TASER.ORG.UK

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.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 6:16 pm and is filed under taser. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.