Sydney – An Australian man died after being shocked with a Taser stun gun in central Sydney by police investigating reports of a robbery on Sunday, but officials conceded there may not have been a crime.
The man was zapped with one of the US-manufactured devices after resisting arrest by police responding to reports of a convenience store robbery in Sydney’s central business district at about 5:30 am, according to police.
He stopped breathing and could not be revived.
Acting assistant police commissioner Mark Walton said it was uncertain whether a robbery had actually taken place or if the stunned man had been involved.
“It’s unclear as to the involvement of this man or the extent of that actual incident. Whether it is a robbery or not is unclear at this time,” Walton told reporters.
New South Wales (NSW) Premier Barry O’Farrell would not be drawn on the incident until he had been fully briefed, but said his government had “always supported the use of Tasers as a non-lethal alternative” to guns.
Civil rights activists, however, said the incident highlighted the dangers of the device, which has killed some 500 people worldwide since being introduced in 2001 according to Amnesty International.
“This incident raises serious concerns about the way in which they’re used,” said Cameron Murphy, from the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.
“What’s a particular concern in this case is… they used both capsicum spray and a Taser on this individual,” added Murphy.
“There are serious questions whether that may have led to the person’s death.”
Tasers are meant to incapacitate a person with a 50,000-volt jolt of electricity, but they have been linked to a number of deaths in Australia and around the world.
A five-year study into the use of the weapons published in 2010 showed 85 percent of cases involved a person with a mental illness and 28 percent of those targeted were unarmed.