‘Majority of tased people by UK police mentally ill’
A new report indicates that over two-thirds of people tasered by British police between 2010 and 2014 were mentally ill.
Police use of the stun guns increased over the period from 6,238 incidents in 2010 to 9,196 last year, and there has been a corresponding rise in the number of incidents involving mentally ill people, from 2,737 in 2010 to 4,200 in 2014, the Independent reported citing Home Office figures.
The latest statistics were released in response to a Freedom of Information request made by the website The Justice Gap. It revealed that in 67 percent of cases in which tasers were discharged, they were fired at people identified by officers as mentally ill.
When cases in which the weapons were drawn, aimed but not fired were included in the data, mentally ill people were the target in only 45 percent of incidents.
The UK Prime Minister made the case for greater availability of the stun guns for police in the aftermath of a knife attack at Leytonstone underground station in east London earlier this month. Officers repeatedly fired a taser at a man who had stabbed two passers-by.
Responding to the new figures, Mike Penning, the minister for policing, said tasers provided the law enforcement with “an important tactical option when facing potentially physically violent situations.”
He added, “But just as with sensitive powers, such as stop-and-search and mental-health detention, the police use of force warrants proper accountability and transparency.”
Now William Spring, human rights activist in London, says the use of tasers by police must be considered in the context of lethal violence by the UK's law enforcement and the legal ramifications of such an act.
Meanwhile, Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson who launched the cross-party Equality for Mental Health campaign last month, described the findings as “clearly very worrying”. He said: “It is crucial that police forces have proper guidance and training in place to ensure officers are able to act in a safe manner when working with someone with mental ill health.”
Any officer equipped with a taser must pass a nationally recognized training course which covers encounters with people who are suffering from mental illness, a National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman said.
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