Tasers: officer safety tool or threat to public safety?

Tasers: officer safety tool or threat to public safety?

Sophie Khan discusses the public safety implications of plans to
introduce Taser stun guns for police throughout London in the absence
of a public consultation.

Introduction

Now that the London 2012 Olympic and
Paralympic Games have come to a close, the
future of policing the capital has once again
taken centre stage. The Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe’s ‘total
policing’ programme, with his ‘total war on
crime’, includes plans to roll out the use of
Taser stun guns in each borough of London.
The Commissioner announced in December
2011 that he would launch a number of
actionable commitments designed to improve
officer safety, and that one of those
commitments was his pledge that: ‘Each
borough to get Taser in two area cars.’ The
Metropolitan Police currently has 1,140 Tasers,
of which 446 are deployable by officers from
CO19 Firearms Command and the Territorial
Support Group. Since 2 July 2012, response
teams in Bromley, Harrow, Barking and
Dagenham, Enfield and Kingston have been
authorised, as part of a pilot scheme, to have
at any one time a maximum of four Tasers on
patrol in two vehicles. There is no fixed date by
which the remaining boroughs of London will
be given the same capability, but what is
known is that the Commissioner has no plans
to hold a public consultation before the roll
out of Tasers to consider whether such a
move has any safety implications for members
of the public.
 
Risks posed by Tasers


Tasers have been linked to over 500 deaths in
the United States, 26 in Canada and 15 in
Australia. The latest reported death in Australia
was of a Brazilian student, Roberto Laudisio
Curti, 21, who died after three Sydney police
officers fired their stun guns at his back,
reportedly as he was running away from them.
The New South Wales Ombudsman is
independently overseeing a police investigation
into the death, and an inquest is due to
commence this month. The similarities of this
case with the tragic death of Jean Charles de
Menezes – who was shot dead in London by
Metropolitan Police officers at Stockwell tube
station in 2005 – are striking, and reinforce the
argument that Tasers are as dangerous and
fatal as a loaded gun.
 
Use of Tasers in the UK


The increased use of Tasers by the British
police is of serious concern, as many of the
situations in which Tasers are being used are
not sanctioned under the Association of Chief
Police Officers (ACPO) Operational use of Taser
by authorised firearms officers – policy and
operational guidance (ACPO, 2008).1 However,
no steps are being taken by the Home Office to
address the unnecessary and disproportionate
uses on members of the public, even though it
has now become a trend routinely to Taser
those who are suffering from mental health
issues and disability before arrest. For example:
In January 2012, a disabled man,
dependent on a wheelchair, was Tasered by
West Midlands police officers when he was
unable to get out of his car.
In March 2012 officers Tasered a 59-yearold
man who was suffering from a rapid onset
of Alzheimer’s disease at the time of the
incident in Epworth, North Lincolnshire.
In August 2012, West Mercia Police referred
an incident to the Independent Police
Complaints Commission (IPCC), in which a
man from Worcester suffering from mental
health issues was Tasered by officers before
falling from a porch roof.
The sharp increase in the use of Tasers on
vulnerable individuals could be due to the
impression given to police officers that the
Taser is an ‘officer safety tool’ rather than a
‘weapon’.2 The reluctance of the Commissioner
to conduct a public consultation adds to this
perception, and needs to be challenged, as the
ACPO Taser policy specifically states that
Tasers can only be used when ‘officers [are]
facing violence or threats of violence of such
severity that they will need to use force to
protect the public, themselves and/or the
subject(s)’ (para 3.2). Outside this remit the
use of the Taser becomes unlawful and
exposes officers both to criminal charges under
Criminal Justice Act 1988 s134(1) and to a
potential breach of article 3 of the European
Convention on Human Rights (‘the
convention’), the prohibition that no one shall
be subjected to torture or to inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.
News that the Home Office is trialling the
prototype X2, a new Taser variant with a twoshot
capacity, adds to the concerns that the
ACPO Taser policy and guidance are not being
followed. The device has been specifically
developed with a double cartridge and carries a
‘power magazine’ capable of up to 500 firings.
It is unclear when the Home Office approved
the import of these weapons for the Centre for
Approved Science and Technology (CAST) to
carry out its own trials in the UK, as there has
been no public announcement. The lack of
transparency over such a decision leads to
fresh criticisms that the safety of the public is
being marginalised and that the findings of the
trials could be questioned, especially as there
has been no independent investigation into the
use of Tasers since 2008. The only reported
investigation was carried out by the IPCC and
published on 10 November 2008: IPCC report
on cases involving the use of Taser® between 1
April 2004 and 30 September 2008. The
Police Action Centre, launched in August
2012, aims to undertake the first independent
investigation into the use of Tasers by British
police since 2008 in the coming months, and
will report on the injuries sustained by those
who have been Tasered and whether the
current ACPO policy and guidance is
compatible with article 3 of the convention.
 
Use of Tasers abroad

In the United States, the argument about
whether or not the law enforcement agencies
are provided with the correct policy and
guidance has already been made. It was
reported that in March this year on appeal, the
US District Court Western District of North
Carolina Charlotte Division ruled in favour of
the Estate of Darryl Turner, a 17-year-old shop
assistant who was Tasered for an extended
37-second shock discharge, on all objections
filed by Taser International against an earlier
judgment, apart from a reduction in the award
of damages from $10 million to $5 million
(Fontenot, as Administratrix of the Estate of
Darryl Wayne Turner, deceased v Taser
International Inc, 27 March 2012). On the
motion of ‘Failure to Warn’, Taser International
argued that Darryl Turner’s Estate had failed to
show that Taser International should have
known of the inadequacy of its warnings at the
time of sale or at least by the time of Darryl
Turner’s death. The appeal court held that ‘a
reasonable jury could conclude that a different
warning would have resulted in a different
outcome’, and that ‘Plaintiff presented
substantial evidence that Taser’s warning was
inadequate and that its failure to provide a
reasonable warning was an actual and
proximate cause of Turner’s death’.
This is a significant judgment as it sends a
clear message to police forces that there are
real risks associated with Tasers which can no
longer be ignored. The outcome of this
judgment also reinforces the author’s view that
Tasers should only be used by firearms officers,
as they are a prohibited weapon under
Firearms Act 1968 s5(1).
 

Taser-related deaths
‘Excited delirium syndrome’

The US appeal judgment also dispels the
argument put forward by Taser International
that ‘excited delirium syndrome’ is the cause of
death of those who have been Tasered. Excited
delirium syndrome is said to be a pathological
condition and usually occurs when someone is
restrained in a prone position for a prolonged
period of time by a number of officers. The
symptoms include ‘superhuman strength’
which is similar to the adrenaline rush one gets
when one is under attack, the ‘fight or flight’
concept, and is a reaction seen in those being
restrained.
The syndrome is widely considered to be
used to ‘cover up’ police-related deaths, as it
has not been acknowledged as a recognised
cause of death by the UK’s Department of
Health or the World Health Organisation.
Additionally:
In Canada, the Braidwood Inquiry –
conducted by the retired British Columbia
Appeal Court Justice Thomas R Braidwood QC
in 2009 into the death of Robert Dziekanski, a
Polish immigrant, on 14 October 2007
following an incident in which he was Tasered
by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers at
Vancouver International Airport – found that the
term was rejected by international medical
professionals and was being used to cover up
actual causes of death using Tasers and
extreme restraint.
The American College of Emergency
Physicians recognises the term, but notes that
the exact pathophysiology remains unidentified
and that no clear definitions or causes exist.3
 
Cardiac arrest

The death of Brian Loan, a 47-year-old man
from Sacriston, County Durham, is believed to
be the first Taser-related death in the UK. Mr
Loan was Tasered at his home and was then
taken to Durham City police station on 11
October 2006. He was released on bail, and
on the morning of 14 October 2006 he was
found dead by his father. During the inquest at
Gateshead County Court, the Home Office
pathologists found that Mr Loan was suffering
from severe heart disease and died of ‘natural
causes’. However, his family refused to accept
the verdict as they stated that he had never
previously complained of chest pains. Although
the coroner, Terence Carney, accepted the
opinions of the pathologists, he did state that:
‘It may be in five or ten years’ time somebody
may find a link, but no one has found one in
this case.’
The body of evidence that now exists
suggests that Taser-related deaths are a direct
consequence of the 50,000 volts of electrical
shock. An important recent study was carried
out by Dr Douglas P Zipes, a cardiologist and
professor emeritus at Indiana University. The
study analysed detailed records from the cases
of eight people who went into cardiac arrest.
Seven of the people in the study died, while
one survived. The study makes the case that
electrical shocks from Tasers can in some
cases set off irregular heart rhythms, leading to
cardiac arrest.4
 

Conclusion


In the light of this study, there needs to be a
review of the ACPO Taser policy and guidance
to ensure that the safety of the public is
being taken seriously by the state. The
Commissioner’s ill-advised decision to roll out
Tasers in the absence of a public consultation
is wrong, as the safety of the public must be
paramount. As the Taser may have the
potential to undermine the safety of the public,
the time has come to declare war on the Taser.
 
1 Available at: www.acpo.police.uk/documents/
uniformed/2008/200812UNTAS01.pdf.
2 See: www.channel4.com/news/taser-firings-theinside-
story.
3 Lisa Hoffman, ‘ACEP recognizes excited delirium as
unique syndrome’, Emergency Medicine News,
November 2009, Vol 31, Issue 11, p4.
4 ‘Sudden cardiac arrest and death associated with
application of shocks from a Taser electronic
control device’, Circulation – Journal of the
American Heart Association, 30 April 2012.

Sophie Khan is a solicitor-advocate, and
head of Actions Against the Police at a
leading firm in Surrey and London. She is
also the director of the Police Action
Centre: http://policeactioncentre.org.uk/.
 

http://www.lag.org.uk/files/94238/FileName/TaserOctober2012.pdf