Use of force incidents drop: police

October 17, 2008 Thana Dharmarajah
GUELPH

Early one morning, Guelph Police chased three men leaving a stolen vehicle on foot.

They followed one man into an alley where he hid against a wall in the darkness. One officer drew his Taser. The police found the man and told him to get on the ground.

When another officer moved to put handcuffs on the suspect, he noticed scissors in the man's pants pocket. Fearing for his safety, he stepped on the man's back and zapped the man in the back with the Taser before he could reach for the scissors.

Read on...

I have to confess I don't know if this is good or bad for a city of about 125,000. Guelph does have an overly active nightclub scene that floods the downtown with 6000 mostly drunken citizens every weekend night. But it is worth monitoring. Is seeing scissors in a pocket a good enough reason to taser someone? What do you think? Tom

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