THE Essex Police and Crime Commissioner has announced plans \u201cto monitor and review the use of force by Essex Police on a regular basis\u201d following an increase in the use of Taser.<\/p>\n
Nick Alston (pictured) stressed \u201cthat this is not because I have any specific concerns about the actions of officers, but rather because it is precisely the role of the Police and Crime Commissioner to provide oversight on behalf of the public on such matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Home Office statistics showed Essex Police recorded 152 Taser deployments in 2013, compared with 44 in 2009.<\/p>\n
Mr Alston said: \u201cThere has been an increase in the overall \u201cuse\u201d of Taser since 2009, when there were 44 uses, compared with 152 uses in 2013.\u00a0 A similar broad increase in the \u201cuse\u201d of Taser can be seen in most police forces across the country and, in Essex, Taser is \u201cused\u201d less than in many other counties.\u00a0 I note that in Kent, with a similar population and range of challenges, there were 229 \u201cuses\u201d in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe level of force and the circumstances in which police officers \u201cuse\u201d Taser is an area of legitimate public interest.\u00a0 There are risks with the discharge of Taser, and this matter has been raised at our public meetings and through other channels.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn reflection, I believe it is important that I introduce a framework to monitor and review the use of force by Essex Police on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cTherefore, over the next few weeks, I will be developing a monitoring framework with Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh.\u00a0 I also plan on taking the broad issue of the reasonable and proportionate \u201cuse\u201d of Taser to the Ethics and Integrity Committee which I am setting up here in our county.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: \u201cI support Taser use because if it stops one police officer being injured on the streets by someone who is violent and threatening them and they then back off because they could receive a shock if they continue to try and fight and hurt officers then I am all for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are shocking more people, maybe we should be asking the bigger question of why there are more violent people out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Essex Police and Crime Commissioner has announced plans \u201cto monitor and review the use of force by Essex Police on a regular basis\u201d following an increase in the use\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946"}],"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=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}