Victoria's taser use 3.8x Toronto's

Toronto: "Last year [2007], according to Toronto Police, local cops deployed Tasers 404 times and fired the weapon 187 times." [LINK]

Victoria: "An analysis of 183 Victoria police incident reports from 2005 to 2007 [assume three years] revealed the device was used in push-stun in 57 per cent of all cases where police activated their Tasers." [LINK] I will assume that Victoria 'deployed' (but may not have fired) their tasers 183 times in three years, or 61 times per year.

Population:
Toronto: 2,500,000 (at least) [LINK]
City of Victoria and Esquimalt: 100,000 (tops) [LINK]

Note - I'm being very generous towards Victoria with the above input data. I went with the lowest population number I could find for Toronto, and the highest stretch for Victoria.

Taser incident rates (includes non-firing incidents):
Toronto, ON: 404/2,500,000 = 16 per 100K population, per year
Victoria, BC: 61/100,000 = 61 per 100K population, per year

Victoria is 3.8 times higher than Toronto.


Let's try it again by police officer count.

Toronto: 5,710 uniformed officers [LINK]
Victoria: 222 police officers [LINK]

Taser incident rates:
Toronto, ON: 404/5710 = 7 per 100 officers, per year
Victoria, BC: (183/3)/222 = 27 per 100 officers, per year

Victoria is 3.8 times higher than Toronto (again).


I guess Victoria really is a very dangerous city, what with all those elderly folks lawn bowling all morning and having tea every afternoon. Those retired folks sure are a rambunctious lot.

"HEY YOU! Drop that bocce ball now."