During his appearance before the Oireachtas Justice Committee yesterday, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris confirmed that Garda Public Order Units are to be allocated up to 200 tasers. The current policy is to restrict the availability of tasers to armed and emergency garda response units.
For the purposes of clarity, tasers are normally hand-held devices that if engaged, aim to incapacitate a person using a high voltage electric shock (or electro-muscular disruption). They are routinely deployed and promoted as a ‘non-lethal alternative’ to guns in police forces throughout the world.
This does not mean however that the use of tasers is problem-free or that they do not create substantial legal, social, and ethical difficulties. There are in fact very many profound challenges associated with their use; challenges that the Garda authorities would do well to become familiarised with.
This applies also to all of those politicians who in a fit of something like pathetic machismo are currently chomping at the bit for a ‘baton them first and ask questions later’ approach to public order in working class communities.
One of the largest investigations into the use of tasers and stun guns was conducted by Reuters in 2017.
That investigation, ‘Shock Tactics’, examined 1081 deaths involving tasers manufactured by the leading manufacturer in this market, Taser International. It found more than 150 autopsy reports which directly cited tasers as a cause or contributor to deaths across America. There are others, however such as researchers for the website, Fatal Encounters, who argue that there have been around 500 fatal taser encounters with police between 2010 and 2021 across the USA.
In terms of the Reuters investigation, the author of the investigation report noted, ‘many who die are among society’s vulnerable – unarmed, in psychological distress and seeking help.’
This is directly pertinent, I would argue, to the events that unfolded in Dublin, given that they occurred in the inner city among communities destroyed by years of rampant, open drug use and the criminal drug trade. Just how many of those engaged in the riots had actually consumed drugs or alcohol either before during or after is something we may never know.
Just to be clear. This is not about giving those who use drugs or alcohol while they engage in acts of violence a free pass. I am not so dewy-eyed as all that. But what I am saying is that if Gardaí are going to be sanctioned to use tasers far more routinely than they ordinarily do at present, then they better be aware that of the likelihood that they may in fact bring about the death, however inadvertently, of the person they are tasing, particularly if that person is using drugs or alcohol at the time.
Relevant to the conversation here is the Reuters investigation finding that an astonishing 665 of the 1081 taser related deaths it examined involved allegations that the person was intoxicated on drugs or alcohol.
The Reuters investigation also found, having examined hundreds of wrongful death lawsuits, that the public ended up covering the huge liability bills as ‘police described difficulty keeping up with the manufacturer’s increasingly detailed safety alerts.’
In fact, there were 194 cases of families or the estates of victims, suing the police or government agencies with the government paying a settlement.
There is also an interesting academic study in this area conducted by Michael D. White and Justin Ready of Arizona State University. It offers what some at least would see as a more balanced assessment of the use of tasers.
That Arizona study referenced testimony by Amnesty International to the U.S. Department of Justice inquiry into “deaths in custody following electro-muscular disruption.”
This testimony outlined that although AI had collected data on more than 290 cases of individuals in the United States and Canada who since 2001 have died after being struck by police Tasers, “in most cases medical examiners have attributed death to other factors.”
Wherever you come down on the issue of taser use, it is important to be informed and to be aware that their reputation as a ‘safe alternative’ is not as accurate or as problem free as it first appears.