TASERs will soon be a common sight on the streets
“TASERs will soon be a common sight on the streets of England and Wales” reported the Today program at about 0730 this morning.
John Humphries introduced the item saying: “They have been used on a trial basis in a small number of forces for about five years”. A more accurate statement would be that TASERs have been available some firearms officers since the first pilot in 2003, they have now become standard issue for firearms officers. A trial has been running since September 2007 allowing non-firearms officers to carry the weapons. During the trial period the number of TASER uses has increased as more have become available to the police and more officers have been trained to use them (1).
Home Officer Minister Alan Campbell was asked if he was satisfied, on the basis of the trials that TASERs are entirely safe. This was, in my view, a flawed question, as we in the UK should not in my view just be looking at the results of our own small trials, we have the real world experience of large scale usage of TASERs in other countries, particularly the USA to draw on too. In the USA there have been many deaths following TASER use, in some of which medical examiners have cited the TASER as a contributory factor in the death (2) .
Mr Campbell, the minister replied:
Well they’ve been piloted for the last year John, there has been a rigorous assessment of that and the independent medical advice which we are getting says there is a very low risk of death or serious injury.
The rigorous assessment, if there has been such a thing, of the pilot study has not yet been published. The independent medical advice is based on computer modelling and animal testing rather than real-world experience. It is good to see the minister honestly admitting there is a risk of death or serious injury associated with TASER use, what he has not done is draw the obvious conclusion that if if more of these weapons are issued the numbers of deaths and serious injuries will rise.
Oliver Sprague of Amnesty International was asked if he agreed with the minister, Mr Sprague replied:
Amnesty’s research has shown that over 320 people have died after being TASERed in the USA since 2001. And the important thing is, in those cases 90% of those who were TASERed were shot multiple times and were not armed when they were TASERed. There is a clear risk to TASER especially when used against vulnerable groups for example against people with emotional or physical disabilities or people under the influence of drugs.
So why are we not experiencing those very same things the minister was asked,
Because they are used under strict guidelines which ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) set out, when they may or may not be used. As I said we have taken medical advice on the pilot so far and that advice is telling us that this is very low risk. I don’t recognise the numbers which Amnesty are quoting there, and in terms of vulnerable groups I would draw attention to the seriousness of the incident during which these TASERs are used, they’re only used under relatively few circumstances.
Mr Campbell, the UK Government minister, doesn’t recognise the figures from the USA because shockingly the experience in the USA appears to have had no influence on UK policy making. The minister is also not appreciating the fact that those using alcohol and drugs or with mental problems when they are shot appear to have a much greater chance of dying as a result of TASERing. Mr Campbell continued:
They have only been used on 93 occasions out of more than 600 where they’ve actually been deployed.
He was then asked: “If they are now being deployed right across the country, England and Wales, is there not a danger we will see them being used much more widely, obviously more widely because there will be more of them out there. What’s the risk that they might start using them, I don’t know, you get a pub brawl or something and the officers pile out of their transit vans and there are a lot of drunken kids about and things are getting a bit nasty, isn’t there a danger they use them then? The minister replied:
Well we don’t expect them to be used as a weapon of choice, either routinely or commonly used.
The minister did not appear aware that during the trial a TASER had been used during a pub brawl, see the BBC article: Taser fired as three fight in pub.
Will they be ordered not to, that’s the point asked Mr Humphries
Well we will set down very clear guidelines, and it will be specialist officers who will be using them, and individual Chief Constables will monitor how they are actually being used.
I felt this was a highly misleading reply, as the announcement today was that TASER deployment will be expanded from a small group of “specialist” officers and given to all the UKs thirty thousand response police.
I don’t think we should run away with the idea they are going to be widely available on a kind of neighborhood level. They’re going to be used by specialist officers using very very clear guidelines, and what has been demonstrated in the pilot is just how useful they have been in protecting not just police officers but the public.
I understand that response police are different individuals from neighbourhood officers and it is not currently proposed to arm neighborhood officers with TASERs. However few members of the public make that distinction, and of course response police officers are regularly seen in areas where people live throughout the UK. The minister is also referring to a a structure and distinction within the police which might not last in the long term. Again the minister repeated his misleading statement that TASERs are going to be used by specialist officers, the substance of today’s announcement is that their deployment is going to go beyond specialist officers to all the UKs response police.
The minster was then asked: “Are they being used instead of guns” to which he responded:
Well I think we should be very proud of the fact that we don’t routinely arm ….
The minster was reminded, “But we do arm them now, more than we ever have done before, and there are a lot of guns out there now compared with certainly when I was a young lad”.
Yes that’s absolutely right. I’m sure one of the intentions is perhaps to ensure we don’t need to deploy guns as often and that TASERs offer a real alternative for that.
Mr Oliver Sprague of Amnesty was brought back in an asked, “well therefore it’s not a bad thing is it”:
Well Amnesty does not oppose the use of TASERs, by a limited number of highly trained units, who are faced with very dangerous life threatening situations. Clearly at the most extreme level it is better to be TASERed than it is to be shot, but the fact remains that 10,000 TASERs are going to be made available to 30,000 police officers on the basis of two or three day’s training which is in stark contrast to the levels of intensive routine ongoing training which was currently the case with the firearms officers. No matter how intensive the two day’s training could be, it still is only two days.
Mr Campbell was asked for his final thoughts:
Well there’s more intensive training than the gentleman from Amnesty is suggesting and there will be ongoing training, making sure we have got officers who are very clear, about when they can use these weapons and indeed how they are going to be used. Indeed it is for their protection as well as for the protection of the public.
Do you know anybody who has been TASERed, have you talked to people who’ve actually had that thing, errr “happen to them”, he was asked:
No, but I’ll be seeing in a couple of hours because I’m going to an event with Northumbria Police, where they’re actually going to demonstrate these things, so I’ll be able to answer better tomorrow.
[Northhumbria Police have a policy allowing pre-emptive TASERing of individuals without warning]
The minister was asked if he fancied volunteering?
No I don’t. Not I don’t. It certainly might be popular with some of my constituents but I’m not going to be volunteering I can assure you.
The minister’s clearly not that happy with their safety then is he?
The interview on the Today programme will be available via the archives for Monday the 24th of November 2008 on the Today Programme Website, the piece was broadcast around 0730, with extracts then used in news bulletins.
