COCAINE OVERDOSE KILLED MAN -- NOT TASER

An autopsy has found that a shock by a police stun gun played no role
in the death of a 43-year-old Kingston man who died hours after
officers tried to subdue him with the Taser weapon.

Dr. Jim Cairns, deputy chief coroner for Ontario, said the autopsy
conducted yesterday morning in Toronto revealed that Samuel Truscott
died of a heart attack caused by overdosing on cocaine.

"After a review of the medical record and autopsy findings I can state
categorically that the Taser did not play any role whatsoever in his
death," Cairns said.

"His death was due solely to a drug overdose."

Truscott died Sunday morning after Kingston Police tried to subdue
him, first using pepper spray, and then by shooting him in the chest
with a Taser gun.

The weapon delivers a sudden burst of 50,000 volts of electricity,
paralysing a person's muscles long enough for police to gain control.

Police, fire and ambulance arrived at Truscott's home in the
1000-block of Portsmouth Avenue about 8:30 a.m. Sunday after someone
called 911 to say a man had overdosed on drugs.

They found Truscott had barricaded himself in his home with a large
knife and baseball bat and was threatening to hurt himself.

Truscott told police he had taken cocaine. When officers couldn't calm
him down, they hit him with pepper spray.

It seemed to have no effect on the man, so police used their Taser
stun gun to bring Truscott to the ground.

Truscott walked by himself to a police cruiser and was taken to
Kingston General Hospital to be treated for a cocaine overdose.

He was given "aggressive therapy" to counter the cocaine in his body,
Cairns said. But about two hours after he was admitted to hospital,
Truscott developed an irregular heartbeat, went into cardiac arrest
and died.

"That's all perfectly documented appropriately on the charts," Cairns
said. "I could follow it from the time he went into the hospital for
the two hours he was treated.

"The pattern of what happened to him in hospital is classic for
someone who, unfortunately, has taken too much cocaine."

An autopsy could find no evidence of any cause of death other than a
drug overdose and there were no injuries to Truscott's body, the
deputy chief coroner said.

Both Truscott and his girlfriend told hospital staff he had been doing
cocaine, although toxicology tests have yet to determine how much of
any drugs were in his system.

The provincial Special Investiga-tions Unit, a civilian agency that
examines serious incidents involving police, started an investigation
into Truscott's death yesterday, but promptly closed it after the
autopsy results showed police actions didn't cause the man's death.

Kingston Police Chief Bill Closs said he was always confident that
officers had acted appropriately but was glad to hear that backed up
by the coroner and outside investigators.

"There was never any doubt in my mind that our police officers
conducted themselves properly," he said. "But, obviously, when you
have the coroner's office and you have the SIU coming out and saying
yes, they conducted themselves properly, I'm very pleased because it
just demonstrates the professionalism of the officers."

It is only the second time that Closs can recall police using a Taser
to subdue someone, he said. Every time an officer uses or threatens to
use the stun gun, it gets recorded.

Only members of the emergency tactical unit -- similar to a SWAT team
- -- are authorized to carry Tasers because of the extensive training
needed to handle the weapon.

The provincial government authorized the use of Tasers by tactical
units in 2002 and expanded that in February 2004 to include frontline
supervisors who secure emergency scenes.

The police department has owned Tasers since 2002, but only began
using them about three months ago after two officers drew their guns
on a suspect who was advancing on them with a large knife, threatening
to kill them.

One of the officers later told Closs he had been squeezing the trigger
before the man dropped his knife and gave himself up.

"At that moment, when the officer related that story to me, indicating
he could have shot somebody and all the ramifications of that, I
realized from an operational viewpoint we have to let properly trained
officers use this weapon."

Closs said the department was moving slowly to introduce the stun
guns, doing their own training, which included shooting officers with
the gun, but wasn't concerned that the weapon was dangerous.

Police association president Sean Bambrick called the results of the
autopsy reassuring for the department's tactical officers who use the
stun gun.

"I find it's one of the best tools that we have in terms of
incapacitating the threat and having little to no injury to the person
that you were dealing with at the time," he said.

Bambrick was once a member of the tactical unit and has himself been
stunned by the Taser twice.

The tactical unit also uses an antiriot weapon Enfield, or Arwen,
which fires plastic bullets as fast as 250 km/h, but won't take it on
the road to an emergency call.

"[The Taser] is an excellent tool for us on the road to bring a fairly
volatile situation to, hopefully, a peaceful resolution," Bambrick
said.

Six people in Canada and about 50 in the U.S. have died after being
hit with the Taser, prompting Amnesty International to call for the
weapons to be banned until they can be proven safe.

British Columbia's Police Complaints Commissioner ordered an
investigation last week into the death of a Vancouver man who was high
on cocaine when he was hit by a Taser in June.

Last month, a Brampton man died after Peel police shot him with a
Taser in a motel near Pearson International Airport.

The recent deaths were enough for at least one police department,
Oxford Community Police in Woodstock, Ont., to reconsider purchasing
the stun gun.

Like Kingston Police, only members of the OPP emergency response teams
use Tasers, said Sgt. Jack Picknell of the OPP's eastern region.

"If you get pulled over and you see a Taser, you're in big trouble
because that means the tactical unit is there," he said.

Guards in local prisons don't carry stun guns. Correctional Services
Canada was looking to start a Taser project, said spokeswoman Diane
Russon, but it was recently suspended.

Kingston Police will continue to use Tasers, Closs said, but now with
the knowledge that they are one of six police forces in the country to
have someone die after being struck by the gun.

"I think this is an experience of how our officers have to make a good
decision and only use it as a last resort but before they resort to
the use of a firearm," he said.

Truscott's death has only heightened the need for a comprehensive
review of Tasers in Canada, said Canada Safety Council president Emile
Therien.

Therien wrote a letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin last month
requesting that the minister of public safety and emergency
preparedness review the stun guns.

Countries like the U.K. haven't approved Tasers to be used by police,
he said, and some cities in the state of Georgia have started
withdrawing them, Therien said.

But since 1995 in Canada, and after endorsements by mental health
agencies as a more appropriate way to hand potentially dangerous
mentally ill suspects, the weapons seem to have taken off.

"It was seen as the newest toy on the block," he said.

Medical literature that examines Taser injuries is sparse, said
Kingston cardiologist Dr. Chris Simpson, but there's no evidence that
the stun guns cause heart problems.

Still, medical developments are usually tested through theoretical
trials, and then with animals and human trials, Simpson said.

That sort of testing was never done before Tasers were
approved.

"Its safety has been sort of implied by the fact that theoretically
the amount of charge that it delivers should not adversely affect the
heart," h e said.

If Tasers were to cause a problem, it would likely induce arrhythmia
- -- an irregular heartbeat, Simpson said.

The effect would be instantaneous, he said, which would rule out
Tasers in deaths like Truscott's. He died several hours after being
hit with the device.

The 50,000 volts the Taser delivers are enough to temporarily paralyse
a person but not enough to change the electrical properties of the
heart, Simpson said.

"A shock from a Taser is less than a shock you would get from putting
a screwdriver in an electrical outlet," he said. "So even though it's
a huge voltage and it paralyses your muscles it doesn't appear to have
the same kind of effect on your heart that the standard electrical
shock in your house would."

It's possible that people with existing heart problems, or who are
high on drugs like cocaine, could die from a Taser shock to the heart,
Simpson said, but it's "extraordinarily unlikely."

The alternatives to Tasers are much less appealing. About half the
gunshots inflicted by police in emergencies are fatal, Simpson said.