Greater Sudbury police used conducted energy weapons 29 times in 2022.
These weapons are the same as the one used by police in Chelmsford on Tuesday before a 46-year-old man died in police custody.
Perhaps best known by the brand name Taser, or its “stun gun” nickname, conducted energy weapons (CEW) are either fired (a pair of metal darts are shot into the person) or used in a drive stun (the device is pressed directly on a person).
The weapons are used to dispense an electrical charge intended to induce pain and immobilize/incapacitate a person.
The 29-use count in 2022 is a jump from the previous year, when Greater Sudbury police used conducted energy weapons 17 times.
There was a total of 128 use-of-force incidents in 2022, which was a 34.7-per-cent jump from the previous year.
In 2022, conducted energy weapons were taken out but not used 62 times, and they were taken out and not used 50 times in 2021.
Greater Sudbury Police Service spokesperson Kaitlyn Dunn declined to share 2023 statistics with Sudbury.com.
“We are required by legislation to publicly provide an annual use of force report through our Police Services Board,” she wrote.
“The report compiled by our Training Section provides a thorough and in-depth analysis of the information. This occurs in February or March of each year and will once again be provided at that time.”
She also declined to share whether the patrol officer who used the conducted energy weapon on the 46-year-old man on Tuesday is still on active duty, as Greater Sudbury Police “are prohibited from providing further information related to the incident as it is under investigation by the SIU (Special Investigations Unit).”
The only details released by the SIU regarding the incident to date include:
- Police received a domestic disturbance-related call at a residence on Keith Avenue in Chelmsford at approximately 10:50 a.m. on Jan. 2.
- Police located a man, and used a conducted energy weapon during his arrest. The man then went into cardiac arrest.
- Officers provided emergency care and called paramedics.
- The man was pronounced deceased at the scene.
When it comes to conducted energy weapons, Dunn said Greater Sudbury Police follow Ontario Use of Force Standards, which intends for them to be used when:
- An officer believes a subject is threatening or displaying assaultive behaviour, or, when taking into account the totality of the circumstances, the officer believes there is an imminent need for control of a subject
- The officer believes it is reasonably necessary to use a conducted energy weapon, which may involve consideration of the following factors:
- Whether efforts to de-escalate the situation have been effective
- Whether verbal commands are not practical or are not being followed
- The risk of secondary injury
- The conducted energy weapon’s capabilities in relation to the context of the environment
It’s not very clear how common conducted energy weapon-related deaths are.
“To date at least 33 deaths have been proximal to CEW use in Canada, but were not necessarily results of CEW deployment,” a 2013 report by the Council of Canadian Academies & the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences reads.
Sudbury.com reached out to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director for the latest statistics regarding deaths related to conducted energy weapons, but they said they do not collect this data.
A Tribunals Ontario spokesperson told Sudbury.com they do not collect this data either.
A Special Investigations Unit spokesperson told Sudbury.com they didn’t have this data, either, deferring to the Office of the Chief Coroner, who deferred back around to the Special Investigations Unit, but pledged to keep looking into it. Sudbury.com will update this story in the event the Office of the Chief Coroner sends additional context.
The crowd-sourced website, trackinginjustice.ca, keeps track of police-involved deaths and deaths in custody across Canada, noting, “there is no publicly available, verified, sustained, and comprehensive source for this information.”
They record 758 instances in Canada of police-involved deaths wherein force was used since 2000, of which 40 involved a conducted energy weapon as the highest level of force. Ontario led the pack among Canadian provinces and territories at 14 deaths, not including Tuesday’s incident in Chelmsford.
Included in the list was a Feb. 22, 2018, case in North Bay where police responded to a domestic disturbance call.
A conducted energy weapon was used by police, after which an ambulance was called when the man appeared in medical distress.
Gordon Dale Couvrette, 43, was taken to the North Bay Regional Health Centre where he was pronounced dead.
An inquest jury later ruled Couvrette’s death was an accident. During the inquest, the conducted energy weapon was ruled out as a contributing factor in his death.
The weapon was deployed for 11 seconds, but reportedly did not successfully attach to Couvrette’s body to complete the electrical circuit.
A Jan. 23, 2021, incident in Sault Ste. Marie was also included in the trackinginjustice.ca list. In this case, police used a conducted energy weapon on a 30-year-old man, who proceeded to pull a knife out of his pocket and slit his own throat, according to the SIU investigation’s findings. The pathologist at autopsy concluded his cause of death was the stab wound to his neck.
The Council of Canadian Academies & the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences’ 2013 report notes that conducted energy weapons deliver short-duration electrical discharges, which are highly effective in stimulating nerves, causing incapacitation and pain, but are much less effective in stimulating the heart muscle, which means they’re less likely to cause fatal disruptions to the heart’s rhythm and pumping ability.
“Sudden in-custody death resulting from a use-of-force event typically involves a complicated scenario that includes multiple factors, all of which can potentially contribute to a sudden unexpected death,” according to the report.
“This makes it difficult to isolate the contribution of any single factor. Although the electrical characteristics of CEWs can potentially contribute to sudden in-custody death, given the limited evidence, CEW exposure cannot be confirmed or excluded as the primary cause of a fatality in most real-world settings.”
Although the SIU has indicated that the man in Chelmsford on Jan. 2 suffered cardiac arrest after police used a conducted energy weapon on him, his exact cause of death has not yet been determined. The SIU investigation is ongoing.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
