There’s lots wrong with policing in the UK, but this was my reaction as well. Avon is one of those police forces that you never hear anything about in the news. If this had been the met, or a few other forces it would be less surprising.
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I live in the Seattle area. The SPD has a reputation that colors my perception of this kind of brutality.
I am biased but I have a lot of rationalizations :-\
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In the US, a third of stranger homicides are perpetrated by the police. Therefore, spending time around police puts one at a high risk of death. And who spends the most time around police? That’s right - the police. No wonder they live in a constant state of fear!
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That’s the problem with issuing tasers and pepper spray … if you got a shiny new hammer everything starts looking like a nail.
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After watching the video the second time I noticed the officer isn’t threatening the use of force. She pulls out the taser, shoots and yells “Taser! Taser! Taser!” AFTER hitting him. Over here a police officer at least has to issue a verbal threat if he intends to use a weapon: “Stop (doing X) or I will use Y (pepper spray, gun, stick)”. Ideally he has to warn verbally AND show the weapon he is going to use.
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It’s generally the same in the UK.
The catch is the line “when officers apparently mistook him for a wanted man”, which would qualify. From that, it’s difficult to tell if they were in the right or wrong without seeing the description they believed he matched (eg; if it was close enough that his mother would agree it matched, I couldn’t find fault with their request. If it was vague enough that any black man in Bristol matched, there’s obviously something very wrong).
I’m not normally one to leap to their defense … but from what information we’ve got so far, the only thing really newsworthy is the obvious irony.
That said, I do tend to be a lot more pragmatic. At some point it’s easier to comply. Make it clear that you believe they’re in the wrong, and that it’s against your wishes - but comply anyway, and then make a complaint the proper way. If nothing else, it really works in your favour when making the complaint (that is, ‘upstanding citizen’ is +1 for you, ‘lost a fistfight with the police’ is +1 for them). If you end up in a physical struggle with the police, you’ve probably crossed that line. (relevant as it was the physical struggle that got him tazed.)
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In this case the police had a genuine suspicion that a crime was about to be committed, that of obstructing police.
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As an American, my only questions is, “How did they avoid killing him?” Amazing.
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I wonder if Mr. Adunbi agrees with that assessment…
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The shout of “Taser” is not intended to be a threat, it is to warn other people so they don’t touch the person who’s been tased and get shocked themselves.
I’m not aware of a law in the UK like the one you describe.
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FINALLY! A hugely embarrassing police brutality event… that wasn’t in the USA!
#winning
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Send them to jail!
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Well - would the police have done the same to a white man in a suit in a posh neighbourhood, as he was entering his own house?
If the answer to that is “no”, then the tasering is racism pure and simple and there’s NO defence possible of this criminal act.
Likely, if the police had started by asking politely as they would the aforementioned rich white man, there wouldn’t have been a problem.This is a hate crime, and they should go to jail.
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I forget where I saw it (BBC or Guardian), but Adunbi said that he had been mistaken for the same suspect on a previous occasion, which suggests there is some genuine resemblance.
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Just imagine what the story would have been here if this wasn’t on film. “Community activist attacks police, has to be tasered to restrain him”.
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I read something similar but he wasn’t mistaken for the same person in two separate incidents. He was mistaken for someone else in another incident a few years ago, that was when his shoulder got injured too (probably the reason why he got the advisory position).
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Note the contrast:
- The victim was actually a bit (justifiably) stroppy, rather than pleading “sir, please don’t shoot me”.
- The victim isn’t dead.
- The police are in deep shit.
- The videographer is confident that they will not be attacked by the police.
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While I assume the statistics might be on your side, it is not very much a consolation that the victim in this case had a previous experience with the police in the area, and stated that the fear instilled by this influenced his behaviour in the incident. See below, and linked piece in The Guardian.
The same person. Poor guy, but also; wtf, police? Makes me doubt that Avon police is learning from its own (and other’s) mistakes.
If you want police brutality go no further than neighbouring Wiltshire, where some years ago a group of policemen savagely beat up a group of white travellers (Google Battle of the Beanfield). I used to know our local police superintendent, and he said on more than one occasion how glad he was not to be in the Wiltshire police. Following the “battle” community liaison improved in Wiltshire.
Somerset and Avon did have big problems in Bristol in the 1980s, but they have learned from their mistakes. One sign of this, given the large number of people of Afro-Caribbean descent, is the lack of interest in cannabis - start a cannabis farm you are in trouble, otherwise the police aren’t interested.
But no police force is perfect and sometimes it takes a real life event to identify a bad apple or two. A friend of ours - a retired policeman - would agree with that assessment. But this is a guy who arrested four Manchester drug dealers with violent records at Glastonbury without the use of any armed force.
Incidentally - most of the “white” population of Bristol is around 6-8% Caribbean by DNA. Intermarriage in the 18th and 19th centuries was quite common. It just is not possible to compare Bristol to any US city I know of.
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Sorry; probably my mistake.
