Kenneth Oliver, 45, died yesterday in Miami after reportedly being Tasered four times by Miami police. His death will go unnoticed by most, but he is at least the 60th person to die in similar fashion since Robert Dziekanski’s death at the Vancouver Airport last October. Robert Dziekanski was at least the 301st person in North America to die after being shocked by the Taser’s 50,000 volt output. The list of subsequent similar fatalities, which includes five more Canadians, appears below:

302. October 14, 2007: Donald Clark Grant, 54, Asheville, North Carolina

303. October 17, 2007: Quilem Registre, 39, Montreal, Quebec

304. November 1, 2007: Seldon Deshotels, 56, Lake Charles, Louisiana

305. November 2, 2007: Stefan McMinn, 44, Hendersonville, North Carolina

306. November 7, 2007: Roger Brown, 40, Miami, Florida

307. November 16, 2007: Paul Carlock, 57, Springfield, Illinois

308. November 18, 2007: Jesse Saenz, 20, Raton, New Mexico

309. November 18, 2007: Jarrel Gray, 20, Frederick, Maryland

310. November 18, 2007: Christian Allen, 21, Springfield, Florida

311. November 20, 2007: Conrad Lowman, Jacksonville, Florida

312. November 22, 2007: Howard Hyde, 45, Halifax, Nova Scotia

313. November 24, 2007: Robert Knipstrom, 36, Chilliwack, British Columbia

314. November 29, 2007: Ashley R. Stephens, 28, Ocala, Florida

315. November 30, 2007: Cesar Silva, 32, Los Angeles, California

316. December 10, 2007: Leroy Patterson Jr., 41, Walton County, Georgia

317. January 2, 2008: Brandon Smiley, 27, Mobile, Alabama

318. January 9, 2008: Otis C. Anderson, 36, Fayetteville, North Carolina

319. January 11, 2008: Xavier Jones, 29, Coral Gables, Florida

320. January 14, 2008: Ryan Rich, 33, Las Vegas, Nevada

321. January 15, 2008: Mark Backlund, 29, New Brighton, Minnesota

322. January 17, 2008: Baron Scooter Collins, 21, Winnfield, Louisiana

323. January 18, 2008: Daniel Hanrahan, 44, Staten Island, New York

324. February 3, 2008: Louis Cryer, 32, Port Arthur, Texas

325. February 3, 2008: Joseph Davis, 50, Brandon, Mississippi

326. February 7, 2008: Richard Earl Abston, 53, Merced, California

327. February 19, 2008: Garrett Sean Farn, 41, Bakersfield, California

328. February 26, 2008: Barron Harvey Davis, 44, Mayes County, Oklahoma

329. March 4, 2008: Christopher Jackson, 37, Clay, New York

330. March 6, 2008: Javier Aguilar, 46, Roswell, New Mexico

331. March 18, 2008: Roberto Gonzalez, 24, Chicago, Illinois

332. March 20, 2008: Darryl Wayne Turner, 17, Charlotte, North Carolina

333. March 21, 2008: James Garland, 41, Deerfield Beach, Florida

334. March 29, 2008: Henry Bryant, 35, Indianapolis, Indiana

335. March 30, 2008: Walter Edward Haake Jr., 59, Topeka, Kansas

336. April 2, 2008: Jason Jesus Gomez, 35, Santa Ana, California

337. April 6, 2008: Yvelt Ocean, 31, New Kent County, Virginia

338. April 22, 2008: Uriah Samson Dach, 26, Richmond, California

339. April 24, 2008: Kevin Piskura, 24, Cincinnati, Ohio

340. April 24, 2008: Dewayne Chatt, 39, Memphis, Tennessee

341. April 27, 2008: Paul Thompson, Greensboro, North Carolina

342. April 28, 2008: Jermaine Ward, 28, Jackson, Tennessee

343. May 4, 2008: Joe Kubat, 21, St. Paul, Minnesota

344. May 6, 2008: James S. Wilson, 22, West Alton, Missouri

345. May 28, 2008: Ricardo Manuel Abrahams, 44, Woodland, California

346. May 31, 2008: Robert Ingram, 27, Raceland, Louisiana

347. June 5, 2008: Willie Maye, 43, Birmingham, Alabama

348. June 6, 2008: Donovan Graham, 35, Meridien, Connecticut

349. June 8, 2008: Tony Curtis Bradway, 26, New Yotk, New York

350. June 22, 2008: Jeffrey Marreel, 36, Norfolk, Ontario

351. June 25, 2008: Ernest Graves, 29, Rockford, Illinois

352. June 27, 2008: Nicholas Cody, 27, Dothan, Alabama

353. July 2, 2008: Isaac Bass, 34, Louisville, Kentucky

354. July 8, 2008: Samuel DeBoise, 29, St. Louis, Missouri

355. July 22, 2008: Michael Langan, 17, Winnipeg, Manitoba

356. July 27, 2008: Anthony Davidson, 29, Statesville, North Carolina

357. August 4, 2008: Jerry Jones, 45, Orange, Texas

358. August 5, 2008: Andre Thomas, 37, Swissvale, Pennsylvania

359. August 7, 2008: Lawrence Rosenthal, 54, Hemet, California

360. August 10, 1008: Kiethedric Hines, 31, Rockford, Illinois

361. August 15, 2008: Kenneth Oliver, 45, Miami, Florida

The Criminal Justice Branch is appealing a ruling by the Supreme Court of British Columbia upholding the decision of the Commissioner of the Frank Paul Inquiry that found that prosecutors and former prosecutors do not enjoy immunity from explaining why no charges were laid in connection with the death of Frank Paul.

Mr. Paul, a 48 year old homeless Aboriginal man, died of hypothermia in December 1998 after a Vancouver police officer left him in an isolated commercial alleyway. No coroner’s inquest was held, no charges were laid, and BC politicians refused to yield to public pressure to hold an inquiry into the matter until last year, when a public inquiry was finally initiated. Although the inquiry was mandated to consider the response of the Criminal Justice Branch to Mr. Paul’s death, the Branch refused to deliver documents or make its prosecutors available for questioning. No date has been set for the appeal.

Sara Lewis, the widow of Donald Dwayne Lewis, the 5’4″ , 139 pound unarmed man shot and killed by RCMP Cst. Cole Brewer at McLeese Lake in August, 2006, has to represent herself at the coroner’s inquest into her husband’s death after repeated requests for legal aid were turned down.

The inquest has been convened in Williams Lake, BC at considerable public expense. Taxpayers fund the coroner, the coroner’s lawyer, the sheriffs, the court reporter, two lawyers for the RCMP and the dozen or so RCMP members, including media liaison representatives from Vancouver, who have been in attendance at the inquest.

Mr. Lewis’ widow, however, is forced to try to grapple with complex legal issues of admissibility of evidence and proper questions for cross-examination as she tries to find out why her wounded husband bled to death after Cst. Brewer handcuffed him to a tree.

According to Attorney General Wally Oppal’s recent letter to me, “I have great sympathy for what your client has endured, and I respect her efforts to discover the facts surrounding her husband’s death in what must be difficult circumstances. However, the government provides funding for legal representation only in very limited circumstances…family participation at a public inquest does not meet this threshold.”

The inquest continues, as do the RCMP lawyers’ efforts to portray Don Lewis, who was simply camping on Crown land when he was accosted by police, as someone who somehow deserved to die.

Dr. Pierre Savard, professor of biomedical engineering at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, and the recipient of a PhD from MIT, presented the results of his study to the Braidwood Commission of Inquiry today. Dr. Savard has concluded that “heart disease increases the probability of death after Taser shocks” and “studies on healthy subjects or healthy animals are insufficient to conclude that the Taser is entirely safe.”

….

One logical question is, how did a potentially unsafe and lethal product get into the hands of law enforcement in Canada without any public consultation, safety testing, independent research, guidelines or restrictions imposed on its use as a non-lethal or “less than lethal” intermediate police weapon?

Another is, why can’t this device be subject to CSA certification in the same way that electric fence controllers, electronic animal restraint devices, are?

For over three years, I have been imploring officials in this province (the Chief Coroner, the Police Complaint Commissioner, the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, the Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP, the Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department) to stop the use of TASERS until rigorous independent scientific testing has been done, to no avail.

The Braidwood Commission Inquiry continues in Vancouver…

The Frank Paul Inquiry has invited public input on various issues set out in its terms of reference, including the polices of the BC Coroners Service, Office of Police Complaint Commissioner and Criminal Justice Branch to deaths in custody. The submissions are due by May 16, 2008.

The Frank Paul Inquiry has been hearing evidence related to the death of Frank Paul, a homeless, incapacitated, soaking wet aboriginal man who died of hypothermia after Vancouver police left him in an isolated alley in December, 1998.

Further details are available at frankpaulinquiry.ca.