1.5 seconds, he was shocked for
Sounds to me like a lot less time than your pissed off copper would be zapping some miscreant for on the floor. We've already seen American cops zapping uni students for being naughty in the library.
Cursing senior plod samples electric justice
A top Welsh cop has posted video of himself being zapped with a Taser cattleprod stun gun. With a strangled cry of "Aagh - bloody hell," North Wales chief constable Richard Brunstrom tastes electric justice and pitches to the deck, towards the end of this Flash vid: The stunt was intended to back up Brunstrom's decision to …
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Thursday 6th September 2007 14:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Top Cop? Top Idiot More Like
This guy, with his nice blog "I love myself" is what causes people to go off the police.
If I were the officer shooting him it would have been for a bloody lot longer than 1.5 seconds....
"We're prepared to use this on members of the public when we have to," says Brunstrom" errr... shouldn't that be on the criminals?
Prat- pure and simple.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 14:48 GMT The Mole
Not realistic
Why in these demo's are there always two nice people standing either side of the person ready to grab hold of them and lower them to the ground gently? If they really want to demonstrate how humane they are and not likely to cause injury they should at least make it vaguely realist... no mats and nobody to catch him as he falls
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Thursday 6th September 2007 14:48 GMT Gareth Eyers
what-a-shocker
Which bright spark thought this up? and if it is only 'just and proper' as big boss plod says, that he gets to feel what is going to be inflicted on the population at large, will that mean he is going to try standing in front of hand gun as it is fired? or do we just leave that to the Americans to test their weapons on friendly’s?
in addition to this truly shocking turn of events, do the general public get to have 2 PC Plums either side to catch em as they face plant the ground?
Mind you the plod that zapped his boss look really ex'static' the atmosphere at the demonstration must of been electric, and do they get to take them home for 'personal use' ?.
Due to government cutbacks the Essex police are being issued nylon uniforms instead of Tazers, they have to run up behind their 'perp' and inflict a small but painful static shock.......
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Thursday 6th September 2007 14:53 GMT Dan
BS
Watch the video, they don't even shoot him with it first - the dude with the taser is not aiming it at him, so the barbs must have been already inserted (no doubt very gently), and the soft landing no doubt helped a lot.
I don't have a problem with trained, professional officers with a sense of restraint using these, I have a problem with the uniformed egotistical megalomaniacs that I tend to see using them...
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Thursday 6th September 2007 15:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Another tool to force compliance on free people.
Notice the Chief Constables choice of words at the end there. He gives the impression that we in the UK have to OBBEY police officers, which is bull really, we have to obbey the law.
I expect that this tool will be used more often to supress dispobedience than it could ever be used to enforce the law of the land.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 15:11 GMT Chris
Re: Top Cop?
""We're prepared to use this on members of the public when we have to," says Brunstrom" errr... shouldn't that be on the criminals?"
Errr...no! You're not a criminal until tried and convicted of a crime in court. Before that you're a suspect or accused.
Or are you jumping the gun for when we're all on the DNA database and are all criminals by default?
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Thursday 6th September 2007 15:27 GMT Chris Walker
Good show chaps, now go for the real thing!
This is excellent news - and needs taking to the inveitable conclusion.
Next Thursday, Sir Ian Blair (the Metropolitan Police Commissioner) will be shot 6 times in the head by members of SO19 to demonstrate what happens when you vault over a tube barrier wearing a big jacket in hot weather.
Tickets are available from the usual outlets, with 10p from each donated to H&K.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 15:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
He'll be tasering speeders next
Isn't this the guy who said that people who exceed the speed limit by 5mph are just as bad as murderers?
God forbid anyone who gets pulled over for speeding now, they'll probably be tasered just because they looked at an officer funnily.
Brunstrom is a prat. How the hell he ended up in such a position of power is completely beyond me...
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Thursday 6th September 2007 16:01 GMT Spider
brunstrom is a fool
this man equates speeding with murder, publishes pictures of decapitated bikers without consent. and takes a hit for a whole 1.5 sec and gets two buddies to hold him up!
he advises "...if faced by an officer and a Taser, that you follow the instructions of the nice police officer..." as opposed to the simian who is resentful because someone with an IQ greater than an orange asks why they're trying to force you to do something outside their remit.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 16:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Gareth Eyers
Actually, our police here in the UK regularly shoot each other. One chap became known as "the goalkeeper" for his bullet-absorbtion antics, and in at least one force it seems to be standard practice to wear your kevlar on the range, since they seem to have no clue what the difference between a hot range and a cold range is.
And let's just not go into the infamous gym bag of guns that fell out of the door of the Transit because it was a hot day and they had the sliding door open on the way back to the nick. I don't think Michael Douglas was involved, because there were no followup reports of shot-up burger bars or exploding heavy plant...
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Thursday 6th September 2007 16:31 GMT Silas Humphreys
They missed an opportunity for real publicity here.
They should have had Jeremy Clarkson wielding the zapper. I know he prefers the AK-47, but I should think he'd be prepared to put up with using a yellow toy-like device for the opportunity to run 50,000V through "the mad mullah of the Traffic Taliban"...
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Thursday 6th September 2007 16:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
"the devices are sometimes thought to have worrying health effects"
Like 200 heart failures? No problem, let's just not publicise the deaths. Then it can continue to be true that the ignorant believe that tasers have no worrying health effects.
As for Brunstrom's stunt, it would have been more reassuring if he'd opted for a realistic scenario, i.e. in disguise, and with a bunch of Plods running around and shouting "Taser the bastard!" (sic) before giving "it" to him - whatever "it" might be. I just wonder if Brunstrom had failed to survive his tasering, whether it would be dumped in the dustbin or not.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 17:52 GMT Huw Wynn-Edwards
Bunch of lying blackguards
The two officers holding him as he gets tased are holding his naked arms, and are not wearing insulating gloves. If 50.000 V were actually going through his body both escorting officers would be visibly affected. They're not.
The main effect of a taser is neuro-muscular disability, leaving the victim unable to exercise normal control over his or her muscles. Depending on the duration of the electrocution and the subject's size and fitness, the results can last from fifteen seconds up to a few minutes. What the Chief constable would not be able to do after being tased is turn around and walk away, as he does in the video.
I'm sorry to say this, but the North Wales Police are trying to take us for a ride.
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Thursday 6th September 2007 20:14 GMT Dave Harvey
Floating voltages
Huw Wynn-Edwards said:
"The two officers holding him as he gets tased are holding his naked arms, and are not wearing insulating gloves. If 50.000 V were actually going through his body both escorting officers would be visibly affected. "
I would have expected those reading a techie publication like El Reg to know the difference between earth-based and floating voltages! As neither of the Taser wires is grounded, the current only goes in a circle from the Taser through one wire, the victim and back down the other - there is simply no way that any current can flow into anything/anyone not connected to BOTH wires!
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Thursday 6th September 2007 20:14 GMT Ben Gordon
In the US of A cops just keep shooting till they run out of bullets!
Like the two heros in San Jose California, who, even though they were wearing body armor, had batons and pepper spray, still shot the 98 pound mother of two multipal times because they (the police) thought that the vegetable peeler looked like a weapon.
This happens every day in the US when some jack-booted thug (police officer) "feels threatened" all they need to do is make damn sure that they kill you (wounding is not an option).
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Friday 7th September 2007 07:47 GMT Ian Rogers
@there are no wires
The wires are extremely thin, so it's quite possible they won't show up on highly compressed, youtube style video.
On the other hand he obviously wasn't "shot" with the darts to begin with (which must hurt a lot on their own - especially when the barbed tips are removed!), and a good 5 second burst on bare pavement with no-one to help him gently to the ground would have MUCH more realistic.
And his use of the word "disobedience" at the end is f*cking chilling!!
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Friday 7th September 2007 07:47 GMT dek
Mendes
I'll take the bait...
"Was illegal and shouldn't have been in the country. If he wasn't here he couldn't have been shot at. Simple."
...and if it had been you or a family member or a friend? Spare me the idiots argument of "what if he really had been a terrorist?". A sickening event in a country and society that gets more despicable with each passing day.
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Friday 7th September 2007 08:37 GMT Sceptical Bastard
WTF?
Quote "(Mendes) Was illegal and shouldn't have been in the country. If he wasn't here he couldn't have been shot at. Simple."
FOAD, you moronic anonymous coward. I sincerely doubt you or a member of your family will ever be shot several times in the head for no better reason than a fuck-up by incompetent trigger-happy police - but I live in hope.
I know, I know - do not feed the trolls.
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Friday 7th September 2007 12:36 GMT Mikey
Too quick to judge
Hmm, so many people start screaming and ranting about the problems tasers will cause. What about the problems they'll prevent? Given a choice of being stabbed/shot/beaten, or non-fatally electrocuting someone, I'll pick the latter. And besides, its not like the officers responsible will blithley pull the trigger when they feel like it. Despite the general and ignorant opinion, they're well trained, and will only use options like that when they run out of others.
So before people react in a typical knee-jerk fashion, think carefully about the situations you envisage. The worst case scenario is thankfully also the least likely to happen.
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Friday 7th September 2007 14:37 GMT JC
Re:Too quick to judge
Mikey obviously overlooks that when the coppers promote something as safe, they're suggesting it's OK to use it more frequently.
It will be used not only as an alternative to more deadly force but additionally in cases where they would have done nothing but ask for compliance because they had no justification to use lethal force. Would it surprise you that a large majority of people who are asked to comply, including to a handcuff and arrest, DO comply without any force necessary? It's the exceptions to the rule that are newsworthy but that misleading picture is atypical.
In all liklihood, people will end up tasered out of self-preservation concerns by an officer when the suspect would have complied without being tasered. The problem here is that although an officer has a reasonable concern, for most crimial acts the suspect likewise has a right to self-preservation and that can be a lottery when any device powerful enough to completely disable a person is used.
Mikey the knee jerk reaction is yours when you assume if we don't agree that we must have ignorant opinions. Officers are not looking to carry these so that they won't use them, that would defeat the purpose. They're looking to carry them because they feel they are then allowed to act more aggressively with the same impunity. 9 times out of 10 all that is required for the suspect to comply is just some patience, to give them a few moments to realize they are going into custody no matter what - instead of being bum rushed.
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Friday 7th September 2007 14:37 GMT Chewy
Nice choice of words
Thankfully he changed his choice of words in his blog to "and thus better protection for the public we serve".
Mikey, it must be nice to live in a blinkered world. A friend of mine got gassed for stealing his own car, so frankly I don't trust the police to use these responsibility.
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Saturday 8th September 2007 04:49 GMT Jim
"Think of the children"
Can we add this to the 'bringing up the Nazis' criterion that the debate is over once this line of 'reasoning' has been deployed? Mr Barrett, I'm looking at you.
As for "Mendes", I'm guessing you mean De Menezes and I'm sure he WOULD have preferred a taser to several hollow point rounds for doing nothing out of the ordinary. And being in the UK validly. Just how many Daily Mail readers are there commenting here?
Oh and Clarkson, surely it would have been more entertaining to watch HIM being tasered...
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Saturday 8th September 2007 23:03 GMT David Barrett
WTF?
Jim...
I dont see any mention of nazis... the only thing that comes close to being a reference to nazis is "gas" and thats a reference to the cactus spray (a form of CS GAS) that is currently used to subdue people by the police.
My point (and I have re-read to check that this is clear) is that I would rather that one person got hit by a tazer than anyone standing downwind got hit by the CS Spray that the police use at the moment.
From what I can see the first reference to the nazis was by you...
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Monday 10th September 2007 07:15 GMT Richard Tobin
North Wales Police's TASER video of Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom
On North Wales Police's web site a YouTube video of Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom lays down his warped idea of legitimate police conduct, saying "I very strongly advise you if faced with an officer and a TASER, that you follow the instructions of the nice police officer, because you will not enjoy the consequences of disobedience". If even the 'head of the organisation' thinks physical retribution of excruciating pain should be used against those who fail to comply with police instructions we definitely should not have TASER in the UK.
When police are confronted with a violent or armed person, Taser has a legitimate role to play in making an arrest - I am not decrying that point. My concern is that too frequently the Police - including at least this one Chief Constable - think Tasers legitimate use includes administering electric shocks to disobedient people who fail to obey verbal instructions. Taser should only be used on people who have made a violent response to an officer's attempts to arrest. Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom should resign!
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Wednesday 12th September 2007 17:23 GMT laird cummings
Another for the anonymous coward...
Mendes shouldn't have been illegal? That's fair enough... But it appears that in your world, the penalty for being illegal is death. Glad I live in the real world, instead of yours.
Back on subject - TASERing is no walk in the park, and probably hurts nearly as much as a tax audit, but considering the alternatives, I'm glad the fuzz *have* the alternative to zap first, before resorting to measures more stern.
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Thursday 20th September 2007 11:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Several misunderstandings in this thread... :-(
@Richard Tobin:
Brunstrom clearly describes a situation where "... if faced with an officer and a TASER, that you follow the instructions of the nice police officer, because you will not enjoy the consequences of disobedience." Follow the rules of logic: no-one is going to be faced with a TASER until they have already presented sufficient threat to themselves or to others, to justify the drawing of the weapon.
And on that point, even when the weapon is drawn, only in a relatively small number of cases (here in the UK) is it then fired, because the "red dot effect" - where the subject realises that the TASER is being presented and is home in on him/her, ready for deployment, often results in them submitting to arrest.
@Dan:
I'm glad that you labelled your submission as BS, because I'm sure that it is: "I have a problem with the uniformed egotistical megalomaniacs that I tend to see using them..." How many deployments of TASER have you actually seen, and in how many of those cases was the weapon fired? Zero? I think so...
@The Mole:
Ae you in the US or the UK? Here in the UK, there are Health & Safety laws that mean the "attendants" have to be there to minimise the risks from injury caused by the subject falling, in these demonstrations, daft as it sounds... although I'm surprised that no-one has yet mentioned that fact that the operation policies applying to use of TASER in te UK specifically forbid such "voluntary demonstrations", so Brunstrom is to be condemned for ignoring national firearms policy (set by the Association of Chief Police officers, of which he is a member). That is his truly unforgivable transgression!
And to everyone reading:
At least you can be assured that fewer and fewer officers in the UK will actually be carrying these over the next few years - because 53% of all current serving officers are due to retire or leave the Police Service for other reasons over the next five years - that's more than half of the entire service! Already, almost all "front line" response police officers, including their supervisors, have less than 4 years of service. The loss of expertise will have profound efects, but at least you now understand the current desperate rush to recruit Community Support Officers to attempt to avert the impact of these losses.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
