When one hears the phrase "Mind the gap" in London, you might want to watch the distance between you and a taser gun instead of that between a platform and an Underground train. Police abuse has been on the rise here in the U.S., but what happened to Daniel Sylvester is an incident that must be concerning to any Briton.
From The Guardian:
"Armed police jumped out and opened my car door," he said. "I said OK, I'm coming. I asked what was going on and as soon as I stepped out of the car I felt something touch me on the back of the head and then I was on my knees. Then it happened again and I was on my face and I felt somebody pressing my head down with their foot. By the fifth time I realised officers were pinning my arms together. It was like they were trying to break my arms and I was in pain, screaming out.
"I was shocked eight times altogether and I had urinated on the floor. It was like being tortured. It went on and on and I felt they were going to kill me."
According to guidelines set by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers, Tasers should be deployed "where officers are facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves and/or the subject(s) of their action". Tasers have been used 47 times in London this year, with black people accounting for almost two-thirds of those stunned.
So not only should you be aware of this police brutality, you should definitely be on guard if you are a minority. The officers claim that they were searching for guns as part of an operation, but of course nothing was found. Instead, an innocent man was dragged out of his car, tasered in the head and stomped on by police. This "non-lethal" force is starting to become extremely dangerous...and deadly.
|