Like all influence peddling domestic chickenhawks, Mr. Mukerjee will need to have someone he knows dead or disabled PERSONALLY, before he wakes up out of lalaland profit$ land.
This man gets paid public money to serve a tiny percentage of the population.
Vegger
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tasers and Councillor Michael Walker
This might come as a bit of a jolt to Toronto Councillor Michael Walker – but he is wrong!
The Toronto Sun is reporting that Councillor Walker wants to see a moratorium on the purchase of additional Tasers by the Toronto Police Services.
A few points of clarification for the Councillor –
1. The TPSB has not made a decision to equip front line officers with Tasers.
2. The fact is that two Coroners' juries recommended to the Board that all frontline officers be provided with Tasers because, in their view, lives would have been saved had Tasers been available. The Board received these recommendations and, following our practice, asked the Chief to respond. The Chief came back to the Board to say that he was in agreement with the juries' recommendations. However, he pointed out that in order to provide Tasers to frontline officers, the provincial rules will have to change. At present, the province allows only supervisors and tactical units to have Tasers.
The Board has asked the chief to provide a more detailed business case and research from other jurisdictions on the effects of Tasers. That report has not been provided to the Board for consideration.
3. In terms of the cost of the Tasers, this discussion is premature. There is no request in the Toronto Police Services 2008 budget request for Tasers for front line officers.
4. Regardless, as I explained in a previous blog Council is prohibited from approving or disapproving specific items in the police budget.
5. In the three or so years that the Taser has been used in Toronto, there has not been a single serious injury, let alone a death. This is because the Taser is only given to supervisory and ETF officers after an intensive training that takes double the time recommended. In addition, there are very strict rules about when the device may be used, full reporting after each time the Taser is brought out (whether fired or not), close monitoring and supervision, and, finally, reporting annually to the Board, in public, on all use of Tasers in that period, includinggeographic location, reasons for deployment, any injuries and complaints or civil actions. This combination of training, monitoring and accountability has, I believe, prevented the type of consequences that we have seen elsewhere.
6. Before any decision is made to expand on the use of Tasers, the Toronto Police Services Board will meet conduct its due diligence and consult with the public to ensure we make the right decision for our City.
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