Sewell: Toronto cops have superior Taser protocols

From the point of view of the Toronto police service, 2008 was a successful year in the use of the Taser. According to a report by Chief Bill Blair to the March 30 meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board, officers used the Taser 367 times and no one suffered any injuries.

Was the high rate of police pay a reason for that success?

Data on pay was also before the same board meeting. About 7,600 civilians and uniformed officers are employed by the service, and last year 1,006 staff earned more than $100,000.

Some 400 of these individuals were in senior management positions that had a base pay over $100,000; the rest had base salaries under $100,000, but they went over the magic number with premium pay (for court appearances), overtime and call backs. Several constables with a normal base pay of less than $75,000 actually walked home with more than $140,000 when these extras are included.

And if one included “duty pay”—which is what officers get from working for others such as directing traffic around construction sites, guarding night clubs and so forth—the number earning over $100,000 would certainly be more than 1,500 employees.

This is a large number of employees receiving a lot of money, and it is escalating rapidly. In 2004, 250 police employees earned more than $100,000 a year; in 2006, 768. There hasn’t been a lot of inflation in the past five years, although salaries and extra pay have increased for police. Four years ago, about 3.5% of all uniformed and civilian staff earned more than $100,000. In 2008 that figure increased to more than 10%.

It’s hard to think of any other public organization where such a large percentage is paid so well.

And just to emphasize the point: the per capita cost of policing in Toronto is more than for any other big city in Canada—$334 per capita for Toronto, followed by $330 for Vancouver and $296 for Montreal.

But high pay is probably not the reason for zero injuries from Tasers in Toronto last year. If that connection held, then we could solve the RCMP’s Taser use problem with money.

Toronto’s record of no injuries can probably be related to two other factors. One is that in Toronto, rank-and-file officers are not permitted to use a Taser. In Toronto only officers in a supervisory capacity, and members of the Emergency Task Force, can use Tasers.

This means Tasers are in the hands of experienced and responsible officers. In all probability this means that restraint is more likely the first response of the officer involved.

Second, the rule in Toronto is that a Taser can only be used “to gain control of a subject who is assaultive as defined in the Criminal Code (this includes threatening behaviour if an officer believes the subject intends and has the ability to carry out the threat) or where the subject presents an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death, which includes suicide threats or attempts. Therefore, the device is used strictly to gain control of a subject who is at risk of causing harm, not to secure compliance of a subject who is merely resistant.”

The new RCMP policy, by way of contrast, is that Tasers “must only be used where it is necessary to do so in circumstances of threats to officer or public safety.” Sounds pretty broad to me.

Officers in Toronto have been assigned 454 Tasers. One can only hope the Taser luck holds up in our city. Individual actions often trump the best of policies.