“This is a tazer. It can fire 50,000 volts, and it will be used against you if you do not comply.” How many people would fail to ‘comply’ when threatened with enough volts to power 25 electric chairs or 1/2000th of the volts of your average bolt of lightning? (Granted, it’s the high level of amps that would kill you quicker than the volts, but still, the thought is literally shocking!) Statistics show, however, that many people would still rather risk severe injury, and in some cases death, than ‘face the music’ when confronted with the mighty hand of the law.
Tazers were introduced to British police forces in 2003, and since then have been used to subdue suspects in over 800 incidents across the country. The stun-guns worryingly resemble your run-of-the-mill firearm, and fire two needle-tipped darts into the subject within a range of 15 feet. The electric cables that trail back to the handset allow the high electric charge to (ideally) cause ‘temporary’ paralysis of the target, so that he or she (statistics show that tazered subjects are usually a ‘he’) can then be suitably restrained by officers.
Until now, the 3000 tazers issued in Britain have only been allocated to police firearm specialists because they were originally classed as firearms. The problem is, whoever heard of a non-lethal firearm?
People do not consider firearms to be ‘safe’ for the simple reason that they’re not supposed to be. If firearms were safe, then what purpose would they serve? They are weapons, and the purpose of a weapon is to damage or destroy, or at least to threaten such action. This is why the use of tazers should remain severely regulated, used by specialists (I do not consider a specialist to be someone who has attended a basic two-day course) in extreme cases, and then only until a more humane method of restraining ‘nutters’ has been established.
Amnesty International insists that the use of tazers is potentially lethal, and that there have been numerous deaths because they have been misused. Spokesperson Mike Blakemore insists, “You need trained firearms officers who not only know how to fire a tazer, but when it is appropriate to fire a tazer.” In the States there have been instances where an autistic boy and a group of 12-year-old schoolgirls were tazered for unruly behaviour in the classroom, as well as a hysterical pregnant woman.
I’ve highlighted these particular instances because there has been no extensive research into the after-effects of tazering on the brain, and anyone with the most basic medical knowledge would agree that to perform such treatment on such vulnerable groups of people is extremely risky. I would suggest that tazers are often unnecessary and are brandished through impatience and the incentive of achieving a desired outcome quickly with very little effort.
However many ‘real-life’ scenarios police recruits go through, they are never going to know the health risks of using a tazer on a particular person. Tazers are always used in highly stressful situations where an electric shock could easily induce cardiac arrest. Do tazer-trained officers take into account the age of a target? Whether he or she is under the influence of drugs? Or, even, whether he or she appears to be in good enough health to withstand an electric shock? I seriously doubt it.
The case of Nicholas Gaubert proves my point. Gaubert fell into a diabetic coma whilst on a bus in Leeds in July 2005 (a week before the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes) when he was tazered by officers not once but twice after he failed to respond to their instructions. When he momentarily regained consciousness he noticed that another officer was holding a real gun to his head. It was only later in the police van that officers noticed the diabetic dog-tag around Gaubert’s neck and realised his hypoglaecemic state was a medical emergency. Needless to say, the Crown Prosecution Services has not held the officers accountable of any offence against Gaubert.
It becomes apparent that the instances where tazers are used, and by whom, at present leaves a lot to be desired. Tazers are not safe, so neither is the way they are used. It’s increasingly difficult to understand how, 50 years after the abolishment of capital punishment in Britain, the Home Office still struggles to distinguish between torturing ‘criminals’ and apprehending them.
1. John D. P. Jones
Dear Sir,
I was horrified to read the article by Georgia Burdett entitled, “Tazed and confused” in Issue 869 regarding the implications of giving tasers to trained firearms officers in the British Police. I have no doubt that the questions raised were intended to be rhetorical, but I feel compelled to answer them. Firstly I wish to point out that British Police currently use the Attenuating Energy Projectile (AEP), a form of non-lethal firearm. The point of these ‘safe’ firearms is blatantly obvious, to bring extremely dangerous individuals to justice humanely, and in so doing reassuring the public at large. The largest independent study (nearly 1,000 cases) into the health implications of using tasers was conducted in the United States by Dr. William Bozeman. The study found that 99.7% of those hit by the taser were either unharmed or sustained mild injuries such as scrapes and bruises. Only three people were hospitalised, two with head injuries caused by falling over, and the third had a very rare medical condition. No one in the study died as a result of being tasered. I am personally reassured that some of our highly trained firearms officers have access to tasers, and that as a result, the UK is safer. Let us not forget that British policing methods and justice system are used worldwide.
Yours faithfully,
John D.P. Jones
MChem (Hons) AMRSC
2. Rasputin
But is there any confirmation made before these tazers are used that the recipient doesn’t have this “very rare medical condition”? I can think of other considerably less rare conditions that could react badly to the effects of a tazer.
3. John D. P. Jones
Dear Sir,
When an individual threatens violence, or indeed is violent, the first thought through the police officers minds must be the safety of the general public and themselves, not that of the aggressor. It is unfortunate that some people have conditions which render them less fit than others, but the law must be observed.
Yours faithfully,
John D.P. Jones
MChem (Hons) AMRSC
4. Jon
I think that if a police officer is in a dangerous situation and needs to take immediate action, but you want them to first go through a checklist, including finding out an assailant’s medical history, then you are quite frankly stupid.
The use of firearms is left to the judgement of the police officer and I would assume used only as a last case scenario. The tazer is a means for instantly incapacitating an assailant in a way that is safe to both the officers involved and the public at large, and in the high majority of cases without also injuring the assailant. Yes it is unfortunate that in a miniscule of cases the tazer might cause damage, but highlighting them in the press is just an attempt to distort the actual high success rate of the tazer. As is the way of the press, they only report about it when it goes wrong and not about the presumably thousands of cases when it has gone right.
Back to the medical side of it, would you also want a police officer to check if someone had brittle bones whilst they were chasing the assailant just so that they knew whether they could tackle them and then handcuff them without accidently breaking the assailant’s bones? Or if an officer was being attacked by someone high on drugs with a gun or another weapon, would you want them to first have to get a blood test from the attacker to confirm drug use before they could take any action? The notion of it is absurd!
As long as the police officer follows protocol and sticks to the law then they can do whatever they want, by whatever means necessary, to help protect both themselves and the public in general.
5. Gwilym Conran
The editor is female so you wouldnt address letters to Sir. :p
6. John D. P. Jones
Dear Madam,
I apologise for any distress caused by my use of the the title Sir; the editors of the broadsheet newspapers are invariably addressed as Sir despite the multitude of female editors working at these institutions.
Yours faithfully,
John D. P. Jones
MChem (Hons) AMRSC
7. Mark
Given the increased use of knives and firearms on Britain’s street I think it’s wise and prudent to give our Police Officers a form of defence that can let them protect themselves and the public. In areas not known for gun crime then the tazer seems the ideal solution, however it is just a powerful stun gun and I wouldn’t like to go up against a suspect armed with a sidearm with one.