RCMP OFFICERS JUSTIFIED IN USING TASER ON WOMAN AND DOG, JUDGE
RULES

Finding Says Police Used Reasonable Force During Lillooet Drug Raid

The street-level cocaine dealer jumped through the rear window of the
second-storey apartment, landing with a shower of glass.

He scurried into the underbrush and disappeared into the wintery
darkness.

Police found him later, shivering in a nearby car.

Inside the apartment in the upcountry community of Lillooet there was
pandemonium.

RCMP officers had used a Taser on a large dog and a woman who was
screaming and refusing to obey the commands of the drug squad.

Considering the circumstances, Provincial Court Judge Douglas Moss
found no fault in RCMP Const. Daniel St. Amand's conduct and recently
acquitted the Mountie of assaulting Micheline de Strake.

There have been recent wrongful uses of the Taser in B.C. and concerns
raised about its use, but this case highlights the kind of situations
police face.

As the judge asked: "Could or should [St. Amand] have used some other
method to deal with what he perceived to be a threat?"

Several officers testified at the trial as well as one of the partiers
and de Strake, so the court got a good picture of events.

It was 3 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2005, and the RCMP were executing a drug
search warrant.

St. Amand was one of two officers in the team armed with a Taser.

They climbed to the top of a rickety staircase at the back of the Main
Street building

Standing on the small, insecure wooden landing, one officer thumped at
the apartment door and yelled, "Police!"

It did not open.

St. Amand kicked the door like you see cops do on TV.

It bent but it didn't budge.

Someone suggested trying the handle. A wise guy.

But it was open.

The cops burst in shouting: "Get down! Police! Search warrant!"

There were about 20 people in the two-bedroom apartment redolent with
marijuana, cloudy with smoke and pulsing with loud music.

They were the remnants of a raucous, $15-a-head, two-keg-of-beer party
that started about 9 p.m. the previous evening.

Most complied, but a handful resisted and wrestled with police in the
dimly lit flat as the dealer made his spectacular defenestration.

A large dog rushed out of a side room, lunged at one officer and sank
its teeth into his leg before he zapped it with 50,000 volts of
electricity from the Taser.

"It successfully neutralized the attacking dog," the judge drily
noted, "which is a good example of the appropriate use of that
instrument."

No question there.

But at this point, de Strake grabbed the officer.

The 120-pound, 5-feet-5 woman swore and swung at him.

The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Mountie put her on the ground.

He put his foot briefly on her shoulder as she tried to get
up.

But he left her to chase the cocaine dealer, who had made his
stunt-like exit.

De Strake started to get up and was screaming: "What the hell are you
doing to my dog?"

The dog revived, got up, ran into the bedroom, raced around the room,
defecated and then sprinted past her, out the door, whimpering at a
police dog on the landing as it fled.

At that point, de Strake said she felt pressure on her back and great pain.

St. Amand said that was when he Tasered her. He maintained he didn't
have any other option.

He and his colleagues were outnumbered, he was trying to control four
people on the floor.

He was worried there could be weapons. And he was concerned because
everyone was drunk, high or both.

He thought de Strake was hysterical.

St. Amand told her four to five times to stay on the floor to no avail.

So he zapped her.

De Strake crumpled and started to cry. Thereafter she was compliant.
Point made.

"The use of Tasers by police has been much talked about in the media
and the literature recently," Judge Moss said.

"It is an approved instrument, so far as I can determine, used by the
RCMP throughout Canada.

"Considering all of the circumstances that presented that night, in my
view, the use of the Taser by the officer was not excessive."