After enduring a fifteen month wait, the family of Robert Bagnell may finally learn something about how he died. The Victoria Police Department’s “external investigation report” was delivered to OPCC head Dirk Ryneveld and to VPD Chief Graham on September 14th. By law, Chief Graham must deliver a summary of the report to the Bagnell family by Wednesday, September 28, 2005.

Robert Bagnell, 44, died on June 23, 2004. The VPD initially told his family that Robert died of a drug overdose, then a month later revealed to the media that they had Tasered him twice just before he died. Another month after that, the VPD acknowledged that he was not a threat to anyone and that he was not involved in the commission of a crime when they sent an ERT (SWAT) team into the washroom Robert was in. The police said Bagnell was shocked with 50,000 volts so they could “rescue” him from a “fire” in his building. Although the family doubts these claims, they have been unable to obtain copies of police or autopsy reports and they have been unable to get an inquest scheduled, though one is mandatory.

In another recent development, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has dismissed the Bagnell family’s application for a Court order compelling the coroner to schedule an inquest and deliver relevant documents to the Bagnell family.

Read the decision.