Would Tasers have saved Steve Mesic's life?

Steve Mesics family cant help but wonder what would havehappened if the police officerswho shot him had been equipped with Tasers.

But the confrontation with police that ended with the 45-year-old former steelworker being shot steps from his home happened back in June before the provincial government announced it was allowing all frontline police officers to use Tasers.

• READ MORE: SIU clears officers of wrongdoing in Mesic shooting death

At that point, only a select few members of Hamilton police were able to carry conducted energy weapons (CEW). The two officers at the scene didnt have them.

Because neither officer had a conducted energy weapon on his person, this use of force option was not available to them.- SIU director Ian Scott

The provincial Special Investigations Unit cleared the officers of any wrongdoing on Wednesday. In that decision,SIUDirector Ian Scott said that the two officers who shotMesicwere justified in using lethal force. But he also made a point of mentioning they did not have the option of a less lethal weapon Tasers.

Because neither officer had a conducted energy weapon on his person, this use of force option was not available to them, he wrote in anSIUpress release.

That issuehas been troubling Mesic'sfamily since the incident, and Scott's mention gives it even more credence.

The Taser option

The family has not commented since theSIUreport was released Wednesday, but in an interview with CBC Hamilton shortly after the incident,MesicsfianceSharonDorr talked about Tasers and what might have been.

They knew they were coming to a call where a man was in distress, she said in that interview.They knew that. They were given a heads up.

Mesic had been seen walking headlong into traffic on the Jolley Cut and on the Linc, hours after he checked himself out of a voluntary mental health care program at St. Josephs Hospital, early in the morning on June 7. He was shot after walking towards two police officers with a shovel slung across his shoulder like a baseball bat outside his home on Upper Wentworth Street, the SIU says.

• READ MORE: Are Hamilton police quicker to resort to force?

He wasnt running around with a firearm, he was clearly in a moment of crisis. I think even an untrained person would know that, Dorr said in that earlier interview. In a moment of crisis, how do you call in someone to use a Taser? You wait? Why isnt there someone always called in to a distress call with a Taser?

Why would police officers be allowed to carry firearms but not Tasers, when theyre way more lethal? That doesnt make any sense to me whatsoever.

New rules

Since Mesics death, and in the wake of the Sammy Yatim shooting in Toronto, the province announced rules that had limited the use of Tasers were changing to clear the way for individual police forces to set their own guidelines about which officers can use them.

Prior to the announcement, Ontario had restricted the use of Tasers to a select few supervising and tactical officers, setting Ontario police apart from counterparts in several other provinces and with the RCMP.

• READ MORE: Hamilton woman has no faith in system after fianc killed by police

Mesic's family, alongside other families of people shot by police officers in Ontario, met with the Ontario Ombudsman Thursday. Ombudsman Andre Marin is doing a review of police use of force guidelines.

Hamilton police chief Glenn De Cairewants the Tasers and has said the service will need close to $1-million to equip and train all frontline officers. Councillors have been cool to the idea of spending any more money on policing, especially after last years drawn out battle over the police budget.

It is considered a vital tool in law enforcement and used properly can save lives- Hamilton police report on Tasers

But police argue in an internal report that the budget considerations have to be weighed againstTasers' potential to save lives.

"The use of CEWs is an effective less lethal option...It is considered a vital tool in law enforcement and used properly can save lives,' concludes the report.

"This initial cost must be balanced against the reality of the financial, personal and public cost of injury or death in an incident where a CEWcould have been utilized."

In 2012, Hamilton police used Tasers 49 times an increase of 112.7 per cent over the 22 incidents in 2011. But in 35 of the 49 incidents, it was deployed in display mode only, according to a police services board agenda.

Tasers were used 17 times to control emotionally disturbed or mentally ill people.