Tasering of 80-year-old woman does not instill confidence in Ontario’s new stun-gun policy

Just one day after the Province of Ontario approved the use of Tasers for all front-line police officers, an 80-year-old woman was shot with a conducted energy device in the streets of Mississauga, falling to the ground an fracturing her hip.

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has confirmed they are investigating the Aug. 28 incident, in which the woman was walking in the Thomas Street and Erin Mills Parkway area at about 3:30 a.m. when she was approached by three Peel Regional Police officers.

There has been some question about the woman's mental state at the time of the incident, although the issue was not addressed in a statement from the SIU.

"Officers spoke with the 80-year-old woman. At some point, an officer deployed his conducted energy weapon," spokesperson Monica Hudon said in an email. "The woman fell to the ground and was taken to Credit Valley Hospital for treatment of injuries, including a fractured hip."

[ Related: Ontario woman, 80, suffers fractured hip after being Tasered ]

The result could have been worse, although it was pretty bad. No one was stabbed or shot, bless small miracles, and the SIU investigation will determine what led to the use of the controversial Taser.

The timing, however, is as bad as it gets.

The Aug. 28 incident came just one day after Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur announced that rules limiting Tasers to members of tactical units and hostage rescue teams would be relaxed, leaving it up to local agencies to decide for themselves how to deploy the devices.

It also comes just over a month after 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was killed by multiple gunshot wounds during a standoff with police while alone on a Toronto streetcar.

The case led to intense debate over how Ontario police handle situations involving citizens in weakened mental states. (The Ontario ombudsman is also probing de-escalation tactics used by provincial police.)

[ More Brew: Ontario’s front-line officers permitted to carry Tasers ]

The Canadian Medical Health Association and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association each have voiced concerns about how the Taser will be used once it becomes more prevalent among front-line officers.

The devices are said to be less lethal when used on healthy adults, but the CMHA says more testing must be done on vulnerable citizens, such as those suffering from mental illness and the elderly.

Tasers are intended to be a second-last resort, to be deployed rather than handguns when a situation calls for immediate intervention. We won’t know what prompted the use of a Taser until the end of the investigation.

Perhaps an officer was in immediate danger, perhaps all attempts to de-escalate the situation had fallen flat. But the idea of an 80-year-old woman Tasered amid a standoff with three officers, doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in the province’s new plan.

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