Its use is highly controversial and may have led to a death in Dortmund: police officers there use the taser to overpower a suspected rioter. Soon the man is dead.
A man died in Dortmund after the police used a Taser. The officials were on duty because of a suspected rioter in the Dorstfeld district. There were supposed to be acts of resistance against emergency services early Wednesday morning, according to the Recklinghausen police. The emergency services began resuscitation of the man and were then replaced by an emergency doctor. The man died in the hospital.
The Recklinghausen police and the Dortmund public prosecutor initially did not want to confirm the use of a taser. It was initially unclear whether and how the distance electropulse device (DEIG) was connected to the man’s death. It is the first police operation with a Taser in NRW that ended fatally.
The stun gun was a major topic of discussion during the coalition negotiations in North Rhine-Westphalia. The CDU and the Greens finally agreed to continue testing the devices until 2024 and to connect them to a body cam.
For the Dortmund police, it is the second fatal operation within a few weeks. On August 8, a 16-year-old refugee from Senegal was shot dead by a police officer in Dortmund. In this case, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating five officers. According to the state of the investigation known so far, an officer is said to have shot the youth six times with a submachine gun. The 16-year-old died in hospital after being hit by four projectiles. The critical question is whether and how the youth approached the officers with a knife.