A. Cameron Ward Barristers and Solicitors

Kyle Tait inquest starts Monday

August 22, 2008 in News

Kyle Tait (1989-2005)

After a three year wait, Kyle Tait’s family will finally have an opportunity to seek answers to their questions when the coroner’s inquest into his death begins Monday in Burnaby. Sixteen year old Kyle was fatally shot by New Westminster police constable Todd Sweet on August 23, 2005 following a short police pursuit. Kyle was one of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, riding as passengers in a stolen SUV driven by Ian Campbell, 18, when Cst. Sweet fired three bullets into the vehicle. Campbell was struck in the hand and Kyle died at the scene. Fortunately, the bullets missed the two 14 year old girls and the 15 year old boy riding in the back seat.

On June 19, 2005, some two months before Kyle’s fatal shooting, Cst. Sweet had assaulted a car theft suspect in a “cowardly act suggesting perhaps an act of unlawful street justice”, according to Judge Weitzel’s reasons on sentencing. The judge noted that neither Sweet nor the other officers on the scene initially reported the assault and ordered Sweet to receive anger management counselling as part of his sentence for the criminal conviction of assault causing bodily harm.

Three months before that, in March, 2005, Sweet reportedly assaulted a 70 year old widow, who later sued for damages.

When asked why Cst. Sweet was still on active duty following the June, 2005 incident, New Westminster Chief Constable Lorne Zapotichny reportedly told The Vancouver Sun that he “did not have anough evidence to support the complaint [of excessive force]”. Kyle Tait’s family plans to pursue this issue, among others, at the inquest.

Read Judge Weitzel’s Reasons for Sentence in R. v. Sweet here

Read The Vancouver Sun, February 7, 2007 article here

Chief Constable Lorne Zapotichny

Constable Todd Sweet

The coroner’s inquest is now scheduled to commence Monday, August 25, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. at Coroner’s Court, Metrotower II, Burnaby, BC.

Note: In British Columbia, legal aid is not available to the family of the deceased. If they wish to be represented by counsel, they must pay a lawyer or find one who will work for free. Typically, all of the other participants are paid by public funds. This case is no different. Almost everyone who enters the room at the coroner’s inquest into Kyle Tait will be receiving taxpayer dollars to attend. That includes, the coroner, the coroner’s lawyer, the sheriff, the coroner’s staff, the lawyer for the City of New Westminster, the lawyer for Todd Sweet and the police officers who are required to attend as witnesses.

Any suggestion that the coroner’s counsel can represent the interests of the deceased is, in these police-involved cases at least, open to serious question.

The requirement that the family of the deceased must use their own money to pay for legal representation is, in my opinion, an unfair extra burden on them since they have usually suffered enough by the time an inquest is finally convened. The law needs to be reformed so that the deceased’s next of kin are on an equal footing with the public institutions that are usually involved in these cases.

posted by Cameron Ward

60th Taser-related death since Dziekanski recorded

August 22, 2008 in Opinion

Kenneth Oliver, 45, died August 15th 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

posted by Cameron Ward

60th Taser-related death since Dziekanski

August 16, 2008 in News

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: