Quilem Registre Taser incident

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Quilem Registre, 39, died at Sacré-Coeur Hospital December 6, 2007, after being tasered as many as six times by Montreal police officers who were trying to subdue him.^[1] He was stopped for a traffic violation December 2, 2007, around 9:30 p.m. in Montreal's St-Michel district with suspicion of driving under the influence.

Police said Registre "hit three parked cars and acted intoxicated when they approached him." Details of the incident were not confirmed by independent sources.^[1] Repeatedly tasered, Registre fell unconscious and was transported to the hospital in critical condition. He remained connected to life-sustaining devices in the days that followed. He received two operations before dying.^[2] Registre's family informed of their plans to sue the police. The family's lawyer Claude F. Archambault stated that Registre "was not threatening anybody. He was alone without nothing in his hand."^[3] His cousin said Registre had spent that day with his parents and was returning a car to his girlfriend when he was pulled over. Provincial police put the incident under investigation as required under Quebec public security laws whenever officers are involved in the death of a suspect.

Registre had been living in a halfway house. Charles Montpetit, a Montreal criminal lawyer who represented him on earlier, unrelated charges, described Registre as a medium-built man who was not especially aggressive or physically imposing. A spokesperson for the coroner’s office later confirmed that Registre had traces of cocaine in his system. He was the second Taser-related fatality in Canada in just one week and a third person in a month to die there after being struck with an electrical discharge from a police taser.^[2]