According to CBC News, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), responded to a call at the Royal Inland Hospital after a delirious patient pulled a knife on a nurse. The man was back in bed when the RCMP arrived and they tasered him in his bed.
"I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, 'OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,'" Lasser said.
"And then, bang, bang, bang, three times with the laser, and I tell you, I never want that again."
He was in his bed still holding the knife and he says he cannot explain why he refused to let go of the knife after the authorities arrived.
Cpl. Scott Wilson of the Kamloops RCMP told CBC News that despite there being three officers in the room, they had no option but to taser Lasser, saying, "Whether the person is 80 or 20, we are dealing with a person who had a deadly weapon in their hand. We could not deploy our … pepper spray, because we could potentially contaminate the entire hospital."
Lasser, who is an ex-prison guard, believes that the three RCMP Mounties could have "easily" handled him without the taser and he asserts, "They could have gone in there and taken an old man without any trouble at all."
The man was armed, the man refused to drop the knife, the man was 82, in a hospital bed with pneumonia, so was it overkill or the police just doing their jobs?
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