RR Phantom
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Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: OZschwitz: Statist Crims Get Tasers  Mon May 19, 2008 10:08 pm | |
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THE State Government will push ahead with its support for a staged distribution of stun guns to police despite the imminent release of a report by the NSW Ombudsman on the weapon's safety.
In what could be perceived as a snub to the role of the NSW Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, the Minister for Police, David Campbell, said he would support the provision of Tasers to two officers at each police command.
"The Government is about making decisions, not necessarily about sitting around waiting for reports," he said when asked why he had not waited until July, when the report is due, to announce the distribution.
"I received advice from the commissioner, from operational police, that these devices would be useful in a modern police setting in NSW, and the Government has endorsed that advice," Mr Campbell said.
The Government announced on Sunday that it would spend more than $1 million on 229 Tasers to give officers the option of using "less-than-lethal force".
Two Tasers would be issued to each command - to the duty officer and to the supervising sergeant - this year, said the Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione. The use of Tasers could have prevented the shooting death of Roni Levi on Bondi Beach in 1997, he said.
The roles of the duty officer and the supervisor mean they are rarely the first officers to respond to incidents. Despite that, it would mean the Tasers were more readily available, a spokesman for Mr Scipione said.
"At the moment we call [the riot squad] and you can imagine how long it takes to get them in, so it will be better if they're in the hands of a duty officer and a supervisor."
The riot squad and the Tactical Operations Unit are the only two units to use the weapons at present. The two squads have used the guns - which deliver a 50,000-volt electric shock - about 50 times in the six years since they were introduced.
It is unknown what the Ombudsman's report will say, but there is widespread debate about the use of Tasers.
In Canada the debate has been fierce after a man shot with the weapon at Vancouver airport died. A parliamentary inquiry into his death heard that 17 people had died after being shot with the weapon since 2003.
The Tasers, which will be fitted with cameras to film their use, are expected to be more widely issued once the 229 have been trialled for a year.
It is unlikely the $4000 devices would be given to all 15,200 of the state's officers, as that would cost more than $60 million, or 3 per cent of the $2 billion annual police budget.
While the Police Association supports the weapon being distributed, its president, Bob Pritchard, said it did not go far enough and he would like to see more Tasers in the hands of front-line officers. The association would like a Taser in every police car in NSW, he said.
Mr Barbour had no comment about the release of the Tasers by Mr Scipione, but he said he had not been informed of the release by the minister or police, and learnt about it in the media.
LNK
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CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
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| | Subject: Re: OZschwitz: Statist Crims Get Tasers Mon May 19, 2008 10:22 pm | |
| OZschwitz statist barbarians!
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Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband
“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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