Children: None recorded. Kinship: Sixth cousin of the post–World War II Smith generation.

E****arly Life

Howard Talbot Walden Hyde was born in Halifax in 1962, the younger child of François Tonetti Hyde and Elizabeth Joyce Walden, and the younger brother of Joanna Gilman Hyde. He grew up musically gifted, playing clarinet and saxophone, and is remembered by family as a gentle, affectionate, and imaginative child. His sister later noted that he was born during the Cuban Missile Crisis and believed that the atmosphere of tension and fear at that time somehow marked him from the beginning.

Onset of Mental Illness

In his early twenties, Howard began showing symptoms of schizophrenia and was diagnosed with the disorder during that decade. He experienced recurring cycles of stability and deterioration, with periods of calm behavior alternating with confusion, fear, and delusional thinking. According to his sister, “he was unarmed and he was not a ‘very big person,’” but could become frightened and volatile when off his medication.

Family members later told reporters that Howard had recently stopped taking his prescribed medications, had been increasingly agitated, and was fearful about an upcoming court appearance connected with an altercation at home.

Arrest and Collapse

On 21 November 2007, Howard was arrested in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, following a domestic incident in which he assaulted his wife, Karen Ellet, during a period of severe psychiatric instability. During booking at police headquarters he panicked, jumped the counter, and attempted to flee. Several officers tried to restrain him; one officer discharged a Taser, delivering approximately 5,000 volts.

Howard was taken into medical distress, then transported to a hospital for assessment. After evaluation he was deemed medically stable, released back into police custody, and ultimately transferred to a provincial correctional facility.

He died approximately 30 hours later, on 22 November, after collapsing in the jail’s medical unit.

Public Reaction and Reviews

Howard Hyde’s death occurred at a moment of national scrutiny over the use of conducted-energy weapons by Canadian police, following the widely reported death of Robert Dziekański in Vancouver just one month earlier. Nova Scotia’s Minister of Justice ordered a review into Taser use across the province, while the House of Commons public safety committee simultaneously launched an inquiry into national standards.

Police officials emphasized that the officers involved believed Howard’s attempt to escape posed a danger. Critics questioned whether officers had recognized or adequately responded to a psychiatric crisis rather than a criminal threat.

The Debate: Police and the Mentally Ill

The case became emblematic of systemic failures in the handling of mentally ill detainees. Mental-health experts argued that jails and police booking rooms were structurally unsuited for psychiatric emergencies and that officers generally lacked sufficient training to de-escalate situations involving severe mental illness.

Dr. Zian Tseng, an associate professor at the University of California–San Francisco, noted in coverage that stress and shock could dangerously affect the heart of someone who had been struggling with untreated mental illness, as Howard had before his death.

The Debate: Taser Use

The broader Canadian debate centered on when Tasers were appropriate and whether they were being used as compliance devices rather than as alternatives to lethal force. In the wake of two high-profile deaths—Dziekański and Hyde—critics argued that the devices could be lethal when used on individuals in states of psychiatric or metabolic distress.

Joanna Gilman Hyde publicly criticized the use of the device, stating that it “should never have been used” on her brother, who was frightened, disoriented, and clearly unwell.

Legacy

Those who knew Howard remember him as “a wonderful, wonderful man” when stabilized by medication—musical, sensitive, imaginative, and gentle. His death stands as one of the most consequential Canadian cases involving the intersection of mental illness, policing, and the risks of electronic control weapons. It remains a point of reference in discussions of police training, crisis intervention, and reform of mental-health responses within the criminal justice system.

On the eleventh anniversary of his death, his sister Joanna Gilman Hyde wrote this poem in his memory:

Today would have been

My Brother’s 56th birthday —

he died at 45

innocent on a jail house floor —

My Beautiful Brother

conceived in Gabon

when Our Mother was ill

He was born during The Cuban Missile Crisis

and took that to Heart —

It coloured His outlook

of fear

though He was brave at six

when I threw His shiny red fire truck

down the cellar stairs —

He was brave at eleven

when I pushed Him off

the bow of Our Mother’s Molly

and He was brave at seventeen

when I told Him “No”

after he asked, “Don’t you love Me?”

He played the clarinet & saxophone

and made up stories about two clowns

named Jane Rane and Rank Raunk

while I pretended in a baby voice

He was “Uncle Howie”

and We played “Mail”

under the bathroom door

He followed Me like a shadow

jealous when I first married —

Our Mother had Howard give Me away

He built Me up with His Devotion

all the times I was ill after Our Mother died

and I slammed Him down

into the ground of Pine Grove Cemetery

in Shelburne, Nova Scotia

wailing on Our Father’s Shoulder

Note:  The ghost of My Dear Brother haunts a part of My House — My Second Husband’s former Library where I installed a memorial to Howard with a painting of poppies the heavy frame of which warped the day I hung it there.