Controversy on the use of the Taser, the minister planted: “It is an essential tool that is provided to the agents precisely to avoid the use of shooting weapons”

Two cases in just two days. In Olbia and Genoa, Saturday and Sunday, two people died after receiving a discharge with the Taser, the electric gun in use of the police. Gianpaolo Demartis, 57, residing between Sassari and Olbia, died of cardiac arrest in the ambulance that was taking him to the hospital, after being blocked with the electrical impulses gun on Saturday evening in the Santa Mariedda district. Family members confirmed that it was cardiopathic. Elton Bani, 41, died after being hit three times with the Taser in the Genoese hinterland Sunday. The families of both ask for justice.

To act, in both cases, were the carabinieri. The four soldiers involved are investigated for manslaughter by the prosecutors of Tempio Pausania and the Ligurian capital as a deed due to participate in the technical investigations with their consultants. In Italy there are currently about five thousand these guns supplied to the police. They are considered defense weapons and used by agents and soldiers who have followed specific training courses. The gun emits a discharge of about 5 seconds at high voltage, about 50,000 volts, and low amperage.

The two cases, added to that of last June, reopened a controversy never dormant on the use of the Taser. “And now that no one takes it with the carabinieri, who have defended themselves and of the attacked citizens, making only their duty,” wrote the Minister of Infrastructure and leader of the League Matteo Salvini On Facebook. Ilaria SalisMEP of the Green and Left Alliance, instead writes: «The Taser is a dangerous weapon, which can prove to be a death sentence even for those who have a banal, small health problem. It should be abandoned ». For Irene Testaguarantor of prisoners for the Sardinia Region, the Tasers are “legalized torture tools”.

Stops the position of the Minister of the Interior Matteo planted: “Those who, in an ideological way, criticizes the use of the Taser must keep in mind that it is an essential tool that is provided to the agents precisely to avoid the use of shooting weapons”. The rules establish that these weapons are used “only when they are faced with violent and aggressive subjects that represent a concrete danger for those present”. From the first reconstructions, “it is exactly the situation in which the carabinieri intervened,” adds planted. “Because completely pretentious, preliminary and unfounded, the controversies against the police forces to which all the gratitude and complete support of our government must be completely pretentious”.