Ottawa police asking to lease 400 Tasers as part of force-wide rollout

Ottawa police are set to roll out 400 more Tasers to officers, pending approval from the police board.

The force is asking the board to approve the leasing of the conducted energy weapons in a five-year contract with M.D. Charlton Co. Ltd. for a total cost of $1.4 million dollars, according to a report to the board.

In 2018, the police board approved a three-year plan to get Tasers onto the duty belts of all police officers. The plan called for training and equipping about 800 officers in 2018 and 2019 and 250 in 2020. The service says that at that point, all existing officers will have been trained and equipped and what will be left for the service to do on an ongoing basis is make sure any new police officers are trained and given the tool as part of their initial police training.

Last year, 400 Tasers were purchased for frontline officers and others. This year’s leased batch would go toward those in training and development, all criminal investigators and the 30 new officers expected to be hired as part of the 2019 police budget. The force currently owns 630 conducted energy weapons.

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