Ex-Aston Villa footballer dies after being shot by police with taser
A retired black British footballer has died after police tasered him near his father’s home.
A police officer fired a taser at Dalian Atkinson, a former Aston Villa footballer, at 1.30 a.m. on Monday after responding to reports of concerns for a person’s safety in Telford, Shropshire.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) claims that Atkinson became unwell after being shot with the taser, so an ambulance was called. He was treated at the scene and taken to hospital but was later pronounced dead.
The IPCC launched an investigation into the shooting because it involved a death caused by police officers. Local police said it was assisting the IPCC and was unable to comment further.
The IPCC said in a statement, "Our investigation team have been securing and preserving relevant evidence, and identifying witnesses. Investigators have met Mr Atkinson’s immediate family to explain our role and we have appointed a family liaison manager to keep them updated.”
A post mortem is due to be carried out later this week.
Atkinson played for various football clubs, such as Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and the Spanish side Real Sociedad before moving to Villa. At Villa, he scored more than 20 Premier League goals between 1991 and 1995.
Kevin Maxwell, a former detective with Greater Manchester police and founder of Racism Ruins Lives, said, “Dalian Atkinson is a black man. He died in police custody. Black Lives Matter is about raising awareness of this.”
Taser guns fire two darts and temporarily disable people with a five-second discharge of 50,000 volts that contracts the muscles and bewilders the nervous system. The weapon might also cause cardiac arrhythmia or ventricular fibrillation, which can lead to a heart attack or cardiac arrest.
In 2014, police in England and Wales used tasers more than 10,000 times and in more than 1,700 occasions, Home Office figures showed.
Tasers, which are intended to be a non-lethal weapon, have been linked to at least 10 deaths in England and Wales over the last decade.
Some two thirds of those targeted by tasers were mentally ill, and black people were three times more likely to be tasered than whites.
In June, a former British soldier, Spencer Beynon, 43, with post-traumatic disorder, died after being tasered by police in south Wales.
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