Coroner Stephen Fonseca today adjourned the coroner’s inquest into the death of Robert Bagnell and ordered a ban on publication or distribution of a letter dated September 14, 2005 from Victoria Chief Constable Paul Battershill to B.C. Police Complaint Commissioner Dirk Ryneveld and Vancouver Chief Constable Jamie Graham.

Yesterday, the coroner’s jury heard that the two Tasers used on Bagnell were tested by electrical lab Intertek ETL Semko and that one of them generated 30.42 joules/pulse of energy in conditions designed to simulate contact with human skin. This is 84.5 times greater than the manufacturer’s specification of 0.36 joules/pulse. The author of the report was scheduled to testify today.

Robert Bagnell died June 23, 2004. On June 25, 2004, VPD Detective Faora advised his mother that he died of a drug overdose. On July 23, 2004, after the body had been cremated and the ashes delivered to the family, the VPD issued a media release advising the public that the death had occurred in police custody and that Bagnell had been “Tasered” before he died. On August 16, 2004, VPD Deputy Chief LePard issued a follow-up media release stating that the Taser was used to rescue Bagnell from a fire in the building.

Tasers are a controversial prohibited weapon that “overwhelm the central nervous system” with 50,000 volts of electricity, according to the manufacturer, Taser International Inc. They have been linked to the deaths of at least 215 people in Canada and the U.S. Tasers were introduced to Canada by the Victoria Police Department’s Darren Laur, who was the recipient of cash payments and stock options from Taser International.

No comprehensive independent Canadian safety testing has ever been done on these high-voltage electrical devices. Jason Doan of Calgary, who died on August 30, 2006, was at least the 14th Canadian to die after being shocked by a police Taser.

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Coroners’ inquests:

The Coroners Service of British Columbia is part of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, the ministry responsible for policing within the province. The Chief Coroner is Terry Smith, formerly of the RCMP. According to the Coroners Service’s website; “An inquest is a formal court proceeding that allows for the public presentation of all evidence relating to a death. Inquests may be held to focus community attention on a death and to satisfy the community that the death of one of its members is not overlooked, concealed or ignored. An inquest is mandatory when a death occurs in police custody.”

Much has been said and written about the case of Ian Bush, the unarmed 22 year old who was killed by an RCMP officer in Houston, B.C. last October, so I’m reluctant to add more. However, no one can doubt that the RCMP officer received benefits that no ordinary citizen in the same position would have. Imagine anyone else intentionally shooting an unarmed person in the back of the head and not even being arrested, let alone charged! Anyone but a police officer asserting that he shot an unarmed man in self defence would be told, “tell it to the judge at your trial”.

The decision not to subject the RCMP officer to the justice system is no surprise, just as it’s no surprise that the police say that the video camera in the RCMP office where the shooting occurred wasn’t working, just as it’s no surprise that it took the RCMP many months to investigate such a straightforward matter, just as it will be no surprise to learn eventually that the RCMP officer wasn’t interviewed by RCMP investigators at the scene but rather had an opportunity to prepare a typewritten statement at his leisure with the help of his lawyer.

A coroner’s inquest, which is a fact-finding, not a fault-finding exercise, could have and should have been held months ago. However, the Chief Coroner, former RCMP Deputy Superintendent Terry Smith, has an unwritten policy that inquests are deferred until after criminal investigations have been completed. This is in keeping with the BC Coroners Service’s deferential attitude to the police, an attitude that extends to allowing the police to investigate their own, to take as long as they want doing it and to ensure that the officer under investigation gets every opportunity to create a plausible-sounding excuse.

The families of victims just want a justice system that treats everybody equally, that operates without fear or favour. Surely they are entitled to that.

Here are two simple suggestions:

1) Establish an independent agency to investigate cases of police-involved death or serious injury (like Ontario’s SIU, and as a BC coroner’s jury recommended in 2004);

2) Hold coroner’s inquests into police-involved deaths right away (like other jurisdictions-this week, a Wisconsin jury conducted an inquest into the death of Nicholas Cyrus, 29, who died after being Tasered by police on July 9, 2006)

The BC system needs reform, and it needs it now, before this province becomes a laughingstock.

The five man jury at the coroner’s inquest into the death of Robert Bagnell has heard that VPD homicide investigators did not interview any of the 12 VPD members who were at the scene when Bagnell died. Instead, after “decompressing”, the police officers submitted brief written accounts later. The four ERT members who were in physical contact with Bagnell when he stopped breathing delivered their statements to investigators on July 9, 2004, seventeen days after the incident.

The deceased’s mother Riki Bagnell testified that she learned Tasers had been used on her son about a month after his death, from TV news accounts. She said she asked the investigator why the police didn’t just leave her son alone to calm down and his response was “That’s a good question, Mrs. Bagnell”. A few weeks later the VPD held a news conference to explain they Tasered Bagnell to rescue him from a fire in the building.

The VPD media accounts of the death are archived at www.vancouver.ca.

The Province of British Columbia allows police departments to investigate their own members in cases of serious injury and death despite recommendations of a coroner’s jury in January 2004 that such investigations be done independently.

According to recent reports, the practice of routine strip-searching continues at the Vancouver Jail. For example, a couple recently arrested by Vancouver police as a result of unpaid parking tickets were taken to the jail and subjected to strip searches.

People detained on minor offences, including bylaw infractions, are being strip searched without reasonable grounds. This abhorrent practice is against the law and is a violation of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Despite a series of Provincial Court judgments condemning the practice, it continues.

With the death of a Rhode Island man the other day, 212 North Americans have now died after being Tasered by law enforcement officials, according to the Colorado chapter of the ACLU. Six people have died this month, 42 so far this year, after receiving the “less than lethal” weapon’s 50,000 volt jolt.

Despite 14 such deaths in Canada, no independent safety testing has been done in this country.

The Taser-related death of Robert Bagnell in June 0f 2004 will be the subject of a coroner’s inquest scheduled to begin September 5, 2006 in Burnaby, BC.