Officers charged with manslaughter after taser death toll rises to two

 GENOA - The number of deaths following taser attacks, the stun gun issued to law enforcement, has risen to two in the space of 48 hours, writes Il Fatto Quotidiano. On Sunday evening, a 41-year-old Albanian man, Elton Bani, died of cardiac arrest in Manesseno, a hamlet of Sant'Olcese in the hills above Genoa, after being shocked by Carabinieri officers from the mobile radio unit. Neighbours had called 112: “We called the Carabinieri because he threatened us. We had called 118 first, but he also threatened the paramedics,” they told ANSA.

 According to the reconstruction of the incident, the ambulance arrived on the scene shortly before the patrol, but the paramedics waited for the Carabinieri to arrive for safety reasons: the man, in a state of severe agitation, attacked the officers in the entrance hall of his home, kicking and struggling, prompting one of them to use the stun gun. After the taser proved ineffective another officer took over, firing the pair of stun guns that proved fatal. The ambulance crew, who immediately arrived, could only confirm the man's death.

 The Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the incident for manslaughter, formally charging the two Carabinieri officers who used the weapon. This is necessary to allow the officers, through their consultants, to participate in the autopsy, which will determine whether the death was directly related to the use of the weapon or whether the victim’s use of alcohol or drugs may have contributed.

 The investigation, entrusted to the Carabinieri unit of the Judicial Police, will also verify compliance with the protocols for the use of the weapon, as well as whether the Carabinieri officer who carried out the intervention had received the necessary training. The taser cannot be used unexpectedly: according to the Ministry of the Interior's guidelines, the police officer must first show the citizen the taser, then, if necessary, display the warning arc, and only then may he fire the tasers. The use of weapons must meet the requirements of proportionality, necessity, and appropriateness: immediately after immobilization, officers are required to alert the health authorities.

 Those who oppose the use of tasers say it is a “dangerous weapon, it must be suspended” – Elton Bani's death occurred just hours after the Olbia incident, where 57-year-old Gianpaolo Demartis was killed on Saturday night after being stopped with a taser after going on a rampage and attacking passersby in the street. Here too, two Carabinieri officers, the patrol leader and the officer who physically intervened with the stun gun, are being investigated for manslaughter by the Tempio Pausania Prosecutor's Office.

 “In just a few hours, two victims were struck by a taser. Salvini, the League, and company can shout all they want, but it's clear there's a problem with this device that must be stopped in the meantime,” insisted Filiberto Zaratti, a member of the Alliance of the Greens and the Left.

 +Europa Secretary Riccardo Magi is calling on Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi to “immediately suspend the use of tasers by our law enforcement agencies, including the municipal police, to whom this government extended it almost a year ago.” He warns that the stun gun “confirms itself as too dangerous a weapon.” Meanwhile, Sardinian Prisoners' Ombudsman, Irene Testa, has called the weapon an “instrument of legalized torture.”

 On the other hand, Undersecretary of Justice Andrea Delmastro, a hawkish member of the Brothers of Italy party, intervened: “Like an irresistible Pavlovian reflex, every disaster is a good excuse for the left to disarm our law enforcement officers, our uniforms. The taser is not an instrument of ‘torture’, but of deterrence and security, necessary to overcome resistance that often borders on physical assault. There is no ban on the taser, whose correct daily use facilitates deterrence and ensures security. Once again, we reject the left's ideological polemics against the Carabinieri and the police forces, to whom we will always ensure the tools to defend ourselves and themselves,” he stated.

 Lega Undersecretary of the Interior, Nicola Molteni, agrees: “I defend the taser because it has proven to be an effective and essential deterrent and safety tool, including for police officers, to prevent the use of much more aggressive weapons. After the trials that began in 2018, it passed all protocols, including health-related ones, and we aim to implement its use. The taser and law enforcement must not be criminalized. It will be up to the judicial authorities to determine what happened in these two incidents. I obviously express my deepest sympathy to the victims' families, as well as to the Carabinieri of Olbia and Genoa,” he concludes.

 The manufacturer assures there is “no scientific evidence demonstrating a direct cause-and-effect correlation between the use of a Taser and the death of those affected,” Axon, the manufacturer of the weapon used by law enforcement, stated in a statement. “Taser devices are designed to reduce risks for both law enforcement officers and the public, offering a non-lethal alternative to the use of firearms. Tasers work by using low-amperage electrical pulses that induce temporary neuromuscular incapacity, the effect of which ceases immediately after the cycle. Independent studies have shown that in 99.7% of cases, no permanent damage is reported, except for minor injuries caused primarily by falls. Axon confirms its full cooperation with the competent authorities and emphasizes the importance of awaiting the outcome of investigations and autopsies before making any assessments on the causes of individual deaths.”

rs