Gardai to be given 'less than lethal' weapons
Officers will use tasers and pepper spray to control violent offenders
Sunday April 06 2008
Uniformed gardai could be using pepper spray devices within the next two months, and highly controversial "less than lethal" weapons such as the taser stun guns are already being deployed to specialist units being trained up for "barricade" incidents such as the Abbeylara siege.
The recommendations for these weapons, which are widely used by other police forces, were made in the report by Garda Inspector Kathleen O'Toole last year. Last week she issued an implementation update on her recommendations. In the update, Garda management confirmed that the recommendation on pepper sprays, which fire a liquid containing chilli pepper, will be implemented before the end of June.
Gardai have been complaining for years that the mixture of drink and drugs is causing greater violence and increasing difficulties in restraining violent prisoners, particularly those who have been mixing cocaine with alcohol.
The sprays are normally safe, causing skin and eye irritation which is easily treatable, but in the United States and Canada some 70 deaths of prisoners in custody were recorded in the 1990s.
Senior garda sources said that while the weapon is not completely safe, the amount and extent of violence on the streets has left the force with no choice.
Also, the decision some years ago to remove height restrictions for entry into the Garda has meant there are a considerable number of gardai who just don't have the physical capability to restrain many violent young men.
Young gardai in country districts are coming under particular pressure. Garda representatives last week said there have been some very serious incidents where young gardai have been attacked by drunken mobs in provincial towns where back-up from divisional stations can be anything up to 30 miles away.
The Garda Inspector reported on how gardai should tackle the so-called barricade incidents such as the Abbeylara incident in Longford in April 2000 which resulted in the mentally unstable young man, John Carthy, being shot dead when he emerged from his house pointing a shotgun at gardai.
Kathleen O'Toole recommended that the "less than lethal" tasers known as "conductive energy devices", or CEDs, be issued to specialist units. These have been tested and issued to the Garda's Emergency Response Unit. The weapons will also be issued to special Regional Response Units set up around the country trained to deal with barricade incidents within the next two months.
There is a highly controversial history of the use of CEDs, particularly in the United States where they are widely issued to police and even security guards. Last year there was a major controversy after security guards used a taser gun on a student at Florida State University when the young man heckled politician John Kerry.
Between June 2001 and June 2007, there were at least 245 cases of deaths of people who had been shocked by these taser weapons in the United States and Canada. Some of the incidents were captured on video footage and are on the Internet.
One particularly frightening incident depicts a young man being stunned by a patrolman in Utah while his hysterical and pregnant wife looks on. The young man was maintaining that he had not exceeded the speed limit when the policeman fired the weapon, causing him to fall violently on to the ground.
Another depicts a Polish man, upset at being detained by police, being killed with multiple stuns from one of the weapons at Vancouver Airport.
It appears the gardai are showing reluctance to consider another highly controversial "less than lethal" weapon known as a pepper spray projectile or "bean bag". This is usually fired by a shotgun and is supposed only to incapacitate. However, in October 2004, one of these projectiles killed a 21-year-old university student in Boston, Victoria Snelgrove, when one hit her in the eye and entered her brain.
Kathleen O'Toole was commissioner of the Boston Police at the time and personally apologised to the family. Despite her proposal that this weapon be deployed, garda management have said that it remains under consideration.
The history of supposedly "less than lethal" weapons here is coloured by the official opposition by Government to the use of plastic bullets by the British security forces in the North. Some 14 people, including women and children, were killed by these weapons.
- JIM CUSACK
