Toronto police disclose Taser use on people with mental-health problems

TORONTO _ Toronto police zapped or threatened with stun guns at least 50 people with mental-health problems last year, according to a new report.

The 50 suspects escorted to a psychiatric facilities after Tasering incidents in 2009 are part of a broader category of 80 “emotional disturbed” subjects who make up about one-third of those Tasered by Toronto cops.

They narrowly edged out drunks and drug users as the most frequent targets of conducted energy weapons.

Most of the at least 246 citizens who wound up on the wrong end of a Taser last year had some combination of substance abuse, mental illness or emotional trouble.

Hilary Homes, a security campaigner for Amnesty International Canada, called the report a rare instance of hard numbers on Tasers and the mentally ill that confirms the group’s suspicions.

“Even though we’re at a point where there definitely has been advances in the testing and understanding of the device, there’s still a recognition they’re more likely to be used on vulnerable groups,” she said.

The new mental-health statistics are part of a police annual report on stun guns, which concluded officers deployed the weapons less often last year than the year before.

In 2009, Tasers were used 307 times in 273 incidents, down from 367 times in 329 incidents in 2008.

Of the 273 incidents last year, 18 involved officers accidentally firing the machine’s electronic probes during tests and nine involved animals, mostly dogs.

That brings the number of people either threatened, stunned or shot with a Taser down to at least 246.

More than one person was involved in some of the incidents.

In 45 per cent of the 2009 cases, officers simply threatened people with a lit-up Taser; in the rest they either jolted subjects directly or shot the device’s electronic probe from a short distance away.

The report also reveals that Toronto police used stun guns most often on the west side of downtown and that the device was used on two 15-year-olds, three men older than 60, 15 women, one deer and one feisty raccoon.

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