A CAMPAIGN led by the families of people who have died after Taser use by Metropolitan Police officer has called for a ban on the weapon being deployed on people if they are experiencing a mental health crises. 

The launch of the campaign follows the publication of a Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) review of Taser cases between 2015-20. It found that 60% of black people were subjected to Taser use for up to five seconds longer in comparison to just 29% of white people, and people with mental health issues were also “more likely to be subjected to multiple and prolonged discharges” of a stun gun. A total of 16 people have died where the use of Tasering has been a factor following the inquests in their deaths.

Ban

Lisa Cole, whose own brother, Marc Cole, died from the deployment of a Taser during a mental health episode, is one of the campaigners behind the End Taser Torture petition which is calling for a complete ban on Tasers across England being used on vulnerable people.

“There doesn’t seem to be any regulation or guidance around the use of Tasering in the UK and there doesn’t seem to be any information about how safe they are,” she told The Voice.

“As it stands, a police officer can just Taser you for as long as they want and there’s no safe upper limit that’s been put in place to guide how they use them. So, a police officer can Taser you for an hour if they want to and kill you, and there’s nothing to stop them doing that and that cannot be right.”

The death of her brother in 2017 led to the Prevention of Future Death report that called for the review of the “effects of multiple Taser electrocution activations and prolonged Taser electrocution on vulnerable people”.

However, Cole said the hard-hitting report was rejected by the then-Home Secretary Priti Patel and the College of Policing for national reform that could have avoided more deaths at the hands of Taser use. 

The End Taser Torture campaign is a “collective of families” working together who’ve all lost loved ones to Taser use by the police, but Ms Cole said it is important to bring attention to what Black families in particular have experienced. 

Targeted

“Black people are disproportionately targeted with tasers” she said. “The IOPC report was written last year, we were all consulted on that and it found that black people are in the firing line. Like all forms of police brutality and abuse, black people are the ones who are first in line to receive that and because they’re overrepresented in mental health cases, that’s a double whammy. If you’re a black person having a crisis, the outcomes of just staying alive are very slim. And that’s not acceptable to us. We’re not prepared to stand back and just allow the police and the government to overlook this and for people to keep dying.”

Adrian McDonald, 34, died after being Tasered by police for up to 24 seconds and was bitten by a police dog during a mental health crisis while at a party with friends in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. His mother, Germaine Phillips, told The Voice that the police responded to reports of a burglary when Adrian became erratic, because they “always put out that narrative” and believed the actions leading up to his death were racist. 

She alleges that one of the sergeants arriving at the scene had asked Adrian, who was already under the influence of cocaine, if he had been taking monkeydust – a psychoactive drug.

“They persecuted Adrian. It is barbaric what they did. They had no mercy on Adrian. They didn’t care. And especially when they look to see that Adrian was a black man, he was quite a big lad, he was tall and strappy,” she said.

“They try to say that the Taser doesn’t affect anybody, but your body goes into a spasm. Your heart is the biggest muscle in your body and if that thing goes into your body and is causing a spasm, where you can’t control yourself, you just drop like a ton of bricks – what is that doing to your heart and your organs?”

Bitten

The dad-of-two had barricaded himself into a room while suffering a mental health episode before he was bitten by a police dog so severely it pierced through his skin and muscle and was left in a police van struggling to breathe. An inquest into his death found that Adrian had died from the “stress of the incident.”

The two police officers involved in the case were found guilty of misconduct by a disciplinary panel, but later cleared of the charges by a tribunal. Ms Phillips said the inquest accepted the “injuries that the police did,” but that if Adrian was white they would have said bluntly “that the Taser contributed to the death.”

Darren Cumberbatch, 32, died in 2017 after being Tasered up to three times by police officers during a mental health crisis. Following an inquest into his death, it found the force used against him “may have been excessive and avoidable” amid the IOPC reopening the flawed investigation into his death in July this year. 

Darren’s sister, Carla Cumberbatch, told The Voice that ongoing “systemic failures” contributed to her brother’s killing.

“We’ve been under investigation basically for five years, and two months ago, we’ve just been informed that we’re going through a re-investigation and how rare it is. Well, in my eyes, if they [the IOPC] did their jobs properly we wouldn’t be going through a re-investigation, accountability should have been upholded,” she said.

Failure

“But conveniently, you’ve just given the officers time to say I don’t remember. We’ve seen many reports and many implemented reports that are basically designed against us. They’re not in our favour, so who is here to protect us? We’re told we’ve got human rights but when it comes up against corporations and certain government organisations, it’s clearly a systemic failure. We can go as far back as the Macpherson report.”

Darren was beaten with a baton, sprayed with CS gas, punched up to 15 times, stamped on and handcuffed while experiencing a mental health crisis before dying nine days later.  

As the second investigation is underway, in a letter to the Cumberbatch family the police watchdog recognised that “the actions, decisions and omissions of those who dealt with Mr Cumberbatch ultimately resulted in significant force being used against a black man who was suffering from ABD [Acute Behavioural Disturbance].”

The recent cases of ex-footballer Dalian Atkinson, who was Tasered and kicked in the head in 2016, and Oladeji Omishore who died after jumping off Chelsea bridge while also being hit with a stun gun by officers in June this year all had mental health as a factor before their deaths. 

Echoing a statement by the Omishore family, Cole said that the treatment of black people by the police goes to show that “black men aren’t allowed to be in crisis” and that the police will continually deny that they have an “issue of institutional racism in the forces.”

Stigma

She went on to slam the stigma around people who suffer from mental health while being subjected to Taser when they are often “more at risk of a cardiac event because of the medication that they’re sometimes on.”

She added: “We know that in all of our cases, our loved ones did have mental health issues, but they had also used the drug earlier on in the day. We know that that’s quite often a co-morbid issue that people use to deal with their trauma, and that can put you at risk of the adverse effects of the Taser as well.”

Police officers who use Tasers are required to undergo specific training and in March 2022 police forces saw the roll-out of Taser use expanded to voluntary police officers across England and Wales by the former Home Secretary.

National guidelines for using stun guns currently have no imposed limit around age, meaning they can be used on children and young people and no upper limit is in place for how long they can be used on people. Police officers are advised to avoid unleashing the electrical probes on sensitive areas such as the neck, head and genitalia. 

Leroy Logan, a former superintendent at the Met Police, also backed the calls for Taser use to be banned against people during a mental health crisis by police officers until a review is completed.

“The quality of the officers or the calibre of the officers who are responding to these cases need to be trauma informed and trauma responsive so they don’t escalate matters when they get to the call and are more likely to de-escalate, being more culturally competent. They have those skills that will result in less use of the Taser,” he said.

“Second thing is there should be a triage approach to, especially mental health cases when people are in a high state of frenzy etc. There should be not just officers going to these calls, there should be triage units with trauma informed officers, approved psychologists and trained nurses so that they respond and they don’t necessarily need any other untrained officers, which we have at the moment. Most officers are untrained around dealing with mental health cases.”

Amnesia

The ex-cop went onto accuse the police of “suffering from institutional amnesia” when a 2017 report recommended these very changes to mental health and Taser deployment went ignored.

The landmark report, led by Lord Victor Adebowale, called on the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and College of Policing to work together on “policy and training on restraint to ensure that the principles outlined in this report are enforced or utilised.”

Recommendations also outlined how new processes needed to be “introduced in the review of standard operating procedures and policies with relevance to mental health.”

Logan said it was “beggar’s belief” that the reports recommendations had not been put into practice and that deaths where Taser has been factor have all been “avoidable.”

He added: “The police, once they think they cracked it, they move on. They don’t tap into the learning of the past. And so, they’re more inclined to repeat the future mistakes based on that lack of learning. And so, you have these officers just untrained in dealing and assessing with mental health cases, especially black men who were seen as threatening and menacing, treating them just as prisoners and not as patients. So, all police services across the country have to have that triage approach.”

Change

The End Taser Torture petition has currently amassed over 50,000 signatures and are in need of at least 150,000 signatures to get their cause heard “in the right places” before real change is implemented.

However, Cole said that the campaign has never been about revising training standards.

“What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get as much public support, but also we need the public awareness to be raised about tasers as well, because I don’t think a lot of people understand that if you get shot with one, you can die immediately within seconds,” she said. 

“It can just stop your heart beating. We’re trying to get it into Parliament and we’re trying to obviously change the regulation around the use of Taser. But, we don’t believe that this is a training issue. They’ve had training. There were training issues flagged in my brother’s case, in Adrian McDonalnd’s case, and in Darren Cumberbatch’s case – this is about how police should not have tasers if they’re not going to respect human life.”

Justice

She added: “It’s too late for our families, they are never going to come back. We don’t believe that we’ll ever get justice for them, but we want to try and make sure this doesn’t happen again to anybody else.”

Andy Walker, a lead for uniformed policing at the College of Policing told The Voice that policing exists to help keep people safe, and there have been occasions when the deployment of Taser has helped protect the public and police officers from serious harm as well as individuals who may be at risk of harm to themselves or others.

He added: “However, we recognise that Tasers need to be used appropriately and the operational decisions made by police officers at an incident will often be complex and taken in extremely pressured circumstances. It is crucial that officers have the best possible training, and there is proper supervision and scrutiny of Taser use, so that we equip officers to make decisions to best protect the public. 

“Earlier this year, as part of the police race action plan, research was commissioned on race disproportionality in Taser use. This research is due to be completed by 2023 and advisory groups have been set up to examine the results and report back on the learnings which will help to inform policy and practice and ensure the research leads to meaningful change.

“The training for officers using Taser is comprehensive and includes de-escalation techniques to ensure that any use of force, including the deployment of Tasers, only happens when it is absolutely necessary.”