Family of Alberta man who died after stun gun shocks files lawsuit
The family of a Red Deer man who died after police shocked him several times with a stun gun has filed a wrongful death lawsuit worth $1.7 million.
The suit alleges negligence by the U.S.-based stun gun company Taser, the RCMP, three RCMP officers, the local health region, a civilian who allegedly helped police, a hospital, two doctors and two paramedics.
Allegations in the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 26 with the Court of Queen's Bench in Red Deer, have not been proven in court and no statement of defence has been filed.
The family of Jason Doan, a 28-year-old pipeline worker, believes RCMP officers used excessive force to subdue him on Aug. 10, 2006, in a park in the central Alberta city.
Will Willier, the Doan family lawyer, said Thursday that the lawsuit lists several defendants because there were so many areas where mistakes were made.
"What you have at the end of it is you have someone who was Tasered, who lost consciousness, who never regained consciousness and somebody who has a four-year-old daughter."
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Doan's daughter, his sister Surya and his parents Wayne and Marlene.
Willier said a provincial public inquiry, scheduled for December, will precede the lawsuit, but isn't meant to assign blame or liability.
Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser International, told the Globe and Mail that the company not only stands behind its product's safety, but that 74 past product-liability cases have been dismissed or decided in the company's favour.
Doan smashing car windows
Internal RCMP reports obtained by CBC News offer some details of what allegedly happened the day Doan was shot with a stun gun.
Police claim Doan was smashing car windows and wielding the broken end of a shovel, so officers chased and brought him to the ground, then shocked him with one of the controversial stun guns.
"His left arm was already in a handcuff and three officers were over him at this point," his sister Surya, who spoke to police and eyewitnesses herself, told CBC in April. "They administered a five-second stun mode to him. They said at that point, he was continuing to struggle so they administered another five-second, 50,000 volts."
Police stunned him a third time because they said he was still fighting back.
"They turned him over to put his handcuff on him in the front and he was blue. His face was blue," said his sister.
Doan was unconscious and his heart had stopped. Police resuscitated him, but he died three weeks later of heart failure.
Internal reports indicate that police suspected Doan, who had no criminal record, was using cocaine and alcohol when officers confronted him, but a toxicology report found otherwise. The medical examiner listed three factors on the death certificate: excited delirium, heart failure and undetermined causes. No drugs or alcohol were found in Doan's system.
In April, the RCMP said it couldn't comment on what happened to Doan, but did say it welcomed the inquiry.