CITY POLICE TO ARM OFFICERS WITH CONTROVERSIAL STUN GUNS

WINNIPEG police are going ahead with the training of officers in the
use of the controversial Taser stun gun, despite rising concerns that
the pistol-like devices are unsafe on some uncontrollable suspects.

Spokeswoman Const. Leanne Ainley said officers are to begin training
and be outfitted with Tasers at the end of September.

Winnipeg police, like thousands of other police agencies around the
globe, believe Tasers are a viable non-lethal weapon officers can use
to subdue unco-operative suspects.

By September, Winnipeg police will have acquired enough Tasers to
equip front-line officers. RCMP in Manitoba have been using Tasers for
more than two years.

The move comes as the stun gun is being blamed for contributing to the
deaths of more than 100 suspects since 2001.

In Chicago, a pathologist ruled Thursday a police Taser caused the
death of a 54-year-old man after he got a five-second electrical burst
last Feb. 10 during a drug-related arrest. The man had been trying to
kick and bite officers. The ruling, the first of its kind in the
United States, said that even though the suspect was high on
methamphetamine, he was "pushed over the edge" by the Taser's jolts,
the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

On Wednesday in New York City, a 35-year-old male prisoner died after
he was jolted with a Taser. The car-theft suspect became ill and
agitated while in custody and was stun-gunned after officers were
unable to remove him from a cell for medical attention. He died
shortly afterward. The New York Times reported the man may have died
from cardiac arrest due to cocaine ingestion.

Human rights group Amnesty International last year called on
law-enforcement agencies to suspend their use of such "electro-shock
weapons" until an impartial medical investigation is completed.

The organization has said 129 people have died after they were shocked
by Tasers between June 2001 and July 15. There has been a handful of
Taser-related deaths in Canada.

However, on the same day as the New York incident, police in
Birmingham, England used a Taser to subdue a suspect in the July 21
attempted London subway bombings. The 24-year-old man was temporarily
paralysed and survived.

A Taser fires two wire barbs that, when hooked onto a suspect,
administer a 50,000-volt shock for several seconds. Suspects lose all
muscular control, allowing to police to subdue them. The device can
also be used in stun-gun mode if direct contact is made with the
target. In Winnipeg, police have been looking at getting Tasers since
the Nov. 5, 2001 death of Donald Miles outside a North End gas
station. Miles refused repeated orders to drop a knife and was fatally
shot by police when he lunged at an officer.

A provincial inquest into Miles' death endorsed a plan by police to
equip many of its officers with Taser guns.

All general patrol police cruisers are to be equipped with Tasers, as
are officers on the emergency response unit and all street
supervisors. Police are also to closely monitor their use once deployed.

Police Chief Jack Ewatski said in an earlier interview the
intermediate-force weapon gives officers another option to using their
firearms in dealing with unco-operative suspects.

The Taser is made by Taser International Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz. and
is used by more than 7,000 police departments and 100,000 officers in
the U.S. and abroad.

The company has said its product is safe and saves lives as long as
used properly.

Meanwhile, a Florida man faces several smuggling and weapons charges
after a bust at the Alberta-U.S. border that included 59 stun guns.

The Canadian Border Services Agency called last week's confiscation of
81 weapons a "significant seizure."