HALIFAX — Criminologists say the deaths of two men in Halifax after they were Tasered by police officers are a reminder that conducted energy weapons can be lethal and that police are rarely the appropriate people to respond to mental health crises.
The two men died in police custody in the span of less than one week.
A 25-year-old man died in Halifax on Feb. 22, after police found him “experiencing a mental health crisis,” and Tasered him when he allegedly became aggressive. Six days later, police say a 37-year-old man who was having a “mental health episode” and became aggressive with officers also died in custody after he was Tasered.
Nova Scotia's police watchdog is investigating both incidents.
Temitope Oriola, a criminology and sociology professor at the University of Alberta who has studied police use of conducted energy weapons, said these two fatalities should make Halifax city officials reconsider having police respond to people in mental health distress.
"If we continue to deploy the police as the answer to all things, there will be instances such as this where they don't necessarily get it right, where there are pre-existing (health) variables that could interact with the admission of 50,000 volts of electricity," Oriola said in a recent interview.
A spokesperson for the Halifax Regional Police confirmed the Tasers their officers use emit charges of 50,000 volts.
Police are not adequately trained to de-escalate mental health crisis situations, Oriola said, and there’s no way for officers to know if the electric shock that Tasers or stun guns emit may interact with an existing health condition and potentially kill someone.
"This is a clear indication that we ought to rethink our approach and question if our police officers are the most appropriate individuals to respond in cases when an individual is evidently experiencing mental health issues," Oriola said.
Marcus Sibley, an assistant criminology professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, agrees and said research indicates that police officers use force more often on people in mental health crises than on people who are not in mental distress.
"Tasers are deployed disproportionately in mental health cases … and they're also disproportionately used against racialized people," he said in an interview Tuesday.
Sibley said Canadian police agencies use conducted energy weapons as a "less lethal" option in their tool kit when dealing with people that they consider to be a threat.
"Police will perceive that the civilian is exemplifying erratic behaviour, or aggressive behaviour, therefore, in their mind, constructing this person as a potential risk to them or the public. And that's when Tasers get deployed," he said.
In a statement, Const. Martin Cromwell with Halifax police said cadets receive two days of training on conducted energy weapons "as part of their use of force curriculum." After they are certified to use these weapons, officers "receive annual re-certification, which includes both theory and reality-based scenario training."
Cromwell said police partner with the Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team, an initiative with Nova Scotia Health and the IWK Health Centre, "that pairs a police officer with a mental health clinician to proactively address mental health issues in the community as an early intervention."
"We recognize there is more work to do, and we look forward to further discussions," he added.
Nova Scotia Justice Minister Becky Druhan said she could not comment on the specifics of the two deaths because the investigation by the police oversight agency is ongoing, but said “any death in custody is a real tragedy, and my sympathies go out to the families.”
Druhan said she looks forward to learning details from the police watchdog's investigation, but noted that her department has already put forward new policing standards that include guidelines on the use of Tasers.
When asked if she’s concerned that these standards may not have been met in the case of the two deaths, Druhan declined to comment. “I wouldn’t want to speculate on these two individual cases, because truly nobody knows what the circumstances are that led to these situations,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
Through Sibley's research and many conversations with Canadian police, the professor said many officers said they do not feel equipped to respond to mental health crises. "They don't get all the specialized training that nurses or social workers might get," he added.
Oriola said across Canada there have been multiple attempts to create non-police agencies, composed of social workers or mental health outreach workers, to respond to mental health calls. The problem, he said, is that those programs never last.
"It appears that within a few months of them being announced, we go back to the status quo," he said, adding that the short-lived nature of the programs make it difficult for researchers to study whether they work to reduce deaths.
"We go back to, again, the deployment of front-line (police) officers to deal with these types of issues. These are disasters waiting to happen," Oriola said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 5, 2025.
Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press
