I could scarcely believe this happened. Absolutely bloody awful. There's no way they can justify this use of a taser.

As someone who has worked in the past with confused elderly people, I cannot understand how the police can justify this. They should be trained, or get someone who is trained, in dealing with vulnerable people without using this barbaric tool. Just shows the inadequacies of the police force. They are quite happy to spend millions on snooping on those who try to protect animals but when it comes to those who kill or maim (i.e. lorry driver gets 18 months for killing family of 5 whilst shac people get 12 years for 'conspiracies') they just cannot cut it. The police in this country are a disgrace. I hope this man's family sue. ( but no doubt there will 'not be enough evidence', if the police can kill an innocent man on the London tube and be found to have donenothing wrong then I guess they can do anything.)

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7825962.stm

A slightly different take on events...

The BBC report someone has linked to claims the cops tasered him to stop him cutting his throat with a piece of glass. Even so, it seems like a dumb thing to do, especially to an 89-year old, whose heart probably isn't the strongest.

Don't cops talk to people any more? I'm sure there would have been many better alternatives than this.

I very much doubt that the police would take the same view of a member of the public tasering police officers at a public demonstration, "for their own safety" and to "prevent them injuring themselves by engaging demonstrators". Yet the defence the North Wales police put up amounts to exactly the claim that there is nothing harmful about a taser. If this defence is to be sustained, then the police should not object to the public obtaining and carrying tasers to ensure harm is minimal in situations of conflict.

I suspect that, if a member of the public were to brandish one of these weapons in public it would be treated as being a dangerous weapon and not akin to mild restraint but a potentially deadly object. The statistical chance of death by taser would be trotted out by an expert - who would not be available for comment before or after. Given the precedent that the police are setting by their choice of targets for tasers they are creating a dangerously destabilising legal framework for violent criminals to claim they used a taser to "minimise harm". This erosion of public safety is, at the least, alarming.

Perhaps the North Wales Police could publish their view on the use of tasers by well trained care staff in care homes.

This bunch of scumbags operate a type of "John Wayne" gung ho approach. In fact, you can hear their spurs jangling as they walk down the street.

Fact is that North Wales Police are run by and for the benefit of, Freemasons. The Lodges are stuffed full of these bent officers.

Another little known fact is that the North Wales child abuse, of children in care homes, was covered up as the vast majority of the abusers were from North Wales Police. No one was ever prosecuted despite the fact hundreds of children were abused, raped, tortured and some, murdered.

They are a law unto themselves and above the law.

The Police officers HAD been talking to him to try and calm him down, he was in the process of opening up his own throat with a shard of glass when the officer decided that using his Taser was the fastest way of stopping him. Before Taser the option would have been physical force by overpowering him, hitting him with a baton or spraying him with CS. Contrary to what the family member said it wasn't "a miracle that he didn't have a heart attack", he would more than likely have had a heart attack at his age if he had been punched or slammed on the floor. The X26 Taser has not been responsible for 350 deaths since being introduced, get your facts right as that number includes idiots killing themselves and each other with cattle prods and every other item classified by Amnesty as "an electric weapon" including readily available 1,000,000 volt anti rape devices. Both the IPCC and the Professional Standards departments (who love nothing more than putting a Police officers head on a stick if they can) have looked at this incident and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the use of force as per legislation in Common Law and Section 3 Criminal law act. The officers would have been criticised if they had let him slot himself in front of them by hesitating and they would have been criticised if he had suffered any more injury than two needle holes by using any other use of force, especially if he later died from complications caused by a ruptured blood vessel or broken bone. He's alive, and wouldn't be if the officers hadn't have acted as they did. It's not very nice in the real world and if you 'experts' think you could do better then please, be my guest.

"Before Taser the option would have been physical force by overpowering him, hitting him with a baton or spraying him with CS. "

I've got a better opinion of cops than most but you should seriously consider some other career if you defend electrocuting an old man in these circumstances.

What a fucking cowardly, unprofessional response - I mean your post not just the attack. Two fit young cops can't take this doddery old pernsioner by the arm and remove the shard of glass he was threatening only himself with? That's what I would have done, nothing 'armchair expert' about it, nothing big or brave either. But then I'm not a sadistic coward like you and these colleagues of yours. He is 89 years old for gods sake.

What a fucking moronic coward you are. You are a disgrace to your uniform and to the wider community that pays your bloated overtime. Seriously, I can't differentiate your bleating self-piteous post from the parody of an anarchist. 'Oh, it's not very nice in the real world' eh, it takes real men to stand up to these rampaging pensioners.

You personally are subhuman scum. I would rather have this old guy walking the streets than you. If I'm ever on a jury for an attack on a cop then I will refuse to convict thanks to your pathetic post.

I was wondering what a met copper was doing reading here and then I read the article above this one "A former officer with the Metropolitan Police has pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual activity with a boy under the age of 16." So, just checking up on your fuck-buddy eh?

Left school with no qualifications? Want to torture pensioners and rape children ? Join the Met.

"Cops are the only people standing between you and them. You're too weakened by civilization to defend yourself. You want someone else to do the dirty work for you, just as you expect Ronald McDonald to slaughter your cattle and chicken before you eat them. In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of cheap, spoiled meat on the streets these days. Does that statement make you defensive? Perhaps I'm talking about you. Rollcall: junkies, gangsters, killers, rapists, dustheads, welfare cheats, petty thieves, wife-beaters, carjackers, pimps, strawberrries, puke-smeared drunks, crusty schizos, AIDS-splattered shooting galleries... Had enough, Buster? Cops spend all week with their heads dunked in the social toliet. They see all the oozing pus sores, the social cancers, every predatory, bottom-feeding, crustacean character no one else is able to handle. Could you endure the naked stench for fifteen minutes? No, but sit and criticize like the cowering, two-bit punk you are. We are S.W.A.T. Today we get you for a ride along. Tomorrow we get our hands dirty."

I just asked my older cousin what she would do in the same situation. She is a nurse who deals with the elderly. She said 'You just walk up to them talking and then remove whatever weapon they have. It happens every day on the wards'.

My cousin isn't special, not that brave, just a nurse, but the Met and Welsh police can't deal with that level of danger she faces every day.

Regardless of IM policy can we please be kept informed about these two nasty welsh criminals, and maybe even be informed about the IP address of their cowardly Met pal?

Indymedia doesnt keep IP's thou does it!.... or DOES IT!... we shall see.

Police were morally wrong on this one, but following their text book monkey sees monkey does instructions for tazer use, so ultimately the officers arent at fault (are they? Didnt we say that nazis that followed their political leaders orders WERE to blame... oh yes, remarkable that)... shame that particularl chapter seemed to be slammed shut at Nuremburg. That said, we dont know all the facts, it very well may have been the one thing that saved his life...

Question?