‘More officers should be equipped with Taser’

SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation is calling for an increase in the number of officers in the force trained to use Taser – asking “What price officer safety?”

Neil Bowles, Chairman of the Federation, described issuing the less-lethal weapon to more officers as a “no-brainer” and added that “every officer who wishes to carry one should be trained and equipped with one”.

He said that more injuries will occur to suspects by use of a police baton than a Taser.

Mr Bowles said: “It is a proven piece of less-lethal kit that every Officer who wishes to carry one should be trained and equipped with. There have been over 700 pieces of research that show how safe it is.

“As many as 99.7% of its use results in no after effects to the person it is used on. There were doubters when police officers were equipped with CS Gas, now PAVA. Doubters when we changed the traditional piece of wood in your pocket to an extending steel baton. Doubters when we started wearing ballistic and knife resistant vests.

“These are now commonplace personal protective equipment that the public are now used to. Importantly, Officers are now safer as a result; the faster we can restrain a non-compliant offender, the safer we, the offender and the public are.”

He added: “In the force continuum – the scale of force an Officer may use, from mere presence to using firearms – Taser comes below use of a baton. More severe injuries will result with baton use than a normal Taser use.

In South Yorkshire we have already trained three to four times the numbers of Officers to the numbers of devices available to cater for abstractions. Therefore the training costs are already being met, the force just needs to pay for the extra kit. What price officer safety?

“This is definitely something we, the Federation, will be pursuing through all the normal channels.”

Chief Constable David Crompton told The Star he is considering issuing ‘some extra officers’ with Tasers but stressed he will not be arming every officer.

“I am not thinking of giving every officer in the force Tasers but what I am willing to consider is for some extra officers having Tasers,” CC Crompton said.

“The CS spray officers carry works on around 95% of people. Tasers are effective on everybody but I think public would probably be rightly concerned if every officer had a Taser, it would feel like a step towards arming the police – ratcheting up.”