subject in a real-life interaction will suffer serious consequences
from exposure to a CEW charge.
46
Dziekanski Tragedy, supra note 40 at 24.
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