(OK thick tin foil)

"Of course that assumes that anyone in power still knows how to tell the truth."

Even suggesting that is a possibility shows you have waaay too much faith in the current establishment....!

All good in my book - with the 'accurate' recording of usages, and the marks to prove it, I'm sure it'll enable the Boys-in-Blue to disperse the pesky Yoofs of today with a short, sharp zap!

"Let that be a lesson, m'lad. Now, go on home and.." ZAP! "..be quick about it!"

All we need next is the amazing ID Cards :o)

Paris, because she'd get my truncheon anyday!

Hmmm..

Shot or taser???? Which would you prefer.

Stop the media panic - I'd prefer the police to use them, they have to protect themselves too. If someone is brandishing a knife at a policeman/woman then they have to defend themselves. If, when trying to 'get the knife' or whatever item it is off a person a 'ranged' shot from a taser would be safest for most people (even the person brandishing the weapon.

Mines the one with the earthing cable.....

When it is becoming common to see videos of half a dozen cops standing over a downed victim - or should I say alleged perpetrator - and zapping him multiple times, it becomes obvious that the taser is the most abused weapon since the night-stick (applied in a dark alley). The new weapon of choice for today's coward on parade. (CoP)

TASER International states that no deaths have been directly caused by a taser, although they might have been "contributing causes". Last I heard, a mugger that scares someone with an existing heath problem to death, still gets charged for the death.

Cuts and bruises heal. A stopped heart, just because you were yelling at someone, could be more permanent.

You seem to be getting a little confused. The article is about police officers in England and Wales (for the geographically challenged that does not include Canada, Scotland nor Northern Ireland).

@ Mark

Any more of that nonsense and you'll shining somebody's toecaps with your gentleman's area and opening the the van door with your head!

the "specially trained unit nightwatch" or STUN

I'm already out the door

No, I didn't forget the joke icon.

This sort of crap REALLY pisses me off. The police RELY on goodwill and they've pissed it up the wall at every opportunity. This is one major reason why when there's a fight, the plod turn up in a van or five to outnumber the people causing a problem. It would be unnecessary if people felt the police were on their side, but since we all know they aren't, we won't lift finger to help if the policeman gets in over their head.

Heck, some may join in. If they tazered someone unarmed, I would.

And for the rest of you:

"Any more of that nonsense and you'll shining somebody's toecaps with your gentleman's area and opening the the van door with your head!"

"Worlds funniest Penis Tazerings"

SEE! EVERYONE knows that the police are a bunch of thugs, incapable of maintaining the kings peace (which is their remit). It's just that some plonkers think it's funny. Like getting ass-raped when you're in jail. Yeah, side-splitting humour! NOT.

THIS is what the police pissed up the wall. The public don't trust them and know that in any altercation, the police WILL go OTT and get away with it scott free.

All because the police now see their rights as a privilege and not a responsibility.

"...a firearm could NOT be considered lethal weapon because there have been reported cases of death NOT occurring..."

But what about the Lethal* cannabis!?

Ah, the one with the cattle prod and fine old Jamaican in the pocket please...

"In fact, your finger is a lethal weapon, because you could use it to poke someone REALLY HARD. Or you could choke them with it (assuming they don't bite it off, of course)."

You did know, didn't you, that a professional boxer's fists are considered deadly weapons if they assault someone?

These officers are supposed to be trained in these techniques of self-defense and submission holds.

PS I always figured "resisting arrest" to be a bloody stupid charge. Who WON'T resist arrest? Either

a) they done it and don't want to be arrested

b) they don't think what they did deserved arrest

and, since you're going to get them for the action you arrested them in the first place, seems rather like over-egging the pudding a little.

PPS someone please show me where "tasering until your balls crackle then arrest you" is the correct punishment for an assault on police officer. Me, I was under the impression it was "arrest, go to court and maybe jail". Old-fashioned little old me...

Oh come off it, the reason the police turn up and out number people 5 to 1 is because of people who seem to think they shouldn't respect them. Its a hard and necessary job and someone has to do it, peoples view like this is just trivial..

How about we put all the "**** the police brigade" onto an Island with all society's miscreants and thugs and see how long they last until they change their minds..

That seems a waste of tax payer's money, having two different units who use them, presumably with different training methods too. They should merge Special Training Units (STUs) and Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs) into a new single unit; Specially Trained Firearms Units, or STFUs.

Mines the one with mittens pinned to the back and tomato sauce on the front...

Those is positions of authority should respect those who they have authority over, and this will lead to respect in return. Think back to your school days.... I bet your favourite teacher was the one that listened to you and responded intelligently to your opinions.... the one that showed you respect.

The police should respect the general public, but they do not any more and treat everyone as "suspects".... but with so many out-of-date or vague laws on the books these days most people are probably guilty of something. So is it any wonder people don't respect the police by default.... they don't respect us by default.

One day you or someone you care about will be on the wrong end of police persecusion, and your opinion will grow up. But until then, you'll come across as a hate-filled Daily Mail reader!

Wow, this thread reads like an inverse Daily Mail and is about as balanced and reasoned. I’m afraid it smacks of that special “well everybody knows” wisdom that the Mail tends to adopt when it wants to damn asylum seekers, gypsies, Muslims, hoodies or anyone else they care to defame.

Outside of the Metropolitan areas the only way you’re likely to become outnumbered by the cops is during pre-planned events because, for the most part, they’re spread so thin on the ground they have no real effect. For example, it’s not that unusual to have just 5 night duty officers for the whole of South Bucks where once there would have been in excess of 50; and its like this right across the country.

The fact is that the majority of shift officers are still within their first 3-4 years service and desperately inexperienced, their average age is 22 and 50% of them are female. That 1970’s recruitment bulge are now retiring and large swathes of the remainder have either emigrated or left early. In many towns today the cops are outnumbered by PCSOs and that’s a real scandal.

This new breed of young cops, ‘The 12 year Olds’, now represents the majority of most Forces and are utterly indoctrinated with political correctness and career development; they are certainly no match for the relentless yobbery that blights so many estates and town centres and the yobs know that.

They go out of their way to avoid any confrontation and are not remotely equipped to deal with violence. They certainly can’t handle it themselves; does anyone really believe that 2 days annual Officer Safety Training days even remotely equates with “trained in these techniques of self-defence and submission holds”? They’re absolutely petrified of receiving any complaints and act more like Social Workers than Police Officers. Battering handcuffed prisoners? Get real, they’d be petrified.

The modern Police Force may be facing a looming crisis, the tragedy is that those in charge are utterly blinkered and can’t see it coming - but this has nothing to do with all of that bilious invective spouted above. They’d rather please the press than enforce the law. If the Police are unable to protect themselves the rest of us don’t stand a chance.

There is a whole country outside London people, stop falling for the hype and see what’s really going on – there’s plenty to be depressed about it’s just not what you think it is.

But then I’m probably wasting my breath when so many of you really think you ‘know’ what’s going on.

If I ever (not likely) find myself on the receiving end of a taser, I will make bloody sure I have something to defend myself with. Count on it.

I saw a guy get tasered in Clapham last week (fuzzy on details, but I think it was twice - he was a big guy...)

He was blatantly so drunk / high / something that he probably didn't really understand what was going on... Not so much resisting as not struggling to comprehend..

It seemed a bit harsh to me, as did the 10 police people who sat on him for the next 10 minutes till they could cart him off.

Hope he's ok.

Nice to see the Goverment charade exposed for the smokescreen that it is, I like the true in depth research carried out here. and wish to see other news organisations doing better! Everyone know the government spins faster than a Pentadyne UPS (or an electron for that matter..), so its good when it is all unravelled and laid bare! Good work young padawan.

Paris Because...

The problem is that we're bombarded by these ridiculous laws that criminalize everyone. Which means that the chances are you ARE a criminal; we're cautious around the police because it'd just take one wrong comment and they could pull you in for _something_.

Also aren't you saying the same thing as Babz, or at least something complementary? If people actually respected the police and their ability to sort out problems- preventing further disturbances- their job would be far easier.

We should get rid of most of the ridiculous reactionary laws that have been added over the last few years. Also, a "Book of Law" that's available to all citizens and visitors would be a good investment for the government- showing exactly what is legal and what isn't. Complete with case studies where applicable... did I just re-invent the Bible?

Seriously, though, Tasers are a good thing. They mean theres less chance of damage to the police and their equipment, and less chance of some "I'm dead hard, me" twat getting away. And, of course, less chance of serious injury than a clobbering with a nightstick. Though being able to change it between "knock down" (single short shock) and "'til the balls crackle" (almost constant on) modes would be very, very useful.

Still gonna get the tinfoil armour out, though!

Spot on!

I like the comments about people getting paranoid. Lest you forget there have been several incidents where cops have shot the wrong guy, it doesnt matter if he just wanted to ride the tube at stockwell or was carrying his table leg home from the pub... give a man a weapon and some will abuse it. I'm a shooter myself and we all know the police are bad shots and trigger happy we have some that shoot with us just to get better training than offered at work.

There was an "incident" involvind a barrister in london a couple of weeks ago, the police said he was firing a shotgun and that "a" firearm was removed afterwards but when the police executed him, they said they couldnt tell if he was shot with a shotgun or a police bullet. HELLO!?! you cant tell the difference between a 5.56mm NATO round and 500 tiny pellets in the face? He was executed, and here is the next firearms cover up by the police.

My opinion, they should be fitted with cameras that record everything from the moment they are removed from the holster. Police must radio in the problem and OBTAIN PERMISSION to taser just as they must do with a firearm. It then has to be logged afterwards.

I can personally see this being abused ,especially given the fact the current government likes to pull insane laws from their behind and enforce them like Asbo's for being too loud during sex!

Oi whatever your doing just stop that.........TZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZz

All people by default ought to have some basic respect for one another, call it common courtesy or politeness; I think of it as social lubricant. Police officers cant function without it.

The UK Police are a civilian body and by definition are “citizens locally appointed”; so yes they are “us” and always have been, that was the whole point of their inception. Their essential job description is, in order of priority: “The preservation of life and property, the maintenance of order and the prevention and detection of crime”. And that, by and large, is what the vast majority of them endeavour to do, even the youngest most inexperienced.

The job can indeed be dangerous and unpleasant; it can also be boring, hilariously funny, rewarding, frustrating, exciting, depressing and exhilarating. Dependent on the Force (there are 43) and local demographics, the nature of job and the number of different roles within it, can vary enormously, usually far more than most people realise. There’s certainly no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all cop and to pretend there is, is at best, naive.

Sadly, many people today seem locked into several fixed stereotypes, and like all stereotypes, they can become enthusiastically reinforced by selective (and often inaccurate) news coverage, uninformed speculation (the Daily Mail anybody?) and the constant drip feed of TV and movie fiction. But haven’t we all learned yet that stereotypes seldom reflect reality, particularly on an individual basis? Any inner-city teenaged black kid will tell you that with far more eloquence than I.

I have personally had a number of very violent and unpleasant experiences (including 2 attempted murders) with black youths and, based on so many of the “I once saw a cop doing …. therefore they all etc” arguments, I ought to now be pre-judging all Afro-Caribbean’s accordingly but I don’t because I know better and can recognise a stereotype when I see one; sadly, this does not seem true for most of the above including yourself.

You say that ‘the Police’ don’t actually do the job they’re supposed to be doing, but that’s absolute nonsense and manifestly incorrect, in any event, it is now almost entirely demand led. For the vast majority, the workload is relentless and is embraced with an enthusiasm borne of job satisfaction and social conscience. There are over 140,000 of them, that you seem content to selectively allow individual events to rubbish them all is both a facetious and disingenuous standpoint. It’s certainly not an argument that would hold much water in any other discussion.

Yes, individuals can and do indeed do stupid and inappropriate things from time to time, I certainly have and so probably have you but you try and learn from them and move on. Hell’s teeth, Doctors murder patients, Bankers embezzle, Solicitors steal money and Builder’s wreck extensions, does that mean they’re all rubbish?

My greatest concern, however, is the acute loss of experience coupled with the Home Office’s overly-enthusiastic embrace of PCSO’s – and I mean no disrespect to any of them reading this – the consequences are already being felt on the streets. That and much of the muddled thinking that emanates from the Bramshill Police Staff College (ACPO training) and the Home Office in general. Much of the law we're given to enforce is shocking and ill-conceived but, quite rightly, we have no direct control over that.

Half hearted policing on the cheap is no substitute for the real thing and, as I already mentioned, many of the yobs are realising this and are gradually ‘upping the anti’ in many areas across the country. It is no longer unusual to find weapons and Class-A drug stashes in housing estates and a ready willingness to resort to extreme violence and intimidation over mere trivia. In the first half of my 33 year career I encountered murder rarely, in my current role, it’s now a weekly event (well twice this week already). And if we stop coping with it, what hope do you have?

I fear for the future.

The chair leg man is interesting, I stand to be corrected but as I recall, he went to the pub and managed to convince a number of people he was indeed carrying a sawn-off shotgun wrapped in a bin bag and brandished it accordingly. It certainly had the same essential silhouette as one. Those that knew him there believed that it was indeed a very credible threat and called the police because he left them with the impression that he was off to use it.

So an ARV was deployed to find a man carrying a sawn-off in a bin-bag and it was not very long before they found him. When he came around the corner they were both on foot and out in the open, well within a sawn-off’s likely killing range. Believing he was armed, they put in a challenge and told him to put it down but instead he turned, grasped the bin bag as if it did indeed contain a shotgun and brought it up on aim with the inevitable consequences.

Now, what would you do if you genuinely believed that you were about to be shot, had the means to prevent your immanent death and had a fraction of a second to make your decision? These were certainly the circumstance the two officers believed they were in. They had no time, nor previous opportunity, to do anything else to avoid the situation. Both of them shot and given that these were indeed the correct circumstances so would I and, if you were honest, so probably would most of you too.

It was unfortunate for all concerned but life is seldom as clear cut as we’d it to be and, no matter what checks and balances you attempt to impose on ANY system, shit will still happen. Only for armed plods, the results are invariably more consequential than a data loss or cancelled contract.

Not so clear cut as the above rant would imply is it?

That ‘trigger happy’ cliché always makes me smile and yet still it persists. In my Force we’ve been carrying firearms for decades, every day - 24/7. At any one time there are a number of pre-planned operations that necessitate the issue of firearms not counting the growing number of ARV (Armed response Unit) deployments.

Each month there are a number of overt 'rapid interventions' and 'hard stops' during which offenders are arrested, many in possession of firearms themselves. There’s a small army of Protection Officers, Tactical Support Group officers, ARV and ASVs, Firearms Instructors and a few others and events certainly keep us very busy.

Many thousands of man-hours (oops person-hours) have been expended on armed operational commitments and, as always, the fundamental plan is to try to prevent anyone having to shoot at all (both us and ‘them’) – and I have to say we’ve become rather adept at this.

I’m afraid that I only have a detailed awareness of the last 40 years but in all that time only 2 shots have ever been fired in anger.

On what planet does 2 shots in 40 years actually count as trigger happy?

I'll get my BPV.

Well said...! Spot on, except for where you state: "The modern Police Force may be facing a looming crisis..." - in fact, that should be: "... *IS* facing a looming crisis...".

The Edmond Davies bump has already arrived, and can be seen from the retirement details in any force's "weekly orders". I live in the borough of Crewe & Nantwich, where the Labour candidate is openly advocating increases in powers for Community Support Officers - so much for assurances that this wasn't going to be "two-tier policing" or "policing on the cheap". Incidentally, if the Cheshire Police Authority (with the lowest policing precept of any shire force in England and Wales) is capped at 5%, as the Government has already indicated will happen, it means the loss of another 192 regular officers - and police numbers have already started falling across the UK.

If this lot's understanding of policing is on a par with their understanding of spelling and grammar (for God's sake, there's spell-checking for submissions to El Reg!), you are wasting your time anyway... there seems to be no appreciation that, as a consequence of this Government's "performance" targets, what gets measured gets done - so the stuff that they are moaning about isn't going to be addressed because the shortcomings further down the criminal justice process mean there's no point in wasting resources on a short-term fix when it uses up scarce resources but counts for nothing in performance terms. That's why cannabis warning "detections" are up significantly - they count as "offences brought to justice" in the game that the Government makes the police play. Don't blame the police - they don't make the "performance" rules but they are held to account by those rules.

So, yes, the UK is going to get the policing that it deserves... just at the time when the Home Secretary is openly encouraging the police to harass a specific section of the community (those who refuse to behave and obey the law): "Nobody should have to accept neighbourhood thugs" http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news/no-more-asb

Ermmm... what's all that about, our Jacqui? Have you asked your colleague, Harriet Harperson, about that? When she was a legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties, she spent tens of thousands of pounds trying to get police officers disciplined or charged with criminal offences for doing just what you are now advocating... so what's changed? The appearance of "New Labour"?

Maybe our Jacqui has finally realised just what deep shit we are now all in as a result of the Human Rights Act, and if so, maybe she is now desperately trying to get the genie back in the bottle, but it's too late... God help us all...