Police excuses for more Taser use - Fried Pork without the guilt

Well, well, well. What do we have here? More use of tasers because tasers are there, the Police have set up a fairly rigorous internal system to keep tabs on Police use of tasers, I was invited a couple of months ago to a Police presentation on Tasers and how they are used and I was impressed with the internal checks and balances, it was interesting that the amount of all 111 calls that required the use of force like a taser was only about 1%, so the amount of incidents we are talking here is bloody small, but my concern was that once tasers were handed out to all Police we would see that number of incidents spike, and what do the stats tell us? They have spiked...

Cops combat mounting violence with tasers, batons
People are being Tasered, pepper-sprayed and struck by police batons in record numbers, official figures reveal.

But police say that's because it has become increasingly common for offenders to resist arrest.

From July 2009 to June 2010, officers used a Taser 255 more times during arrests, pepper-sprayed 145 more offenders and used their batons 31 more times than they did in the 12 months before that.

Out of 60 injured while being arrested during the last financial year, 36 had serious injuries requiring "hospital admission" and 24 had moderate injuries requiring "medical treatment".

The previous year, 56 people were injured during arrest – 24 seriously and 32 moderately.

...the claim is that it is people resisting arrest, really? It's not ill trained cops immediately using weapons first and asking questions second? The only way we are going to know if the police are abusing tasers is to release the footage embedded into each taser, the police claim they cant as that would reveal the identities of people being tasered - bullshit. The police have no problem with people have their identities revealed on any one of the pro-Police shows on TV, surely someones face simply needs to be hidden and let's see if the person is advancing on the Officer or not.

To date the NZ Police are refusing to allow the Public to see the taser cam footage, the very footage we were told by the Police would be a safeguard from abuse.