Tasers and training

On March 14, 30-year-old Paul Marchand was shot dead by police officers while he was having a mental breakdown at his home in Richplain, Diego Martin. He was a PH driver. Police claimed he was acting violently and when they attempted to detain him, he attacked with a broken bottle and injured two policemen. Three months later, on June 6, 23-yearold Daniel Paul was killed by police in Ste Madeline.

According to reports, police shot Paul after he threw stones at them. The reports indicate Paul was also acting in a violent manner.

And on Friday last, another mentally ill man died from gunshot wounds after he was shot in the buttocks by a soldier. Edison Thompson, 45, of Princes Town, was acting violently on a PTSC bus, near Henry Street on South Quay, Port of Spain. When police and soldiers who were on duty tried to subdue him, he attacked them with a hammer.

In the wake of all of this, Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon and Toco/Sangre Grande MP Glenda Jennings-Smith – who both have extensive backgrounds in law enforcement – differed publicly on the extent of the problem. But the deaths alone tell us the story: the police are not able to handle these cases effectively.

If the politicians have been in doubt, the police officers have not been.

Acting public information officer Insp Lester Kerr recently said at a weekly police press briefing that police were not properly trained to deal with these situations.

Seales did not mince words in concurring with this view.

“We have conducted our own investigations into the matter and it is clear that police are not able to treat with the mentally ill,” he told Newsday. “It is clear to see when every time a police officer has to intervene in one of these cases, the mentally ill patient ends up being wounded – sometimes fatally – that we are not trained to deal with mental patients. Non-lethal equipment like takers and pepper spray will reduce the risk of fatalities. These tools would allow police to intervene and subdue suspects with minimal force. This way police will be able to do their jobs and people would not have to lose their lives.” Takers are now standard equipment in police forces all over the world. They are a way to prevent fatalities and minimise allegations of abuse of power as they can disable a perpetrator without killing.

However, takers alone cannot be the panacea to the issue of better treatment of the mentally ill.

Takers, also known as stun guns, can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death, researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine reported in the journal Circulation.

Therefore, takers can still kill and should not be used lightly.

Still, they are an improvement over deadly firearms.

The deeper issue is the lack of robust training. In a country with large numbers of displaced people on the streets – many of whom are mentally ill – police officers should be taught about dealing with mentally ill people as a matter of course.

We cannot dismiss cases in which such people have been killed simply because of our attitudes towards the mentally ill.

When senior police officers are begging the State for better training, the State (and the police hierarchy) would do well to listen.

They must aim at once for better training. And deliver.