On October 28, NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul announced that the Taser will now be a permanent part of the basic equipment in the police departments of Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen and Cologne, the five largest cities in NRW. As a result, they will be equipped with a total of 620 so-called "distance electric impulse devices" (DEIG for short). That this new equipment is nothing more than an advancement of the militarization of the police becomes clear not least by the fact that only at the beginning of the month two persons died in a very short time by the use of electroshock pistols in the FRG.
The new decision to include tasers permanently in the arsenal of the cops, however, does not come out of nowhere, it has been looming for quite some time. Since the beginning of the year, a so-called "pilot phase" has been running, in which, according to the Ministry of the Interior, the suitability of the Taser for long-term use is to be tested. Although this pilot phase is actually supposed to last a whole 12 months, the decision has already been made to add it permanently to the equipment in the most important police departments after the taser has been used 140 times. Herbert Reul is talking about a supposed "preventive and de-escalating effect" from the Taser. The mere threat is supposed to be enough to defuse the situation in most applications. That however the Taser, if it is fired nevertheless, under enormous pain to injuries to lead and even up to the death to reach can, does not come however to the speech. As recently reported on "demvolkedienen.org" a man died in Rhineland-Palatinate after using a Taser.
Moreover, studies from the United States, where the Taser has been standard equipment for decades, also show that the use of firearms has not decreased due to increased use of the stun gun, and other "non-" or "less-lethal" weapons. The lie of de-escalation and non-lethality is used to make the regular use of the Taser respectable. When police "shoot," they usually get bad press; when they "taser," they get good press.
The choice of police agencies to equip with the Taser, also has its reasons. Not only are they the five largest cities in NRW, in the respective cities the contradictions are also among the most extreme, which is reflected in the living situations of the masses. Poverty and impoverishment ensure that they have more and more reason to antagonize this state and its cops. Also, migrant populations are very high in these cities. They face all sorts of racist, sometimes deadly, police attacks against them, which only fuels their class hatred. All of this then culminates in Reul stating that attacks against police officers occur "particularly often" in these cities, which is why arming them with stun guns is most urgent there. This is nothing more than another step in the militarization of the police.
Tasers are often presented as a "harmless" alternative to firearms in order to justify their use, but they are also weapons that are used to torture and murder people who do not fit into the cops' pattern.
