A Prince George RCMP member was found not guilty Wednesday of assault with a weapon for using a Taser on a resident following an outburst at a social housing complex.
In reaching his decision, provincial court judge Brian Daley noted that while Cst. Chad Fitzpatrick cycled the Taser three times in a span of about 36 seconds to subdue the man, he "used the least amount of force to neutralize a high-risk threat."
Fitzpatrick and two other members were called to the Spruce Capital seniors housing complex on the night of Nov. 17, 2010 to deal with Kevin Blanche, then 55 years old.
Blanche was upset because he was late for dinner and missed out on the prawns that were being served.
After hollering and smashing a clock against a door jam next to two elderly residents in the dining area, a staff member ordered him to stop and warned that police would be called. Blanche continued to swear, threaten and yell but eventually retreated to his second-floor apartment.
A supervisor was called to the complex and he arrived in minutes.
A check of Blanche's file confirmed he was not being prescribed drugs to deal with anxiety although it was recalled that he was prone to seizures. The supervisor then went to his apartment to tell him his behaviour was inappropriate.
Blanche remained agitated and refused to open his door. The supervisor used a key to enter his room and tried to calm Blanche down but also told him there could be consequences for his actions.
Blanche backed up to a drawer in the kitchen area of his apartment with his hands behind his back and then went towards the supervisor, pushed him in the shoulder and forced him back. The supervisor then saw a bread knife with an eight-to-10-inch blade in Blanche's hand.
Blanche said "we're all going down," and the supervisor backed out of the apartment then held the doorknob to keep Blanche inside. The staff member called 911 and Fitzpatrick and two other RCMP members arrived in about three minutes.
They had responded to a "tone alarm," used to notify RCMP of a high-risk situation such as a robbery in progress or an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death and requiring all available members to respond immediately.
Concerned there may be another person in the apartment, the three entered after agreeing that because he was trained in its use, Fitzpatrick should deploy his Taser while the other two would draw their guns and provide "lethal overwatch."
After calling for him two or three times, Blanche finally replied in an agitated voice that he was in the kitchen. Blanche was ordered to step out towards the red dot - the end point of the laser light from the Taser - and Blanche complied although still agitated, with his hands open and faced towards the members.
He was then ordered to kneel down and put his hands in the air and told he was under arrest for assault. They remained worried he was hiding a weapon in his sweater or in his waist band and when ordered to stop, Blanche instead continued to move forward and then put his hands either in his pockets or behind him.
Blanche then turned his back towards the members and kept his hands hidden from them while moving away from the members. He then turned towards the members, with his hands still hidden, and then lunged towards the three.
Fitzpatrick then fired his Taser and although the prongs struck Blanche, it had only a partial effect, possibly because of the sweater he was wearing. He stopped moving towards the three and instead retreated and the Taser was cycled a second time.
Blanche dropped face down to the floor but an attempt to get hold of Blanche's arms was not executed properly and he continued to wrestle with one of the members straddling him. The Taser was cycled a third time, Blanche stopped moving, his body went rigid and he was handcuffed.
During the trial, the court heard that Taser deployments are ineffective 15-20 per cent of the time.
Blanche remained cooperative as he was taken out to a police car but he went into a seizure, trembling uncontrollably while lying across the back seat. Ambulance personnel were called in but Blanche refused to be taken to hospital until told he would be arrested under the Mental Health Act and taken there anyway.
Supported in part by testimony from an expert witness on police procedure, Crown prosecutor Jennifer Johnston had argued they had no need to enter the apartment so quickly and only escalated the situation by doing so.
They lacked reasonable grounds to believe another person was in Blanche's apartment, failed to check to see if Blanche had a criminal record or history with police and noted he was no longer so noisy after some time in the apartment, Johnston argued.
However, Daley questioned whether such information would have made a difference to their decisions.
Johnston also argued the police failed to confirm whether Blanche had suffered from the brain injury that made him prone to seizures, but Daley noted people with brain injuries often pose a bigger challenge to police.
