UK: More than 2/3rds of suspects tasered were considered mentally ill by police

Police use of the stun guns increased over the period from 6,238 incidents in 2010 to 9,196 last year, and there has been a corresponding rise in the number of incidents involving mentally ill people, from 2,737 in 2010 to 4,200 in 2014.

The latest statistics were released in response to a Freedom of Information request made by the website The Justice Gap. It revealed that in 67 per cent of cases in which Tasers were discharged, they were fired at people identified by officers as mentally ill.

When cases in which the weapons were drawn, aimed but not fired were included in the data, mentally ill people were the target in only 45 per cent of incidents.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/majority-of-suspects-tasered-by-police-are-mentally-ill-figures-show-a6786996.html