Policing - in brief (28)
01 July 2007
UK: Police use of Taser extended: In May the then Home Secretary, John Reid, announced plans to extend the number of police officers authorised to use controversial Taser stun guns to the annual Police Federation conference in Blackpool. The move was presented as part of a government package to "rebalance" a criminal justice system that Reid sees as overwhelmingly biased in favour of the criminal at the expense of the victim. While many view Reid's perception of the criminal justice system as idiosyncratic, his decision does overturn the view of a previous Home Secretary, Hazel Blears, who in 2005 described the Taser as "a dangerous weapon" which should not be issued to all front line officers. She added, that the 50,000 volt electric stun gun was unsuitable for use in everyday circumstances and that providing officers with such an "an array of weapons" could undermine relations between the police and public. Currently, only trained firearms officers can use the weapon but the new plans would extend this to support units and extend its use on people who are not armed. The Home said that the stun guns would be tested over a year long period in a trial for units that were not authorised firearms officers. While the Taser is widely described as a "non-lethal" weapon numerous deaths have been linked to the it by Amnesty International. The manufacturer of the model used by the UK police, Arizona based Taser International, was forced to correct misleading statements it made about the weapon in 2005, (see
Statewatch Vol 15 no 5).
Times 17.5.07; politics.co.uk 16.5.07
Italy: Genoa G8 demonstrator wins compensation: Marina Spacchi, a 50-year-old paediatrician from Trieste who was beaten during police raids in the G8 summit in Genoa on 20 July 2001, has won 5,000 euros compensation at a Genoa tribunal after the interior ministry was found guilty for her material and moral suffering. The charges stated that "it was neither an isolated incident, an instance of individual excesses by a few officers, nor a fatal mishap during a legitimate policing operation seeking to re-establish public order that had been seriously threatened". In reference to the images that were shown to the court, it noted that "We see people who are dressed normally, handcuffed; several policemen striking a person with truncheons who is defenceless on the floor. Spaccini herself is a 50-year-old person whose gentle appearance has been rightly stressed". This, argues Lorenzo Guadagnucci in Carta magazine, may be a significant outcome, in view of the fact that it is "the first judicial decision certifying the systematic abuses committed by the police forces in the streets of Genoa".
Carta, 10.5.07, available at: http://www.carta.org/editoriali/2007/070510.htm
UK: MI6 officer appointed chief constable: The Civil Nuclear Police Authority appointed a senior Foreign Office diplomat, Richard Thompson (46), as the UKs only civilian Chief Constable it was announced in April. The post became available following the retirement of Bill Pyke as the Civil Nuclear Constabulary's (CNC) head in 2006. The government proposed allowing individuals to enter the police force at all ranks, not just as a constable, in its 2004 police reform White Paper
Beating crime, building communities. The new chief constable was described as "a senior MI6 officer" by Stewart Tendler in
The Times newspaper who added that he worked as "a station chief in Baghdad and worked in Kosovo". Prior to the new chief constable's appointment the Police Federation of England and Wales described the proposal to appoint "a non-sworn officer" as head of the CNC as ludicrous: "Director of Policing - how ludicrous is that? From a police officer's perspective, I would prefer it that the person who was made chief constable had two or three years in a senior rank." Barry Wright, the general secretary of<