Roberto Curti was having a bad LSD trip when he stole two packets of Tim Tams from a Sydney convenience store in 2012. After a witness called police, the operator mistakenly logged it as an armed robbery. A coroner would later describe the police officers’ response as “like schoolboys in Lord of the Flies”. The 21-year-old from Brazil died after police shot him with a Taser up to 14 times, hit him with batons and pepper-sprayed him at close range.
The case put a spotlight on use of force by the New South Wales police. Since then, more safeguards have been added into the procedures, including outlines of “exceptional circumstances” in which a Taser shouldn’t be used.
This week, another case has brought significant attention to police use of Tasers after Kristian White was convicted of manslaughter of Clare Nowland, a 95-year-old who was carrying a steak knife when he fatally shot her with a Taser.
The number of incidents where police have shot somebody with a Taser has remained relatively steady over the past two years. But there has been an “extraordinary” increase in police drawing their Tasers from their holsters, and experts are concerned officers may be resorting to Tasers too quickly.
The number of times police have drawn their Tasers from their holsters has increased by 57% over the past two years and by 16% on average annually over the last five years.
Between July 2021 and June 2022, NSW police fired their Tasers 240 times and pulled a Taser from their holster 707 times. Over the same period two years later, police shot a Taser 290 times and drew it 1,542 times.
The data, now published by the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, offers a rare insight into Taser use by an Australian police force. Until recently, according to Emma Ryan, an expert in Tasers at Deakin University, only the ACT released public reporting of Taser use by police.
A/Prof Terry Goldsworthy, who worked as a police officer for 28 years in Queensland, said the increase in police drawing their Tasers from their holsters was “extraordinary”.
“It’s something that would be driven by system or culture, not individuals,” he says.
The risk of a lethal outcome
Now a criminology academic at Bond University, Goldsworthy suspects the increase in police drawing their Tasers, but not firing them, may be due to officers drawing it in circumstances they should not be.
“Pulling it out and then not using it, that to me is also a red flag,” he says. “[Tasers] are not meant to be used for passive, non-compliant subjects who exhibit non-threatening behaviour.
“My guess would be they’re presenting them in situations where they perhaps know they shouldn’t be and they’re maybe a bit more reticent to use them.”
When Tasers were introduced in Australia in the early 2000s, they were pitched as a non-lethal replacement for firearms. But Goldsworthy says their use has far supplanted the use of firearms – and he argues Tasers are not a non-lethal use of force.
“It has far and beyond supplanted the use of firearms. It’s used in much more marginal circumstances where you would never consider using a firearm,” he says.
“It isn’t non-lethal. It’s less than lethal. “There’s a clear difference in between those two terms. One is suggesting non-lethal, that you won’t die from a Taser. Less than lethal means that there’s less chance of you dying.
“When police deploy them all and present them, they should be in the back of mind that it could be a lethal outcome.”
A NSW police spokesperson said Taser use, like the use of any police power, is subject to strict oversight and that police are required to adhere to the Law Enforcement Act.
They also said all Taser deployments, including where they are drawn but not discharged, are reviewed. If police breach the procedure, they “may be subject to remedial training departmental action or dealt with as a complaint”.
“De-escalation tactics are dependent on the situation confronting officers, which is why officers are highly trained in a number of methods,” the spokesperson said.
Reaching for the Taser
After Curti was killed, the coroner recommended police consider imposing limitations on the use of Tasers in certain circumstances.
Officers are now advised that Tasers should not be used in “exceptional circumstances”, including against a person who was handcuffed, a woman suspected of being pregnant, “elderly or disabled persons” and children or a “person with small body mass”.
“That was quite a significant case,” says Sam Lee, a supervising solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre.
“It did create some change, but it does feel like police are slipping back into reaching for the Taser instead of reaching for de-escalation strategies.”
During White’s manslaughter trial, Sr Sgt William Watt – who is employed by NSW police to train officers on firearms – told the court White had met the standard operating procedures but had not met the exceptional circumstances, on which the court heard White had received very little training.
Watt said officers at the police academy now receive more training following reviews and recommendations by oversight bodies.
The morning after he shot Nowland, who moved with the aid of a walking frame, with a Taser, White reportedly told another police officer: “I’ve had a look and, supposedly, we aren’t meant to Tase elderly people but, in the circumstance, I needed to.”
When White appeared in the witness box during the trial, he said: “At the police academy we are taught ‘any person with a knife is a danger’,” he told the court.
White was asked: “Did you consider it would result in her dying?”
“No,” White said. “I’m upset and devastated by it. I never intended for her to be injured by it at all. I accept Tasers cause an injury but I’ve never seen it cause a serious injury.”
A need for change?
In the hours after White was convicted on Wednesday, the police commissioner, Karen Webb, said the police force had reviewed its Taser policy in the wake of the incident and no updates were made.
Lee says the force needs to do more to monitor police training to ensure it is sinking in.
“A policy and procedure is only as good as the people that know it,” she says.
Lee says there can be an impatience among police “to just get the job done”. She says that could be more of an issue amid a NSW police officer shortage, as drawing a Taser to get someone to comply can be much quicker than other de-escalation tactics.
The solicitor says police turning to Tasers rather than other de-escalatory tactics can become an issue in mental health responses where police have a “tactical response” to situations, rather than from a “health framework”.
Matthew Morgan, an expert in policing at the Australian Catholic University, says he is not a fan of Tasers for the same reasons.
“It just wrecks any kind of therapeutic alliance between police and people in those states of crises,” he says.
However, Morgan says, police are being placed in a position where they are the default first mental health responders but have little training in negotiating.
“I want to see negotiators delivering more training to police and verbal de-escalation skills to better equip them to use those skills and those crisis situations, so they’re not going to use the force options,” he says.
Lee says: “There’s individual responsibility there, but this should be an opportunity for NSW police to look at any systemic failings and to address them.”
