Sgt Alun Jones is one of the only police officers in London who knows what it feels like to have 50,000 volts coursing through his body after being Tasered.
Perhaps that is why he has never once fired the stun gun, despite carrying it for six years as a member of the Met’s territorial support unit, which specialises in public order.
While officers are not allowed to test the weapons on one another, Sgt Jones got first hand experience after being sent to the US a few years ago to research the technology.
The gun fires two probes with sharp needles on the end that lock into the skin and deliver the current for five seconds.
“It’s the most painful thing I have ever done in my life voluntarily,” he said.
“If it’s effective, you go into something called a ‘plywood state’, it makes you go rigid. You’re aware of what’s going on, but you can’t do anything to override it.
“It was so incredibly painful that I would have done anything not to go through that again. If I used a Taser on the street and stopped someone being violent, but after five seconds they started being violent again, I would be thinking they have perhaps got a mental health problem.”
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