A decade before Clare Nowland, a 21-year-old was killed by NSW police Tasers. Has enough changed?

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. Composite: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

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.