For the first time in Winnipeg's history, a person has died after being Tasered by a city police officer.
VIDEO: Police investigate at the scene
Police respond to incident near Arlington street and William avenue.
Police were called to an address in the 800 block of Arlington Street at 3:50 p.m. Tuesday after receiving a request from a citizen for assistance, a police spokeswoman said.
Const. Jacqueline Chaput said patrol officers confronted a man at the scene and used their Tasers to subdue him. He was rushed to the nearby Health Sciences Centre where he died, she said.
The official cause of the man's death has not been confirmed.
Little is known about the victim as police have not identified him.
Chaput, facing reporters at the scene, said it appeared the man was in his 20s, but police were waiting on confirmation from identification investigators before officially releasing his age.
Investigators were focusing their attention on the backyard of a home located at 871 William Ave.
The investigation has been turned over to homicide detectives, Chaput said.
Following that, the investigation will be turned over to an outside police agency for review, which will then forward their findings to the provincial attorney general's office.
A mandatory inquest into the man's death will then take place.
"That will be the end result, but there's a lot of investigating to do before we get to that point," Chaput said.
Police had little information about why officers used their Tasers on the suspect, but said internal use-of-force policy determines the scenarios in which Taser use is appropriate.
Police couldn't say if the suspect was Tasered in the process of committing an offense -- but a police source said the man threatened officers with a knife causing police to use a stun gun to subdue him.
"There has to be a specific set of circumstances surrounding the use of (an officer's) electronic control device," Chaput said.
A witness living near the scene said he could see police trying to revive the man before paramedics arrived.
Another indicated that efforts to save his life continued after medics got there.
Leoniza Duplon, who lives three houses east of the scene at 861 William Ave. said she ran to the end of her back lane driveway when she heard police sirens.
"There was a man with no shirt on, just pants. The paramedics were pumping his chest," she said.
Use of force policy dictates that officers are not allowed to remove the electrodes from a suspect after they come in contact with a suspect, but must wait for paramedics to do so.
After receiving 50 additional Tasers this year, police have an inventory of 150 of the devices. All front-line officers carry one, Chaput said. City police have used them since September 2006.
The weapons are classified as an "intermediate" use-of-force option for officers, meaning they fall into the same category as pepper spray or batons.
In early March, Police Chief Keith McCaskill said he was satisfied that the WPS policies and training on Tasers was appropriate, and that data showed officers didn't use the weapons indiscriminately.
In a recent report, police indicated they used Tasers 173 times in 2007. This total includes times the weapons were used as a coercive device and not fired. Each Taser keeps an unalterable electronic record of when it is used.
Currently, the professional standards unit is conducting an investigation into officer conduct after doughnut shop employee Andrew Harvey was photographed posing with one of the weapons outside a Tim Hortons store.
Harvey posted the photos on social networking site Facebook which were forwarded to the Free Press. While no wrongdoing has been found yet by police, the officer(s) responsible could face criminal weapons-related charges.
Taser use by police in Canada has been under intense scrutiny following the death of 40-year-old Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who was shocked by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport last October.
In late June, the RCMP said it would restrict Taser firings in the face of public pressure to rein in "usage creep" of the immobilizing devices.
A Canadian Press/CBC Radio Canada investigation of more than 3,200 Taser firings in the last six years shows that officers shot the weapon multiple times in almost half the cases -- a pattern that continued despite a 2005 RCMP directive warning that numerous zaps could be hazardous.
The analysis also revealed nearly a third of people hit with Tasers needed medical treatment afterwards.
Winnipeg police said they will release more details about the William Avenue incident Wednesday.
james.turner@freepress.mb.ca
- with files from Paul Gackle and CP
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