[news] Man with mental illness pepper-sprayed to death in Toronto

[ron]

Pepper spraying revisited

Feb. 18, 2004. 01:00 AM
Toronto Star
JOE FIORITO

Naked, surrounded, pepper-sprayed, dead. The details of the death of 
Robert Walker made the psych survivors wince. This happened to him. It 
could happen to us.

"How many police?"

"Ten."

"Oh."

A derisive "Oh!" The details of what happened are unclear, but there 
were 10 police and there was one angry naked man. "Oh!" said the psych 
survivors.

They were talking about the death of Robert Walker yesterday afternoon 
at PARC, the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre, a bright, 
multi-purpose drop-in on Queen St. a couple of blocks west of Lansdowne.

A tall man spoke up from under his hoodie. He said, "That person could 
still be alive today." Someone added, "If we have 10 police who cannot 
arrest one person without the use of pepper spray, then they should not 
be on the job." And someone else said, "We have people who get upset 
around here. We don't shout at them. We don't surround them with 10 
staff. If we can do it, why can't they?"

Why, indeed?

There had been complaints. Police came early Monday morning. They found 
Walker in the middle of Woodbine Ave. near Queen St. E. They surrounded 
him and they waited. There was shouting. And then they pepper-sprayed 
him and they put him in an ambulance. Walker was dead on arrival at St. 
Michael's Hospital. The Special Investigations Unit, which looks into 
incidents involving police, is investigating. Dr. Jim Cairns, deputy 
chief coroner of Ontario, said there will be an inquest, since Walker 
died in custody.

When PARC closed for the afternoon, Terence and George and Glenn walked 
down the street to a nearby coffee shop. They did not know Robert Walker 
but they had much more to say.

Terence: "I know what it's like to be pepper-sprayed. It happened a 
couple of years ago. I was staying on the street in those days. I was 
trying to get into a hostel. I couldn't get in. I got somewhat angry. I 
was upset. It was quite horrible. They sprayed me from three feet away. 
My eyes began to burn. They took me to the hospital to get it washed 
away." He said, "It would have helped if they had talked to me."

Glenn: "I was shocked when I heard the news. It seems every time I show 
up, I hear about someone dying."

George: "I've never been mistreated by the police, thank God. You need 
to know how to restrain properly. I think the police don't give a damn 
about people on the street."

Terence: "Most people in society have a warped view. When something like 
this happens there's a lot of publicity. But most people with disorders 
have not committed violence."

Most have not.

Most people who have survived the psychiatric system also know they are 
viewed with suspicion by the rest of society. George took a moment and 
drew a circle on the table with his forefinger. "Here's the circle. All 
of the psych survivors are in it. We have to get out of the circle." He 
continued. "A lot of survivors are on medication. Their voices are loud 
but their bodies are weak. It wouldn't take much to restrain them. "

All three men are quite familiar with medication. They know it makes 
them weak. They also know it can affect their behaviour in unpleasant or 
unpredictable ways.

George: "If someone does something wrong, is that the person or is it 
the medication? Even suicide can be caused by medication. If medication 
is supposed to help a person, why do they have to restrain a person 
after he'd had medication?"

Glenn: "Surround him. Don't touch him. He'll get cold."

Oh.

At one o'clock in the morning, on a cold night in February, how long do 
you think it would take for a naked man to stop being upset and to start 
shivering in earnest? Lay off the pepper spray. What's a few more 
minutes? Where's the harm?

Terence: "I know that area where it happened. I grew up there. It gets 
quiet late at night. It was cold. There were a lot of police. Keep an 
eye on him. Let him run. He'll get tired."

George: "This is part of what I'm talking about. Why didn't they wait? 
That's one of the tools. There should be more training, better training. 
If the police could learn to see the person as a person..."

Terence: "A lot of mental health has got to do with poverty. People end 
up in bad conditions...disability pensions haven't gone up in 10 years. 
You aren't housed or clothed properly, you have no money for food."

Glenn: "I'm moving pretty soon. Right now I have a room with a shared 
bathroom and a shared kitchen. It costs me $400 a month. The other guy 
drinks and smokes, it's not my kind of environment."

George: "I know a guy who was living in a shelter. It wasn't good for 
him. He had to spend three months in a psychiatric hospital. When they 
let him out, he went right back to the place that caused the problem. 
Peace of mind is part of it. Everybody needs peace of mind."

And if these three men could speak directly to the chief of police — 
they think the position should be elected, by the way — this is what 
they would say:

George: "You are facing a human being. The first thing you have to think 
about is, you are facing a human being."

Glenn: "Show restraint. Think about what you are doing. Put yourself in 
that person's shoes and act accordingly."

Terence: "Life is sacred. I would say that to the chief of police and 
everyone in the police force. Even if we don't have very much, we are 
people, too. Life is sacred."

Tell it to the cops.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Pepper-sprayed man dies
Melee breaks out on east-end street
But neighbours praise police `restraint'

Feb. 17, 2004. 06:26 AM
Toronto Star
PETER EDWARDS AND SCOTT SIMMIE
STAFF REPORTERS

An emotionally distressed, naked man who lunged out at police officers 
in the middle of an east-end Toronto street died early yesterday morning 
after he was subdued and put in an ambulance.

Witnesses said a blast of pepper spray did nothing to halt Robert 
Walker, 41, who was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at St. 
Michael's Hospital.

"It didn't really seem to affect the man at all," said neighbour Priya 
Glassey, who watched the confrontation from inside her home.

"He just kept going."

Walker repeatedly lunged at police, and he appeared to have something in 
his hand, Glassey said.

The incident is being probed by the provincial Special Investigations 
Unit, which investigates any injury, death, or allegation of sexual 
assault that occurs during police operations.

Police said that at 12:23 a.m. yesterday, officers responded to a 
disturbance call on Woodbine Ave., near Queen St. E.

Witnesses said Walker ran into the street naked and that police showed 
"incredible restraint," as 10 or more officers surrounded him and 
attempted to coax him into an ambulance.

"They were shouting at him to get down," Glassey said. "They tried to 
surround him and he kept lunging at police. He wouldn't stop. The police 
were incredibly restrained."

Police eventually gained control and placed Walker in an ambulance.

Paramedics were transporting Walker to hospital when he went into 
medical distress. He was pronounced dead at St. Michael's Hospital.

Glassey and other neighbourhood residents said police did not strike the 
man during the altercation, which neighbours said lasted at least 15 
minutes.

"I didn't see them hit him — not once," she said.

Scott Gottfried, 28, a sheet metal worker who lived in the same house as 
Walker, also watched the early-morning confrontation.

"If I thought they (police) were being rough I would have said so," 
Gottfried said. "I thought they were doing a good job. The police were 
being very respectful."

"They certainly weren't very aggressive," said another neighbour who 
watched police try to coax the man into the ambulance.

"They tried to talk him into it. He was kicking and flailing around. I 
think they tried their best ... I didn't see them get rough or anything."

Walker, who worked as an unlicensed auto mechanic, had a history of 
violence in the boarding house, Gottfried said.

Gottfried said he was watching television shortly after midnight when he 
heard a violent outburst from the man's room. Then there was a crashing 
down the stairs.

Gottfried said he thought Walker was alone at the time.

The province's SIU has seven officers — including two forensic experts — 
probing the case, spokesperson Rose Hung said.

A post mortem was to be conducted yesterday.

When attempting to apprehend someone under the Mental Health Act who has 
a history of violence, police protocol is to notify the Emergency Task 
Force.

There is also a Mobile Crisis Intervention Team in Toronto that pairs a 
police officer with a mental health professional.

But the team responds only after the first officers at the scene have 
deemed the situation safe and ensured that no weapons are involved.

It is unlikely the team, which operates from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. in a 
different part of the city, would have been asked to attend this situation.

Toronto police officers do not carry Taser stun guns, which immobilize 
targets with a jolt of electricity, although they are available to 
members of the Emergency Task Force.

Most frontline officers in Toronto carry small 55-gram cans of pepper 
spray on their belts.

The spray was hailed as a humane alternative to batons when it was 
introduced into Toronto police cruisers in the early 1990s.

Although a Toronto Police Service report called Less-Lethal Force 
Technology says the spray is effective 92 per cent of the time, there 
are cases in which it just doesn't seem to work. These include people 
with high pain thresholds and those in emotional distress or psychosis.

Last year, Toronto police used pepper spray 25 times in situations where 
the person was emotionally disturbed. In eight of those cases it was 
ineffective.

Three Ontario residents died in a 16-month period in the mid-1990s after 
police used pepper spray as a restraint.

Dr. James Young, Ontario's chief coroner at the time, reviewed several 
cases and concluded that most died of heart attacks linked to a 
condition called excited delirium, which can be triggered by psychiatric 
disorders or by drugs such as cocaine.

Pepper spray, a derivative of the cayenne pepper plant, causes a 
reaction when it comes into contact with mucous membranes.

Reactions can include "severe burning, involuntary spasmodic 
contractions of the eyes, bronchial spasms, gasping for breath, gagging, 
intense burning of the contaminated skin, and in some individuals nausea 
may occur...," according to the Toronto police report.

"Most subjects report that the initial shock of the oleoresin capsicum 
is so intense that their eyes slam shut, and their hands reflexively and 
immediately cover their faces."

In 2000, New York's Civilian Complaint Review board, which reviews 
complaints against police, examined available literature on pepper spray 
after concerns were raised about its use on emotionally disturbed persons.

It concluded that "until further scientific research has been conducted, 
the CCRB recommends that the NYPD restrict the use of pepper spray 
against emotionally disturbed persons wherever possible."

A coroner's jury listed a number of factors, including the use of pepper 
spray, for the death of Whitby Mental Health Centre patient Zdravko 
Pukec, 26, in September 1995, ruling the blind patient, who suffered 
from schizophrenia, died of cardiac arrest "associated with acute 
psychosis, physical restraint, positional asphyxia, exhaustion and 
stress due to pepper spray."