WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch has said he would review police training methods, after an internal investigation into an incident where an Indigenous man was twice pushed to the ground and tasered by officers.
The ABC obtained body-worn camera vision of the Kalgoorlie arrest from May 8, 2024.
The arrest vision.Credit: ABC Perth/ WA Police
They revealed one officer was now facing disciplinary action, while a charge of disorderly conduct against the man at the centre of the incident has been dropped.
An internal investigation into the arrest, overseen by the Corruption and Crime Commission, found that tasering the man was warranted, but that pushing him to the ground was excessive.
Blanch said police training did state that when someone was close to you, you push them away.
“We’ve seen a couple of incidents now where we’re dealing with people who are heavily affected by alcohol, and the push has actually resulted in them falling over,” he said.
“What we’re looking at now is the training for our officers to use that tactic, because that is a trained tactic – I want to be very clear – we train our police to push people away with two open hands to create space.
“I think the conversation needs to be, when does it become excessive? What threat did a person really pose? And you have to make these decisions in seconds.
“It’s that balance between going home with no injuries as a police officer and treating people with respect and compassion and care when they are heavily substance affected.”
Blanch said it was “easy to criticise police” and that the “use of force always looks bad on video”.
“We don’t demonize police for making the wrong immediate decision if they’ve made it with the right intent,” he said.
“When it’s wrong, we’ll own that it’s wrong. We’ll own that it’s excessive. We’ll change our training regime, and we will educate those officers.”
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