Where on the body do you aim for to taser a naked man??

skippy · #1 10-02-2008, 09:01 PM

Police probe death of naked B.C. man who was hit with Taser

Matthew Claxton, Canwest News Service

Published: Wednesday, October 01, 2008

LANGLEY, B.C. - Mounties searched a house Wednesday where a naked and wounded man died a day earlier after being stunned with a Taser by RCMP officers.

The man had crashed through a window following a bank robbery in Langley on Tuesday.

An autopsy is expected to show the nature of the man's injuries prior to struck with the stun gun.

The 49-year-old man was attempting to go back into a Langley house, Cpl. Peter Thiessen told a news conference outside the home Wednesday.

"There was an unidentified female in (the house) who was a potential victim. We were potentially dealing with an armed, violent bank robber that we believed may have been in that home and could very well have been this individual. As well, there was an unaccounted firearm," said Thiessen when asked why officers used a Taser on a man who was already bleeding and injured from glass.

Thiessen would not release any information about how many times the man was Tasered or the identity of the officers involved. The RCMP would only say he was attempting to go back into the house, despite his "significant chest wounds."

"Make no mistake about it. It's not easy for these officers," he said. "Right now, those officers are dealing with personal issues." He said all officers involved are experienced RCMP members.

Thiessen also confirmed the man "was not known to police."

The bizarre incident began just before 11 a.m. Tuesday at a bank in Langley.

Police said a man in his 40s violently robbed the bank at gunpoint, knocking over an elderly woman.

The man took an undisclosed amount of cash and ran out of the bank into a nearby alley.

Ten minutes after the robbery, police arrived at the Langley home and heard loud yelling - apparently an argument between a man and a woman inside the home. Moments later, a naked man crashed through a second-storey window and landed on the ground. He was bleeding from a chest wound.

Thiessen would not confirm Wednesday that the robber was the same man but said "there's evidence to support that (the incident at the home) is associated with the robbery."

Medical personnel were called to the scene and the man was taken to hospital, but later died.

No charges have been laid against the woman in the house.

Postal worker Bill Kilsby said he was delivering mail when he saw police cars racing towards the Langley home.

"We saw a man walk out naked and bloody," said Kilsby.

"He appeared to be in his own little world," he said.

The investigation into the man's death is being handled by the RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team with officers from the Vancouver Police overseeing their investigation.

Meanwhile, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP in Ottawa has dispatched an observer to monitor the investigation to ensure its impartiality.

Commission spokesman Nelson Kalid said Wednesday his agency had not received a complaint about Langley RCMP's handling of the incident, but the commission is conducting a pilot project in B.C. in which RCMP investigations of its own members are monitored by an outside civilian agency.

"We began the project . . . in March last year and have assigned observers to a number of Taser incidents including the one involving Robert Dziekanski," said Kalid.

Dziekanski died after being Tasered by RCMP officers Oct. 14, 2007 at the Vancouver International Airport - an event that has led to a provincial inquiry into Taser use by former B.C. Court of Appeal justice Thomas Braidwood.

The first phase of the inquiry has finished but a second phase is being delayed until the Crown counsel's office decides whether to press charges against the officers involved.

Kalid said the commission's observer won't have any part in the actual investigation into the Langley man's death but will assess the impartiality of the police in their handling of it and will produce a report that will be made public.

© Langley Advance, Vancouver Sun 2008