Fifth of Metropolitan Police officers do not want to use Tasers, chief Cressida Dick claims
A FIFTH of officers in Britain’s largest police force do not want to use Tasers, its chief said.
A national debate over whether every cop should carry the stun gun devices began after a series of serious attacks on bobbies last month.
But Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told London-based LBC radio: “About 20 per cent of my people have said in a survey they don’t really want to carry a Taser, thank you very much.
“It is a very powerful bit of kit. It is also potentially a very dangerous bit of kit.
“You have got to be a really good decision-maker and you have got to be really fit.”
The Met has around 6,500 Tasers — up from 4,400 when Dame Cressida became head of the force in 2017 — and a further increase will be announced next month.
It is due to have around 31,000 officers by December.
But there are no plans to give all officers one of the stun guns, as other forces such as Durham and Northamptonshire have done.
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Speaking on LBC, the Commissioner also said that Boris Johnson giving a political speech in front of West Yorkshire police cadets was “problematic”.
Cressida said: “To make a highly political speech in front of a group of police officers does seem to me to be rather problematic on all sides and how it happened I don’t know, but I’m sure everybody wishes it hadn’t. I’m glad to say nothing like that happened at Hendon.”
Meanwhile, Dame Cressida has asked the Government for 6,000 of the additional 20,000 cops to be recruited over the next three-and-a-half years.
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