Police Tase Eldery Kamloops Man Three Times

This one just has me boiling. On Saturday Frank Lasser, an eighty-two year old man who was lying in a bed in the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops with an oxygen/breathing apparatus, was tased by the RCMP because he was supposedly delirious and wielding a "three inch pocket knife." This on it's own is bad, but is unfortunately rather usual given the culture of systematic police brutality. Today, more details emerged. It turns out that police tased this elderly man three times. According to Lasser's account to the CBC, as soon as the three RCMP officers arrived, he was immediately tased because the police had "more important work to do on the street" that night.

This is absolutely outrageous. First off, this guy was 82 and in the hospital after having had a heart bypass. And yet the RCMP is asserting that he posed a deadly threat to the lives of the officers, no different than a 20 year old man. Somehow, I think an 82 year-old in a hospital for heart surgery is going to lack the strength to overcome three RCMP officers and then do any kind of damage with a blade of what sounds like a Swiss Army knife. What is the RCMP teaching its officers these days? Are they not teaching them how to use intermediate levels of force or non-violent conflict resolution? Lasser is a former prison guard and has asserted that three officers could easily overcome a person of his age and in his condition. I'm inclined to agree, and it seems only logical to believe. That they didn't speaks to a culture of violence in the RCMP.

Not only was he tased, but he was tased three times. Imagine the damage that three shocks of 50 000 volts can do to a person. Even if one shock was possibly called for, there is absolutely no way that three shocks would be justified. What if Lasser hadn't had his heart bypass yet? He would probably have entered cardiac arrest and possibly died. The police have become lethal weapons in their own right.

Once again, I call for proper civilian oversight of the police. Oversight that isn't afraid to call a spade a spade or to come down on officers who betray the trust placed in them by society. Lets bring democracy to the police. It can be done if the will of the people is strong enough and clear enough. Don't let the naysayers and the authoritarians tell you no, that the police are just fine as they are. Don't let them tell you it's too hard, or not worth the fight. Don't let them tell you it can't be done.

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