Get Tasered For Avoiding Transit Fares

As ludicrous as it may sound, the next time you try to avoid paying for your ride on the Skytrain, you might get a shot from a taser. The police patrolling the public transit system in Metro Vancouver -- the only armed transit police in the country -- have been tasering passengers who try to avoid paying fares. It's not a common occurrence, to be sure, but it has been happening.

A recent report is saying that passengers have been hit with tasers 10 times in the last 18 months. We'd expect the transit police to use a taser during a potentially violent or life-threatening situation, but five of those occasions involved victims who were "accosted for riding free." Fare evasion.

In one incident, a non-paying passenger was tasered after he held onto a railing on the SkyTrain platform and refused to let go.
"After several warnings to the subject to stop resisting arrest and the subject failing to comply with the officers' commands, the taser was deployed and the subject was taken into control," said the report provided by TransLink, the region's transit authority.

Do you think this is going too far? What other measures should the transit police be taking instead?

Source: The Globe and Mail

( Add your comments )

Recent Entries:
· Celebration of Light Fireworks Makes Another Comeback
· Views of Vancouver: Point Atkinson Lighthouse
· Views of Vancouver: Yaletown

[ READER COMMENTS ]

Get Tasered For Avoiding Transit Fares

Add your comments...

We kindly ask that you keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Abusive or inappropriate comments or comments that are specifically promotional in nature may be removed.