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From Metro Vancouver --
The mother of a 17-year-old Winnipeg youth was visited by police in the middle of the night after he was Tasered by officers, but wasn't told of his death until the next day, says the president of the Manitoba Metis Federation.
"They just showed up and advised her to see if they could get a picture of Michael," David Chartrand said Thursday.
"She shared, not knowing why, only to find out the next day they were going to come tell her they killed him."
But Winnipeg police Chief Keith McCaskill said officers might not have wanted to say anything about Michael Langan's death until they had positively identified the teen.
"It's speculation on my part, but it's important I think not to alarm the family first of all if you want to identify who the person is," he said.
Amnesty International believes Langan is the youngest Canadian to die after being hit by a stun gun. The rights group has been keeping records since 2003 - the year it recorded the first death linked to the device.
Chartrand said it's unacceptable that Sharon Shymko wasn't informed of her son's death until 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, given that Langan died Tuesday afternoon.
"Not to be told until the next day, that's not good at all. That's really bad," said Chartrand in a telephone interview from Saskatoon.
He also said there are questions about whether racial profiling was a factor in the case. Langan was Metis.
"Aboriginals are no stranger(s) to being mistreated," Chartrand said, pointing to the death of Matthew Dumas, an 18-year-old aboriginal who was fatally shot in January 2005 by a Winnipeg police officer. Dumas allegedly lunged at the officer with a screwdriver.
"Why is it aboriginal people seem to get the brunt of the excessive force?"
But McCaskill downplayed the racial angle, saying that while he respects Chartrand, it's too early to reach such a conclusion and everyone must wait for the full investigation into the Tasering to unfold.
"Certainly if you look at the specifics that we can provide you, we had two citizens approach the police, direct them to a certain person, and that's where (officers) went," McCaskill told a news conference.
When pressed, McCaskill conceded the department's relationship with the aboriginal community "could be better."
Police have said the boy was suspected of having broken into a car, and that he was armed with a knife and refused to drop it when ordered to.
Minchin said he knew his son had bought a knife for protection a few days ago, but can't understand why officers couldn't have disarmed him some other way.
"It's funny, because he used to say that he wasn't going to live very long - that he was going to die soon," said Minchin as he struggled to hold back tears.
Chartrand said Langan was close to his family, particularly his grandmother, and went out of his way to help her with errands such as filling her prescriptions.
The teen had dreams of becoming a cabinet-maker after finishing high school. He planned to continue Grade 11 in Winnipeg after spending the last year going to school in Kelowna, B.C., Chartrand said.
But Langan may have experimented with marijuana and "may have done crack once somewhere," he admitted.
"He did seem to have challenges. He wasn't a bad kid. You know, he had dreams like anyone else."
Amnesty International says at least 21 people in Canada have died after being hit by a police Taser.
The device's Arizona-based manufacturer, Taser International, has said the weapons have never directly been blamed for a death, though they have been cited as a contributing factor.
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