Traffic Cops, Tasers, and the BBC: The Saga Continues...

I've posted a couple of times now--here and here--about my ongoing complaint over the coverage given to a 'pre-emptive tasering' on the BBC reality series Traffic Cops. I finally received a response to my second complaint, the text of which appears below:

Dear Dr Grayson

Thanks for your further e-mail regarding 'Traffic Cops'.

Firstly, I should apologise for the delay in getting back to you. We realise that our correspondents appreciate a quick response and I'm therefore sorry that you've had to wait on this occasion.

I understand that you weren't happy with our initial response to your complaint.

Your complaint has been passed to the production team who have provided us with the following information.

The taser is not technically considered lethal and they certainly have not ever been lethal in this country. They have been discharged 1,407 times in England and Wales between their introduction in April 2004 and the end of March 2009 and there were no recorded incidents of serious adverse medical events attributable to the taser.

Figures for Taser usage are from the Home Office web site:

 Please note that we aren't responsible for content held on external sites.

With regards to why the police tased an unarmed man, we are to film the police going about their duties, if he wishes to take the use of the taser up with the, he can do so.  However, in the programme it was made quite clear that the police suspected that the man had just committed an armed robbery and they had information (wrong as it turned out) that he might still have a gun on him, hence the need for a surprise pre-emptive strike. It certainly was not "lazy policing".

I respect your opinion on how the story was told, however, to call the puns used in the programme "disgusting" is unfair.Regular viewers will be familar with the style and presentation of the programme and light hearted commentary is part of the remit for it to be an entertaining fly observational documentary.

To reiterate, the description "less than lethal" used in the programme is a correct one. It was meant to imply that the taser is a weapon which has been designed to incapacitate not kill. It doesn't mean it can't be lethal just that it is not intended to be, just as a motor vehicle isn't.

I hope you find this response to be satisfactory, however,if you wish to pursue this complaint further, you can contact the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit who will independently investigate your complaint...

...Please note that any complaints submitted via email must include your postal address as all responses will continue to be issued via letter.

Whether or not you choose to pursue your complaint with the ECU please be assured your further concerns have been registered.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your feedback.

Here is my response:

I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for all the time and effort that has gone into fielding my complaint about the coverage of a 'pre-emptive tasering' on Traffic Cops. 

However, the replies that I have received to date--from both the complaints team and producers of the series--have not addressed the primary issue at stake: the lack of balance in the coverage.

The segment on Traffic Cops de facto served to normalize the pre-emptive use of violence by the police with a weapon that has been linked to hundreds of deaths around the world. To argue that it is 'less than lethal' simply because it has not killed anyone in the UK (yet) is not a credible line of argument. Neither is the comparison with cars logical; cars are primarily designed as a means of transport whereas the main purpose of tasers is to inflict pain and hurt individuals so badly that they are incapacitated. Even though cars have associated risks, I suspect many people would be more comfortable with cars being used around them for their 'intended' purposes than tasers.

Humor is something that is both subjective and imperfectly shared. And poor taste is always going to be a matter of opinion. However, police joking about hurting suspects and the producers of a publicly funded television series sharing the same view--that someone being subject to unnecessary pain by the authorities is funny--is very suspect. If Traffic Cops wishes to provide light hearted commentary, it should not be covering such serious political issues and trivializing them.

What constitutes 'lazy policing' is also subjective and highly contested so I can accept that the producers disagree with me. However, in both the segment and their response, they have failed to note the very real legal implications of 'pre-emptive tasering' with respect to the European Convention on Human Rights. Articles 2 and 3 very clearly lay out instances and purposes for which the state and its representatives are allowed to use force against people that may intrude on the right to life. These are usually interpreted in line with broader legal principles over the use of force including imminence (of attack by the suspect), proportionality (of the force used), and last resort (could other means to secure an arrest have been used?). Knowledge of these legal principles casts a very different light on pre-emptive tasering. Thus, rather than merely mentioning that the use of tasers is controversial, the producers had a responsibility to explain what exactly is controversial and the potential consequences for residents when the police are being invested with the power to taser--or attack--first and ask questions later based on calculations of potential danger that cannot be falsified.

Without a doubt the use of 'pre-emptive tasering' is highly controversial and there are many different views that one can take on the issue. The problem is that Traffic Cops failed to sufficiently explain the controversy and depicted the events that took place in Humberside in a manner that very clearly gave preference to one side of the debate over others. The inability to deeply contextualize the social factors contributing to crime and to shaping crime enforcement is a major failing of these type of 'reality' crime series. Without the proper context being provided, the portrayal was therefore highly political, even if that was not the intention behind the coverage.

Given the institutional entrenchment of 'pre-emptive tasering' in police forces across the UK, the BBC ought to devote programming time to examining the logics of pre-emption in policing and the growing use of so-called 'less than lethal' weapons with an equal account given to the important human rights issues that these developments raise. Providing a forum for an in-depth exploration of these issues with room for views beyond those of the police would seem to better fit into the important public service remit of the BBC than what appeared on Traffic Cops.

Sincerely,

Dr. Kyle Grayson

I'll let you know how this turns out.

Photo credit: Junglecat

Comments

[Bill O' Rites]

The BBC & the Police need to get their terminology right: Even Taser Corp. use the term "less lethal", NOT "less than lethal".
These things HAVE killed people in the UK, only cause of death is given as something else.
They even made up a hitherto unknown medical term for death by Taser in the US: "Excited Delerium", thus ensuring the weapon wasn't blamed for causing it.

[chasing_dragons]

Thanks for your comments. You raise some excellent points. As the number of deaths have increased, the terminology has changed. Similarly, the identification of a new medical syndrome in order to shift responsibility away from Tasers and those who use them is also a significant development. But more broadly, it seems to me that Tasers reflect an everyday intensification the of changes to policing towards more militarised and confrontational approaches that were first observed in the 1960s. Moreover, this may just be the tip of the iceberg as Tasers proliferate into the sphere of private security provision. I suppose that is why the BBC's normalisation of them wound me up so much.