"It is almost like having your spinal cord severed" .... Lyn Shumack, psychologist. Photo: Craig Abraham
Tasers should not be used in place of communication skills. Anna Patty and Lisa Davies report.
The grainy black and white CCTV footage shows a young Brazilian man running from police before he is shocked by a Taser - a small snapshot of what led to his death.
As it was replayed over and again on internet and television broadcasts, it encouraged viewers to form their own opinions about the rights and wrongs of Taser use.
Reports about the trivial circumstances of 21-year-old Roberto Laudisio Curti's alleged crime - snatching a mere packet of biscuits from a convenience store - and the recent death of both his parents, who were taken by cancer, his youth and promise, made just one thing clear. This was a tragic waste of life.
But questions remain unanswered about whether the Taser was inappropriately used and whether it directly caused the young man's death.
Did he fall and hit his head? Did he have a heart attack? Did multiple firings of the Taser's 50,000 volt-charged pellets kill him? A coronial inquest will soon tell.
The circumstances in which the young police officers drew and fired their Tasers, in the knowledge that each move and sound they made would be captured on a small video camera attached to their Taser, is still unknown. This will be the subject of a investigation to be overseen by the NSW Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour.
At the height of an emotionally-charged debate over the use of Taser guns, Mr Barbour is completing the most comprehensive review of Taser use in Australia, analysing how the device was used more than 1600 times in NSW from October 2008 to November 2010.
During that period, fewer than 30 official complaints were made.
''There are a number of examples publicly discussed already where police have believed that the Taser use was appropriate and where we and magistrates or courts have said we don't think it was appropriate in those circumstances,'' Mr Barbour said. After an earlier review in 2008, he recommended a two-year moratorium before Tasers were widely circulated to allow for the development of protocols, taking into account lessons learned from overseas.
''Unfortunately the government at the time decided they wouldn't follow that course and decisions were made in quick succession to make more Tasers available and to roll them out to all general duties officers,'' Mr Barbour said. ''More than 15,000 police are trained in the use of Tasers in NSW and we have more than 1100 Tasers in use - the most anywhere in the country.''
In response to the overseas experience, Mr Barbour warned of a trend known as ''mission creep'', where police use Tasers in low-risk situations to gain compliance. One woman in the US was shocked by a Taser after refusing to follow a police order to get out of bed.
''We don't want to see police lose the skill to effectively communicate in situations to de-escalate rather than simply resorting to options they have around use of force like capsicum spray and Tasers,'' Mr Barbour said.
