Man dies after UK police Taser shooting A man in Llanelli has died after being shot with a Taser by officers from Dyfed-Powys Police force. As with all deaths during or following police contact in the UK, the matter has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which confirmed to The Register that: "IPCC investigators have been deployed …
Indeed, tasers should only be used as a last resort to protect the officers/public from a dangerous criminal who is likely to inflict harm. I'd almost put money on the worst this guy was doing was gobbing off while drunk, like most other uses of tasers.
"What happened to those nets that yo can fire out of a hand cannon? They pretty much stop people from doing anything."
I don't think anyone's tried it in real life on people. They're developing a version for riot control, but I don't know. They're good enough for animals, but humans can usually get enough of their act together to seek out the edge of the net and escape. Plus since they're slower, they're easier to dodge.
Indeed, tasers should only be used as a last resort to protect the officers/public from a dangerous criminal who is likely to inflict harm.
Pepper spray, TASERs, choke holds, generally grappling with people or just hitting them with big sticks are all alternatives to firearms. But they're all dangerous, to both the person in question and the police. For pepper spray you've got to get close, and I believe people have died after inhaling that as well.
So in a lot of cases there is no "safe" method of dealing with people, and the police on the spot get to choose their poison. Hopefully they do a good job. The downside of giving them something like a TASER is that they're obviously going to be tempted to use it rather than risking getting bruised, or worse. But then the upside is the same thing, fewer police injuries. And you can bet than in a physical fight serious enough to injure an officer, there's also a risk to the other guy. So even they might be better off getting tasered, even if they do also miss out on the pleasure of punching a copper...
Cuffs / "primary control" (ie unarmed tactics) < spray / TASER < baton
Generally TASER preferred to baton if available due to no long-term injuries.
Obviously if an officer knows person suffers certain medical conditions (which will be recorded on PNC if person has had prior contact with the police), TASER won't be used.
Thoughts are with both the family and the officer involved (who will be raked over the coals).
AC, officer (not TTO)
"AC, officer"
HQ office-based are we? Spending time on hold to PNC isn't exactly practical when in the middle of a fight. Nor indeed is a polite enquiry as to name and address as the 15 people, all called Mick O'Murphy of no fixed abode kick off.
For educational purposes do you happen to have the PNC wait time stats to hand?
"HQ, office based?"
Haha... no. Control will also do PNC (as I'm sure you already knew?), no need to call separately. May depend on force, certainly where I'm based you hardly need to ask, controllers are on the ball, giving you markers / ailments if they so much as see a name come in on the box.
"when you're in the middle of a fight"
Right. Sure thing buddy... Come on, need one explicitly state, obviously not in such a situation, there are bigger issues to worry about...
Unfortunately these things do need to be stated, as numerous after the fact inquiries from a comfortable court room demonstrate.
The control room thing is also dangerous, I'll give an example. Tutor and student deployed to a domestic (double crew as far as control room are concerned but, as any tutor knows, students have a habit of wandering off, freezing or overreacting at the crucial moment and the tutor is a 5ft4 female). After a brief sneaky "look over there" they come out with the baddy in cuffs. As they're loading him into the car control room pipes up with "be advised, that address has markers for assault police and posession firearms".
"For pepper spray you've got to get close, and I believe people have died after inhaling that as well."
There's also the matter of the target being susceptible to pain (capsaicin feels "hot" because it stimulates pain nerves on contact), but as testimonials have noted, people in a "rush" (be it adrenaline or drugs) can "defer" the sensation of pain for some time (there have been accounts of angry drunks wiping off pepper spray like it was water). So when police believe they're up against someone hopped up, I think they're advised to try something other than pepper spray or physical coercion (because drunks and druggies may not feel pain or act with the due restraint one would instinctively harbor when sober). At least tasers have a better chance of subduing someone hopped up since they act on a more physical level.
@AC
"Indeed, tasers should only be used as a last resort . . ."
It is, and has always been, my position that a taser should used only in those instances where you would otherwise have used your gun.
I.e., you should only shoot someone with a taser if the situation is such that you would be justified in shooting them dead.
Tasers are generally less lethal than a firearm but too many people have medical conditions (known and unknown) that make a taser into a lethal weapon. Ironically, these people they would probably have a better chance of surviving a gunshot.
NO NEED to make stuff up any more. This guy was is VERY BAD shape before he threatened the officers. He had stabbed his dog with a kitchen knife. He then stabbed himself, too. He was outside his house behaving erratically, holding his bleeding dog.
That much has several sources...
The officers report that he was pounding his head against glass when they tried to stop him. He still had the knife. They tased him, to try to sedate him. He had lost WAY more blood than they already knew.
Hitting a man with baton or physical weapoons when he appears disoriented doesn't work. The knife kept them from gang-tackling him, too.
It is a BAD result that the officers made every attempt to avoid, This man did public service in the military and found himself unable to cope with his life. He has my prayers.
According to an investigative reports from around the time they were first approved for use by firearms officers in the UK, the Taser shots used on police and others in training are usually at a considerably lower voltage/power than in regular service use against civilians. (This might be because TASER International wants to reduce the risk of catastrophically bad publicity in the event that someone is killed by a Taser during training; the company pushes its products using the "non-lethal" claims, but has had a reputation for being ... less than straightforward when it comes to the question of safety and the risk of fatalities). Unpleasant as they no doubt are, low-power training shots may give a misleading impression as to how bad it really feels in active use.
Beeb content on incident here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-36536631
And more here http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Tributes-paid-million-Llanelli-serviceman-Spencer/story-29403643-detail/story.html
Looks like he was organising community patrols of a local park and was well regarded locally - does not look like a PR victory for the Police I'm afraid.
But when that BBC report talks about witnesses having seem him stab a dog and himself, and also them describing him as "out of it" - that sheds a different light on the situation.
It does sound like a sad situation, but (from what little I've read), it's hard to criticise a copper faced with someone who's (presumably) of intimidating build, looks "out of it", and is wielding a knife which he's already used.
Has cause of death been established? As the BBC article states that he'd stabbed himself and a dog with a knife, the headline could just as accurately have been written as "Man dies after stabbing himself".
Until there's an autopsy, we really don't know if he died as a result of the taser, or a self-inflicted knife wound. So perhaps we shouldn't be making judgements based on what headline writers want us to think.
So perhaps we shouldn't be making judgements based on what headline writers want us to think.
Why not? Politicians do it all the time. Latest has been the Trumpy and Orlando shooting which had much to do with the shooter being a closet gay and very angry. There's been other cases on both sides of the pond like this.. Newspapers want to sell newspapers so they pop a headline that sell them.
Actually, you are correct but the cynic in me came out.
But to answer your post seriously an ambulance crew's first reaction on being called to a man going bezerk with a knife is supposed to be to run away ("stand off") and wait for Police help.
...wherein they are no longer required and the coroner is called.
Still, it does pose a dilemma for an ambulance crew when faced with nutcase who's both lashing out and bleeding out. It's sort of a no-win scenario. Waiting for the police will likely mean he bleeds out before then, yet going in now will mean extra casualties...
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A friend 'acquired' a Taser following a rumble between Plod and some miscreants - after all littering looks bad.
The later models of Taser are 'intelligent', although they can'y prevent unintelligent users from abusing them.
Pulling the trigger of a Taser gun, compressed nitrogen fires two barbed darts at 55 metres per second. Each dart is 9mm long and weighs 1.5 grams. They remain connected through two hair-thin wires. This length is supposed to penetrate clothing and the fat immediately under the skin.
Since many attempts result in clothing only contact, the custom microprocessor triggers a 45kV+ 'flash' that causes an arc and, like a lightning strike, ionizes the contact area making a more conductive path for the subsequent 'shocks'. This higher voltage is supposed to stop!
The 'sample' appears use resistance/current to determine when there is contact.
After the initial 45kV+, the output voltage drops and bursts of 1,000-1,200 volts in a square-wave of 100 microsecond pulses. He measured 19 of these bursts per second. Using only standard bench equipment the averaged 'shock' current was just under 2 milliamperes.
Notwithstanding it's 'smart' technology the 19 Hertz shocks continue so long as the trigger is squeezed. And therein lies the danger. If Plod gets his/her jollies from this, longer bursts can kill. Pity Taser Corp didn't include some sort of forced 'pause' between shots in their software.
Also, Plod is supposed to be trained to avoid the heart area as the effect can include stopping the heart.
The result 'overshocks' can be seen in < https://vimeo.com/169710819 >, < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515388/Family-sues-Texas-boy-17-coma-tasered-cop.html >.
Luckily there is anti-Taser clothing ("High Performance Silver Mesh Fabric" from Less EMF, Inc., Catalog #A1222), anti-Taser spray-on for clothing, or using aluminium foil! For the D-I-Y guys and girls < http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-carbon-tape-Taser-proof-jacket/?ALLSTEPS >.
Our sample can't be used again as we need nitrogen cannisters and a replacement barb head. So we are fairly safe.
"Using only standard bench equipment the averaged 'shock' current was just under 2 milliamperes."
One would use "average" current if misinformed or intentionally trying to mislead. The X26 output current is on the order of 25 mA RMS. The waveform from the X26 has large low frequency components, making it unexpectedly dangerous. You can't use "average" current on such a waveform.
The OEM screwed up the design of the X26 (vastly more dangerous than their earlier M26 model), and has seemingly been covering up this mistake ever since. I've got plenty of dirt on them on file. Their behaviour has been outrageous.
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Re: TASERS - More dangerous than the "average" current indicates
@Anonymous Coward
At the time of the acquisition of the 'abandoned' Taser, my friend, who is in the business of reverse engineering products for use in non-aligned countries, made readings with equipment typically found on a well financed electronics workbench.
As I said yesterday "Using only standard bench equipment the averaged 'shock' current was just under 2 milliamperes."
I checked back with my friend yesterday and, he reported, the service manual states: "Once the barbs establish a circuit, the gun generates a series of 100-microsecond pulses at a rate of 19 per second. Each pulse carries 100 microcoulombs** of charge, so the average current is 1.9 milliamperes.
Given that we usually are involved in reverse engineering infra-red and radio frequency equipment used by the military, I think the initial evaluation is pretty accurate. The Taser chip is presently in ShangHai being reverse engineered.
I subscribe to your thoughts on this type of equipment. Seemingly there are techniques to defeat this equipment - by twisting the body and breaking the wires. The fact that Taser hasn't used technology to restrain the duration of the charge or the repetition of 'shots' is indefensible. The video, < https://vimeo.com/169710819 >, is a completely inexcusable use and 4 years in jail seems to be a 'kiss'.
**A microcoulomb is a decimal fraction of the SI derived unit coulomb. A coulomb is defined as the charge transported by a steady current of one ampere in one second. The coulomb can also be defined in terms of capacitance.
@Anonymous Coward
At the time of the acquisition of the 'abandoned' Taser, my friend, who is in the business of reverse engineering products for use in non-aligned countries, made readings with equipment typically found on a well financed electronics workbench.
As I said yesterday "Using only standard bench equipment the averaged 'shock' current was just under 2 milliamperes."
I checked back with my friend yesterday and, he reported, the service manual states: "Once the barbs establish a circuit, the gun generates a series of 100-microsecond pulses at a rate of 19 per second. Each pulse carries 100 microcoulombs** of charge, so the average current is 1.9 milliamperes.
Given that we usually are involved in reverse engineering infra-red and radio frequency equipment used by the military, I think the initial evaluation is pretty accurate. The Taser chip is presently in ShangHai being reverse engineered.
I subscribe to your thoughts on this type of equipment. Seemingly there are techniques to defeat this equipment - by twisting the body and breaking the wires. The fact that Taser hasn't used technology to restrain the duration of the charge or the repetition of 'shots' is indefensible. The video, < https://vimeo.com/169710819 >, is a completely inexcusable use and 4 years in jail seems to be a 'kiss'.
**A microcoulomb is a decimal fraction of the SI derived unit coulomb. A coulomb is defined as the charge transported by a steady current of one ampere in one second. The coulomb can also be defined in terms of capacitance.
"I think the initial evaluation is pretty accurate."
Informed professionals don't measure current as "average". Doing so leads to all sorts of misleading nonsense. E.g. 'average' currents with AC are nil. Try RMS, like professional EEs do.
The X26 taser emits "151 mA RMS" as per their 2003 spec sheet. Eyebrow-raising information expunged from later revisions of the same spec sheet.
Their liability-inducing design error was that they assumed that the new X26 waveform was still (safer) high frequency short pulses like the previous M26 model. They apparently didn't realize that the "raised pulse" causes some (more dangerous) low frequencies. They obliviously walked away from a major safety factor.
The X26 effective current is somewhere above 30 mA and below 151 mA. It's indisputably dangerous.
The only safety margins with the X26 taser are random dart placement and pure luck.
They've been paying out multi-million dollar settlements for taser-associated deaths.
"a man has died following contact with police"
Ah yes, passive voice when the filth kill someone, as though their presence and his death were just an unlucky coincidence and only tangentially related. In the same way that when an armed robber kills someone in a bank the line goes "A man has been killed during an armed robbery" whereas if the filth shoot him during the same incident it goes "A man has died during an armed robbery".
Also, just to be fucking pedantic. It's not a Taser, it's a TASER. An acronym for Thomas Archimedes Swift's Electric Rifle.
that although the jury concluded that the death of a man doused with petrol was probably caused by the use of a taser by police - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-34414875 -, no one has been charged. Surely manslaughter (I find it difficult to imagine that the officer intended his death) would be an appropriate charge?
Yes, facts please. Like the fact the IPCC found that the police officer who tasered a blind pensioner in the back whilst walking away from him was NOT incompetent, and can now distinguish such individuals from young maniacs with Samurai swords.
People are remarkably robust in some ways, in that to stop someone immediately from causing harm, the level of force required to instantly disable a person comes remarkably close to lethal.
A blow to the head sufficient to render someone immediately unconscious can easily kill that person, an electrical discharge sufficient to immobilize can trigger significant electrical conduction patterns that can be lethal up to three days after being tasered, the fact is, tear gas/pepper spray can cause a person's airway to literally blister closed.
Anything sufficient to immediately stop someone can kill, it's just that simple.
Star Trek's phaser set to stun is a myth.
For me, a heat stroke caused modest cardiac damage, sufficient to send an ECG machine alerting to "digitalis effect" in the absence of digoxin. I also throw periodic PVC's sufficient at times to toy with V-tach. A taser used against me would be likely a lethal experience. Add in subsequent cardiac remodeling, secondary to hyperthyroidism induced hypertension that resulted in moderate left ventricular hypertrophy, yeah, it'd be a one time experience. Fortunately, the hyperthyroidism is being successfully treated and that remodeling will recede over time.
"This death is now the subject of an IPCC investigation.
Please refrain from posting comments speculating about what caused the unfortunate man to be Tasered."
Why? Are you under threat of some sort of sanction? Has the IPCC lodged an injunction? Are you being held responsible for the comments made on this forum?
I understand you have the authority to remove posts from this forum under any circumstances you determine, but this struck me as a very odd request given the usual liberal nature of The Registers comments sections.
Gee, why would the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) investigate a preventable death by police "tasing for fun"? Does tasing cause climate change, or did climate change cause
tasing? Does climate change cause police to become dumb and dumber, and tase people just because they can? Or because they are unfeeling torture freaks?
Ooh, what? Really? Sorry, nevermind, the IPCC stands for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). It's not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at OLLL!!
MY MISTAKE!! Didn't know that. Forget what I said, because it's dumb. Was I purposely dumb,
or truly dumb? Kind of hard to figure out. At least it's funny to some people..
In a previous life, I had part of a contract to supply storage cabinets for a strongroom at the UK Taser agent ... the strongroom was built to store 100,000 spare cartridges. 100,000.
If you are planning to use Taser in situations where a firearm would normally be used, you don't need a stockpile of 100K spare cartridges ... 500 would do it, 1000 tops. 100,000 spare cartridges in stock woudl only be needed if you were planning on zapping a LOT of people.
"...zapping a LOT of people."
The first and foundational falsehood on tasers is that they somehow replace guns. It does occasionally happen, but by far a more common use is in 'pain compliance' which is legally indistinguishable from 'Torture' as defined. Another very common application is extrajudicial painful punishment of subjects talking back to the enraged officer.
There's an old blog at www.excited-delirium.com.
The posts listed under 'De-Spinning the Spin' (right column) address many of the false claims.
It's quite the story, tracking the trails of slime back to their source.
When are people going to learn the police are there for the good of society? When the cop says "Stop!" you better stop! And keep your hands where the police can see you don't have a weapon. Without cops there would be only chaos. Maybe this is a terrorist plot to try to turn everybody against cops to ultimately get rid of the opposition to a complete take over. Everybody better wake up.
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