Man dies after cops use stun gun twice

VANCOUVER: A man died on the weekend at Vancouver airport, Canada’s main Pacific hub, following a scuffle with federal police, authorities said on Monday.

Sergeant Pierre Lemaitre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said that they subdued a man in his late 30s or 40s with a taser and detained him for behaving wildly at about 1:30 am on Sunday in the arrivals area.  

He died shortly afterwards.  

“The man was throwing chairs, tipped over his own luggage cart. He also threw a computer off a desk, seemed to be sweating profusely, and was screaming in what sounded like an eastern European language," said Lemaitre.

“He received one pulse (from a taser) and fell to the ground, but was still kicking and flailing, so we gave him a second pulse and handcuffed him, then he slipped into unconsciousness and died while EMS (Emergency Medical Services) were attending to him,” he added.

Canadian police are baffled by the death. “In the past cases where individuals have died following the use of a Taser, what we’ve seen is they are usually due to a pre-existing medical condition or the use or abuse of drugs. The Tasers have not contributed to it,” said Lemaitre. 

Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward, who has studied incidents involving Tasers, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that 16 Canadians had died in the last five years after being hit by the 50,000-volt electrical charge the weapon generates.