Deputy mayor in Nice defends tasers after French police kill man

“I can’t condone the death of a man, but it’s not a reason to disarm our police force. We need to take caution and prepare for every possibility, because nobody knows what is going to happen on the street. I refuse to allow my officers to go out without giving them the necessary equipment to do their jobs,” said Kandel.

Currently there are only two police forces in the Alpes-Maritimes (Nice and Mandelieu-la-Napoule) that carry the electronic stun guns.

The incident in Colombes, a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, saw police fire two electronic charges at someone they were attempting to detain, which in turn caused the relatively young man to suffer a fatal heat attack. An inquiry into his death has now been opened.

Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of tasers, recently supplied to police forces across France and the UK as a non-lethal weapon for apprehending dangerous suspects. Currently the majority of police and gendarme officers in France carry a firearm. “We shouldn’t forget that currently it is not the taser that we use but it’s our 9mm pistol,” a gendarme told Nice Matin, “and I’m not sure this is a better solution.”

The taser has thus far been used sparingly in the Alpes-Maritimes, with police in Nice yet to use the device and the region’s gendarme (military police) only using a taser once in the past two months.

“The taser is not a toy” Kandel pointed out in conclusion, emphasising once again that such a weapon should not be used likely by anyone, including local law enforcers. TD