ugh. with four RCMP officers and one apparently unarmed man, this does seem excessive. it is really too bad they didn't have a translator to help. that being said - i am not 100% against tasers being used. this past summer there was an incident with someone that i know who is mentally ill; he was having major paranoid delusions that the police [and everyone] were out to get him. when the police eventually had to be called because it was believed he could be a danger to himself and others, he thought they'd come to kill him, like his fears had been realized. at that point he was fighting, he thought, for his life. the police had to taser him three times to get him under control. although death is a possibility with tasers, i think the risk of death would have been much higher if they only had their guns and no alternative. as an aside, the CBC reported earlier this evening that 17 people have been killed by tasers in canada.