Edmonton cop guilty for Tasering teen 10 years ago

An Edmonton police officer was found guilty Tuesday of excessive force for repeatedly using a Taser stun gun on a teen who was passed out in the back of a car 10 years ago.

Const. Mike Wasylyshen faced five charges under the Police Service Regulation of the Police Act, including two counts of unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority and three counts of insubordination.

Wasylyshen used the device on Randy Fryingpan eight times in one minute as the 16-year-old lay passed out drunk and high on the back seat of a friend's car.

Fryingpan, 25, testified he remembers little about Oct. 5, 2002 except waking up handcuffed and spitting up blood.

The decision comes nearly two years after the start of Wasylyshen's disciplinary hearing. The process was delayed last year when Wasylyshen's lawyer tried to have the charges dismissed.

In 2005, a provincial court judge ruled the police officer had violated the teen's rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

At the time Judge Jack Easton called the officer's actions "cruel and unusual" treatment.

Yet acting police chief Darryl da Costa dismissed allegations of abuse against Wasylyshen, the son of a former Edmonton police chief, later that year, calling the accusations unfounded.

In 2009, after a lengthy appeal by Fryingpan's mother, the Law Enforcement Review Board ordered Chief Mike Boyd to lay new charges against Wasylyshen.