>
>
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080415.wbc-transit16/BNStor...
>
>
> 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 2ВЅ 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.
>
>
>
