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A desperate vulnerable man ended up loosing his life, in 2013, resulting from actions of a police officer from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, an inquest heard. We will never know if he was showing clear intent to take his own life or what risk he was to the officer, but tragically the police officers tasering actions led to his death. Just a further re-enforcement of the public perception that the police are trigger happy, ferral, lack human skills and automatically aggressive in their actons towards members of the public. Officers who choose to carry these weapons must have something lacking in their human interaction skills, where they need to rely on a potentially 'fatal process', in the first instance, to calm a situation down.

After PC Peter Hodgkinson and PC David Beer arrived at the scene, they saw Mr Pimlott, who was in the back garden, douse himself in petrol from a can and (they claimed) 'strike' a match. The only evidence of matches were given by a forensic scientist and these were found in Mr.Pimlott's back pocket. Just 41 seconds, after police entered the back garden of a property in Plymouth, a taser was fired setting Mr.Pimlott alight.

'PC Peter Hodgkinson, who had never deployed a Taser operationally since completing training on the weapon in 2012, told the inquest he thought Mr Pimlott was going to set himself alight.' (BBC News)

"I tried to engage with him to put down the can. I believe he was going to set himself alight so I fired the Taser. . . . . . . .  I deployed the Taser to reduce the risk the of harm to Mr Pimlott," said PC Hodgkinson at an earlier inquest into the death of Mr.Pimlott.

In October of 2014 the CPS rejected a criminal prosecution for gross negligence, manslaughter and misconduct for PC Hodgkinson. Even after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found there was a case to answer for gross misconduct. In March 2015 it was determined by an internal misconduct panel (the police investigating themsleves) that he was cleared of any improper action.

Article BBC News - Here

'Forensic scientist Stephen Andrews told the jury it was his opinion as an experienced fire investigator that it was the Taser that ignited the petrol-soaked Mr Pimlott and not a lit match.

Officers were warned of the potential dangers of firing a Taser in the presence of flammable liquids, instructor PC Jonathan Reed told the inquest.' (BBC News)

With the entry qualfication criteria for police officers being very low concern needs to be raised about this incident along with intelligent deployment of weapons and their issue to officers . Believing that high voltage electricity transmitted through fuel is not going to cause an ignition, is clearly something  which needs greater explanation to police officers and forces need to review what they tell their officers about this basic scientific result of the two elements colliding, much in the same way as we explain things to primary aged children.

Latest news. Heyho! Devon and Cornwall Constabulary announce this week  (15-04-16) that they want to arm more officers with tasers. This would mean a third of Police Officers would have them strapped to their waists, ready to zap the perceived completely 'out of control' public. This follows the announcement by the Chief Constable, in October 2015, during a BBC 'Spotlight' interview that he wants to see 'more officers armed and having the capability to drive high speed cars'. There must be some alarm raised about this para-military requirement in such a quiet rural area. Does the Police service suffer such dis-respect and fear that it is 'back footed' and need to follow a path of complete agression?

Supt Drummond-Smith said the chances of officers using a taser was "very small" and the force did not believe this would increase with more officers carrying them.

"We would hope the less-lethal deterrent taser offers will change the offender's behaviour at a time when they may be thinking of assaulting an officer or threatening themselves  and others," he said. (Let's not forget  Andrew Pimlott)

'Welcome to the modern day 'quick firing' Wild 'West Country!'

Anyone over twenty has witnessed the exponential rise in police officers, through out the UK including the regions, wearing waist bands dangling a host of 'kill' weaponery, excluding (the increase in) gun issue. This, I fear has lead to a confident and arrogant 'gun ho' approach to their attitude. 'Weapons at the ready', which drives any response to being far away from de-escalation, with a higher risk of causing a 'fight response' from the individual. The 14 year old tasered by Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, the blind man tasered by Lancashire Police, the drunk detainee subjected to degrading humiliation of being forced to strip stark naked and then being pre-meditately tasered by an offficer, in Wiltshire ,whilst being witnessed by two other officers all make very concerning reports. 

As a former professional with the scars, having been on the front line of knife weilding, 6ft  and 14 stone solid muscled behaviourally disturbed psychotic youngsters, I never had an attraction towards weapons to de-escalate or resolve incidents. Trained approaches of 'stand back and assess' was always the measure of the day, when it came to volitile events with no need to be dressed like a black shirted 'Schutzstaffel', sporting cropped hair, swaggering in a threatening manner and wearing more 'tools' around their waists than an average builder..