I was not shocked, if you’ll excuse the pun, to read the news this week that two Sussex Police Officers who tasered a wheelchair- bound 92-year-old amputee had escaped criminal conviction. A common theme of this blog is how often the criminal courts seem to hold Police officers committing acts of violence to a lower standard than those of members of the public; either out of inherent pro- police bias or because the judge and/or jury think that the misconduct charges which will follow afterwards, and the potential loss of a Police career is ‘punishment enough.’ We can only speculate, but there certainly is evidence that a Police uniform is armour against the criminal convictions that would settle upon a civilian who perpetrated the same level of force.
In this particular case, PCs Stephen Smith and Rachel Comotto attended at a care home in June 2022, in response to reports that Donald Burgess, a 92-year-old wheelchair user with only one leg, had picked up a food knife and was threatening to ‘stab’ staff members. It is now known that Burgess was delirious owing to a urinary tract infection. PC Smith used PAVA spray and his baton against Burgess, whilst PC Comotto fired her taser gun at him, all within 1 minute 23 seconds of the officers entering the old man’s room. Burgess was taken to hospital after the incident, where he contracted Covid, and died 22 days later.
The officers will now face a gross misconduct hearing, which I expect will result in their being dismissed without notice. I also expect that, notwithstanding the ‘not guilty’ verdicts, Sussex Police will move swiftly to settle any claim for damages being brought on behalf of Mr Burgess’s estate.
The really concerning feature of this incident, as far as I am concerned, is the speed with which the Police violence escalated – and particularly the use of taser after only a minute and a half. All too many Officers armed with tasers deploy the weapon as if it were a toy gun, and they were playing a game of ‘cops and robbers.’ To my mind, there was no justification for such an obviously vulnerable and extremely elderly person to be tasered in circumstances like this. Taser must not be used as a short-cut to resolve a conflict, when other options are reasonable alternatives (such as negotiation and hand-to-hand restraint techniques, in which Police Officers are well- schooled).
Not every knife- wielding suspect is Jack the Ripper. Mr Burgess deserved help and compassion, not harm.
Read here about some of the cases I have brought for clients who are the victims of unjustified taser use –
- A black man tasered in his own home, after he turned his back on officers
- A man in need of a welfare check, tasered and then beaten as if he were a dangerous criminal
- A man tasered by an officer who thought that tasering was “the same level as just putting your hands on someone”
- A mentally unwell person subjected to ‘electric shock’ treatment.
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