FRONTLINE officers in Essex Police have begun to be issued with Taser \u2013 but the federation are keen on an even greater roll out of the less-lethal weapon.<\/p>\n
Since response and patrol officers were permitted to use Taser in January, more than fifty have been trained in its use.<\/p>\n
The Federation believe this number should increase.<\/p>\n
Roy Scanes, Federation secretary, said: \u201cWe are pleased with an extended roll out of Taser but I do not think it has gone far enough. It is a step in the right direction for more than just firearms officers to be deployed with Taser but we still believe it could go further.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to discuss this with the force.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently there are 174 authorised firearms officers in Essex Police trained to use Taser, with 57 response and patrol officers now also permitted to use the stun gun.<\/p>\n
Mr Scanes added: \u201cIt is a fantastic piece of kit to combat someone who is threatening violence towards officers or has possession of a weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like there to be a Taser available to officers in Essex as a back up 24 hours a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Scanes said that there are associated risks with officers using CS on suspects, as it can have after affects, and that officers using a baton can potentially break bones.<\/p>\n
Taser, he said, poses neither of these risks and has the added bonus of allowing officers to keep a safe distance from violent suspects.<\/p>\n
He also said the threat of a red dot from the Taser shining onto a suspect often makes people calm down.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy producing a Taser gun, nine out of ten people become amendable to arrest,\u201d added Mr Scanes.<\/p>\n
Simon Chesterman, the ACPO lead on Taser, told EssexFedFocus: \u201cCould I see a day where every front line officer is issued with Taser? I can see a day when that might be possible. But the one thing we will never do in this country is lower our standards of training we give officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you consider at the moment that 25% of officers are failing the training\u2026 the chances are we will never see every officer carrying one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FRONTLINE officers in Essex Police have begun to be issued with Taser \u2013 but the federation are keen on an even greater roll out of the less-lethal weapon. Since response\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}