Originally Posted by
Teevee
"... detained under the Mental Health Act for admission to a psychiatric unit for further assessment and treatment ...!"
Baggage? Baggage??? Sod the 'extra' bag argument! If I'd been one of the pax on that aircraft and found that out I'd be somewhat relieved he was taken off before departure for whatever reason! Who knows what he might have kicked off about in mid air had he been in that frame of mind? And the fact that he had to be tasered would indicate that it would quite likely have been more than anyone else could cope with!!
Oh Dear. Did you perchance mean to post to the Daily Mail site ?
Well, if he didn't need psychiatric help before he got on the plane...
It is claimed by various sources that the passenger was charged with "Breach of the Peace". A Mickey-Mouse charge that can mean almost anything: "Looking at a Police Officer in a funny way"; "saying something a police office doesn't want to hear". Not Actual Bodily Harm (hitting someone and causing a minor injury). Not even Assault (spitting on someone, touching or holding someone who does not consent, or sometimes behaviour which appears to physically threaten someone, without actual contact). Also not "Drunk and Disorderly".
So we appear to have a non-violent argument between a customer and staff of a service provider on an aircraft nearly ready to depart.
I fail to see how this justifies tasering anyone.
I have searched for England Police guidance on the operational use of tasers, but so far I haven't found anything except broad generalisations about Police ethics, and some failed Freedom of Information requests.
If any readers can do better, could they post or PM their findings ?
I might, perhaps vainly, hope that a Police officer entering the aircraft might assess the situation; recognise it as a heated but non-violent dispute between customer and service providers' staff; and seek to defuse the situation without taking sides. That the dispute is happening on an aircraft does not seem very relevant to me.
One hypothesis might be that the cause of the injury to the prospective passenger was partly in convergent thinking and reverse logic:
- Pilot reports problem with passenger to tower
- Tower reports problem to police
- Police charge in, taser perp, and drag him off
- Police have tasered perp, so perp must be bad or mad [taserings must be reported]
- Perp in cell
- Police figure out perp can't be done for being dangerous or drunk or hurting anyone, so left with Mickey Mouse charge[s].
- Bad might not stand up, so Police tell loony bin that they have a dangerous loony.
- Loony bin doctor duly says "yup, that's a loony"
A kind of reasoning process which I believe aviators are trained to avoid.
Is this within the remit of the AAIB?
A passenger has been injured (by a taser) on an aircraft. Does that qualify as an investigable incident?