Tasers for all police in South Britain

Originally posted: November 24th 2008.
Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle
As of Monday, 24 November 2008, all police officers in England/Wales are to be given access to Taser stun guns. Non-firearms officers in ten forces will be 'trained' to use the weapons. It is claimed that every incident they are involved in will be assessed over a 12-month trial period. Tasers work by firing metal barbs into the skin which then discharge an electrical blast which is designed to disable someone long enough to allow police to attack without danger to themselves; although they may also be used like cattle-prods, the gun being directly pushed into the victim.
The government is expected to arm police with 10,000 of the 50,000-volt weapons. Until now, the guns have been used by small units of firearms officers.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith reportedly wants front-line response officers in all 43 police forces in England/Wales to be trained to fire Tasers at 'violent suspects'. She told The Sunday Times that £8m will be made available to equip up to 30,000 police response officers across the country with them.
She said (ingenuously): "I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms and I want to keep it that way. But every day the police put themselves in danger to protect us, the public. They deserve our support, so I want to give the police the tools they tell me they need to confront dangerous people. That is why I am giving the police 10,000 Tasers to ensure that officers across the country benefit from this form of defence." (sic)
If all it takes is for the police to ask, our Home Secretary is dangerously naive. The "dangerous people" could include anyone who looks like a low-lifer, someone with physical disabilities resembling drunkenness, e.g. epilepsy, merely gets in the way of police business or may be identified as being in some way anti-establishment. At a time when there is growing concern about gun crime, this ironically could lead to an escalation in gun ownership as a response.

Alan Campbell, MP, admitted that Tasers were for police protection as well as for the 'protection' of the public, told the BBC (on the Today Programme) that there had been a "rigorous assessment" and that there was 'no danger' of serious injury. But in the US, 320 people have been killed by Tasers since 2001, and many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors. Mr Campbell added, "We don't routinely arm our officers," -This may have been true a few years ago.
On the morning of Thursday 20th November, I was in the queue for stamps at the local post office/corner shop (Bristol BS3) when I noticed ahead of me in the queue, a copper in a bullet-proof vest, with a pistol on his hip.
A machine for killing people, at the ready, ten-thirty on a quiet suburban morning.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said trials showed in the majority of cases Tasers helped police resolve incidents without resorting to other weapons. Like the day last year when an officer threatened to use one against a citizen trying to re-enter an English seaside hotel to carry out a rescue during a fire. As former Toronto mayor John Sewell told Naomi Klein, "the taser is not the thing that replaces the gun, it's what replaces all the other things that police might do other than use a gun, like talk to you." (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine)
Oliver Sprague, an arms expert at Amnesty International UK, said, "Tasers are potentially lethal weapons which are already linked to numerous deaths in North America and that's why wide deployment without adequate training is a dangerous step too far for British policing."
In September, police were given the green-light to use Tasers against children, despite warnings that they could trigger heart attacks in young people. Home Office Police Minister Tony McNulty said medical assessments had confirmed the risk of death or serious injury from Taser use was "low", but he did not add that the Defence Scientific Advisory Council had said that not enough was known about the health risks of using the weapons against children.
The committee, which comprises independent scientists and doctors, said that limited research suggested there was a risk children could suffer "a serious cardiac event". It recommended that officers should be "particularly vigilant" for any Taser-induced adverse response and said guidance should be amended to "identify children and adults of small stature" as being at potentially greater risk from the cardiac effects of Tasers.

Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to rescue him.
The scientists researching on behalf of the Government were also asked to test whether the weapons could cause a miscarriage if used on a pregnant woman. While not saying whether police would be allowed to Taser an expectant mother, the Home Office said the DSAC committee had "specifically asked" for computer simulations to be carried out to analyse the effect on "a pregnant female". Taser International, the American firm that makes the device, said tests on pigs suggested the weapons were safe; although the pigs may not necessarily have been pregnant.
ACPO, which issues guidance to forces on the use of weapons, said Tasers would be made "readily available" for "conflict management" at incidents of "violence and threats of violence of such severity that they will need force", This will, of course, include incidents where violence is of police origin, like peaceful but 'inconvenient' demonstrations, where until now officers were restricted to using clubs against marchers, including, famously, Blair Peach, beaten to death in Southall, London.

Now, 're you gonna co-operate with me? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KWaCD6jIH5Q

The UN's Committee Against Torture has declared that Taser use can constitute a form of torture, contrary to the UN's convention against the same.
The committee delivered its verdict on 23rd November 2007, after examining the Portuguese police force's adoption of the TaserX26, described as a weapon with "proven risks of harm or death" by an expert called to testify. The committee's statement said, "The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use."
Further reading: see 'Sanctioned /Torture & Summary Execution in America http://educate-yourself.org/pnt/index.shtml

19th March - From our Canada CorrespondentThe RCMP announced the other day that the use of the Taser has been reviewed and acknowledges there are risks of permanent harm and death. Whether this brings about a reduction in its use, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, today in Toronto, the chief of police has endorsed the use of the device and here's the report. I draw your attention to the phrase, "in-custody death syndrome", in the final paragraph.
So "in-custody death syndrome is the new euphemism for police brutality, i.e., blaming it on a circumstance which appears to have no cause, or which can't be explained but to which a pattern can be identified --- in other words, death while in the company of the police,
"We reiterate that to date, there is no evidence, either scientific or medical, that a conducted-energy weapon has been the direct cause of death anywhere, at any time, on any person," Chief Tom Kaye, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said in a news conference in Ottawa.
The Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, representing chiefs and rank-and-file officers, said the public has been subjected to "inaccurate and incomplete" information on electrical stun guns and they want to dispel some myths related to their use.
The bottom line is that [conducted-energy weapons] saves lives," said Charles Momy, President of CPA. "They certainly enhance public safety and officer safety. It is our position that all police officers should be authorised to carry CEWs," he added, saying further that officers should also be provided with regular and adequate use-of-force training.
The Associations say the weapon should only be used if there's a threat to the police officer or a threat to the public.
"There has to be some active resistance on people's behalf. It's got to be some kind of assaultive, combative behaviour," said Kaye, who is chief of the Owen Sound, Ontario, police force. " The device should not be used in passive-resistance cases." Kaye acknowledged that police may have used it in those types of cases in the past. "They may have allowed it to be used more as a compliance device. We're suggesting that that's not correct," he said, adding that there needs to be a better job done of reporting and tracking the use of the device.

Kaye wouldn't comment on the Dziekanski case (Polish, killed in an airport because no one spoke his language) or whether he believed a Taser was responsible for his death. He pointed out, however, that there have been 150 studies and reviews around the world, none of which, [he claimed], suggest anyone has died from being zapped with a Taser. He mentioned "in-custody death syndrome," in which people who have been pepper-sprayed or just held down by officers have died in police custody.