Police in south Kent have high rates of taser use
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Medway’s police have targeted suspects
with tasers more often than anywhere else in the county, latest
figures reveal.
But they also have the lowest use in
Kent, between January last year and August 2010, for discharging
the stun guns.
The area with most taser firings in
Kent during that period is mid Kent, with nine uses over 48
incidents.
In all, the county’s officers have
targeted 446 suspects with taser guns since January last year.
But the weapons - which send 50,000
volts through a person’s body - have only been fired 33 times at
suspects.
They were pulled on people 413 times
without being fired, with officers often just using them as a
deterrent to violence.
Assistant Chief Constable Andy Adams
said: "During the time Kent Police has used tasers, it has become
clear that they are highly effective in violent or potentially
dangerous situations.
"Often, just the presence of officers
carrying and drawing a taser is enough of a deterrent to a volatile
or violent individual resisting arrest to make them surrender to
police."
Stun guns - which were introduced to
the force in 2005 - are often used in domestic violence incidents
and to restrain threatening members of the public and people trying
to resist arrest.
At the beginning of this year the
number of police officers trained to use taser guns in the county
was almost trebled to about 300.
Friday, September 10 2010
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