Make views on Taser use known

IN November 2020 following a 2017, yes 2017, review by City of London Police of the rules surrounding the use of Tasers by the States of Jersey Police, the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel approved an additional 20 officers to be trained in their use. This enables a lowly four to six officers per shift to be equipped with a Taser. However, the panel also chose to limit the duration of their approval to a year pending ‘a qualitative approach to assessing public perception of changes to policing’ by the Minister of Home Affairs. This assessment is to include data on each draw, dot or firing of a Taser by officers.

While I despair at the time taken to approve a small increase in essential PPE that protects officers protecting us, I applaud the review but submit that it should include data on when a Taser is not used. In 2020 assaults on Jersey police doubled [compared to 2019] and are on course to increase further in 2021.

Your article (JEP 25 February) ‘Community Service for drunk man who spat at police’ illustrates the risks officers face, especially in this Covid-19 era. During an arrest one officer was knocked to the ground, sustaining injury, and another suffered an elbow strike to the face and scratches to his scalp and face.

I make no comment on the sentence passed upon the dedicated father of previous good character who avoided a prison sentence due to his spittle missing the officers, but ask readers to put themselves in the position of the officers and consider whether they would have liked the option of drawing a Taser in these circumstances in order to safely resolve the situation. Please make your views known, either way, to the Minister for Home Affairs in order to inform the review of Taser authorisation for the States of Jersey Police.

182 Bishopsgate, London.

For more comment and opinion pieces, see today’s Jersey Evenig Post.