Ban Police use of Lethal Tasering of people in Mental Health Crisis.
Ban Police use of Lethal Tasering of people in Mental Health Crisis.
Tasers Kill and they are being disproportionately used to target people who are experiencing Mental Health Issues and increasingly against racialised communities (who are over represented in mental health cases.) We are demanding that the Police use of these lethal weapons against people in mental health distress be banned.
My youngest brother, Marc Cole 30, who was a Dad to two little boys, had been battling with the debilitating symptoms of a severe brain condition and a recent bereavement, when he had an acute mental health crisis and an episode of self harm while visiting a friends home.
Marc needed urgent medical assistance and a compassionate response. Instead Marc was repeatedly Tasered by Police when he was terrified and confused. Marc never made it home to his children. Marc had a cardiac arrest and died on the pavement.
People experiencing Mental health issues are at a greater risk of Cardiac arrest after being shot with a Taser. Tasers cause extreme and agonising pain, loss of cognitive function and fatal cardiac arrythmias.
Adrian McDonald, 34, also a father to two little boys, was experiencing an episode of mental distress when he was repeatedly Tasered by Police. No ambulance was called and Adrian died at the scene in the back of a Police van .
This lethal weapon has also been implicated in the deaths of Darren Cumberbatch 32, Dalian Atkinson 48, Jordon Begley 23, Andrew Pimlott 32, with horrifying footage recently released of a man named Oladeji Omishore, tased by Police who fell into the River Thames and later died.
These cases show that these deaths are not unique, but rather a pattern of abusive and excessive force used against people in Mental Health Crisis.
Following the Inquest into Marc's death, a Coroner wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths report calling on a wholesale review of the effects of multiple Taser electrocution activations and prolonged Taser electrocution on vulnerable people. This review was never acted upon.
We want to ensure that the protections set out in the United Nations (UN) convention against Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (CAT) are made a reality for those people at their most vulnerable. Everyone has a right to life and mental ill health should never be a death sentence.
Lack of Stringent Regulation around the use of Tasers in the UK and a lack of Police officer accountability has led to the barbaric and avoidable deaths of many terrified young people in mental health crisis.
We want safe policing for everyone.
We need your help to stop another senseless tragedy happening again. Add your voice, It matters.