The families of people who died after being Tasered by police in England have called for a ban on the use of electrical weapons against people in mental health crises.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said on Wednesday that there was a pattern of more excessive Tasering against people in distress, and black people were more likely to be Tasered for prolonged periods than white people.
Lisa Cole, whose brother Marc Cole, 30, was Tasered for a total of 43 seconds in 2017 while experiencing a mental health crisis and self-harming, said authorities were not taking concerns over electrical weapons seriously. An inquest jury found Cole had not been aggressive or posed a threat.
“They should immediately ban the repeated and prolonged use of Taser against people clearly exhibiting the symptoms of mental ill health until and if they have robust medical data showing that it is safe,” she said. “But you had the home secretary, Priti Patel, telling police officers get out there and ‘really zap the bad people’ earlier this year.”
A call from the coroner in Marc Cole’s inquest for police to review repeated Tasering was rejected. Lisa Cole said the issues raised by the IOPC report, which contains a number of non-binding recommendations for police, should be cause to reopen inquiries.
The IOPC concluded that the performance of the officers who dealt with her brother did not fall below expected standards. “We’re demanding an urgent review and robust reinvestigations because we feel they were flawed,” Cole said. “I don’t believe ex-police officers should be working for the IOPC either. Until that happens, we won’t have any faith in them. There need to be real structural changes.”
The IOPC reviewed 101 of the most high-profile police electrical weapons incidents investigated since 2015, 16 of which led to a death. In the cases of Cole, Darren Cumberbatch, Adrian McDonald and Jordan Begley, inquests found that the use of Taser contributed to or were relevant to their deaths.
McDonald, 34, died in 2014 after having a police dog set upon him and being Tasered for 24 seconds while experiencing a mental health crisis. His mother, Germaine Phillips, said the IOPC report had “rubbed in” a lack of justice.
“As a mother, it’s the injustice and the unaccountability that just breaks your heart again and again,” she said. “I don’t think the IOPC have got the backbone to stand up and tell the police: ‘You’ve done wrong.’ I think they’ve got to be very careful.
“It’s all a stitch-up. These reports are effectively just to say: ‘Well, we’ve done that, so shut up now and go sit down.’ This has just rubbed it in.”
An inquest found that McDonald died from the “effects of cocaine and stress of incident”, after a police dog left bites on his arm and leg that went through the skin and fat into the muscle. He had barricaded himself inside a room at a party.
“The case went to the Crown Prosecution Service but nothing went to court,” Philips said. The two officers involved were found guilty of misconduct by an internal police disciplinary panel but were cleared of all charges by a tribunal.
Carla Cumberbatch, whose brother Darren in 2017 was Tasered three times, punched up to 15 times, beaten with a baton, sprayed with CS gas, stamped on and handcuffed as he also experienced a mental health crisis, hit out at how officers involved in the death had not faced disciplinary consequences.
“All I see is them protecting themselves,” she said. “Who is there to protect us, the public? We’ve already had numerous shoddy reports and unimplemented recommendations since the Macpherson review. Our families are ending up ruined from fighting for justice against a system built against us.”
