On the day of the Home Secretary’s announcement that the government wanted to see all the UKs response police armed with TASERs the Metropolitan Police authority rejected the concept. It is today being reported that Sussex Police are joining the Met in rebuffing the government’s plans to roll out TASER to more officers.
The force has accepted new weapons from the Home Office but has made a statement saying it has no plans to use them.
Cambridgeshire Police have also taken delivery of the new TASERs intended for use by non-firearms officers; but it was reported to a recent police authority meeting that they have to all intents and purposes simply been “put in a cupboard”.
Many forces, and their police authorities have not yet considered the question of arming non-firearms officers, even though they have accepted the weapons from the Home Office.
One shocking aspect of the reports today, which arise following freedom of information requests conducted by the Liberal Democrats, is that ten of the UK’s forty or so police forces reportedly did not reply to the freedom of information request made.
An article in the Mirror today headlined Police reveal stun gun blundersrevealed UK police have accidently discharged their weapons eight times.
These incidents had occurred while the weapons have been largely restricted to highly trained firearms officers, the number of such incidents will surely increase as TASERs are rolled out to more non-firearms officers. One thing this report does is draw attention to the fact that a massive increase in TASER use is imminent and the intention is to arm all response police officers in the country with the weapons.
As the weapons record every discharge electronically the reason we know about these accidents is due to officers being required to explain the circumstances surrounding every time they use the weapons. We do not know if these were accidental firings, or simply discharges, or if they occurred during incidents, in training or elsewhere.
I am concerned that an increased use of TASER will inevitably lead to excessive force being used on a greater number of occasions.
More officers carrying and using TASER will create a bigger barrier between the police and public, change the nature of the country and make it harder to police.
It should be noted that just because forces have taken these weapons it does not mean they are in use. My local force in Cambridgeshire has put all of those it took “in a cupboard”, partly as they don’t have the funds for training officers to use them. Others are already on the streets, as we saw in Nottingham earlier today.
While we do not know what preceded events in Nottingham it does appear that there were four officers and present, backup was seconds away. As such the force used looks excessive.
I do not want to see TASER used in situations like this in the UK. I am concerned that we will see this kind of thing on a regular basis as the 10,000 TASERs for non-firearms officers begin to be deployed on Britain’s streets. While these weapons have been distributed to forces many are not in use yet as officers await training. If people don’t act we will see more and more police armed with these weapons and scenes like this will become common place. People will be injured and die as a result of such excessive use of force.
It appears to me that the second use of the TASER on the video has been simply to encourage the man to comply. With four officers present there was no need at all for that second shock in my view.
It is worth noting that there is currently no requirement for the use of a TASER, such as that shown in the video, to be automatically referred to the IPCC. We only know about this one because it was videoed and put on YouTube. Anyone can make a complaint though, and all TASER related complaints are now referred to the IPCC, that doesn’t mean the IPCC will necessarily investigate the complaint though.
Nottinghamshire Police have voluntarily referred this event to the IPCC.
