Death of Marc Cole, Falmouth

Thursday would have been my youngest brother's 33^rd birthday. A Pisces born in March under the sign of water. He would have, I should imagine, thrown some type of family dinner celebration with all his children, friends and family present. Marc loved nothing more than being surrounded by all the people who loved him. He would be stood in the kitchen with a huge grin on his face, laughing with his friends and asking for a second helping of whatever it was cooking on the stove. The kids would be running up and down the hallways high on birthday cake and Marc would be telling them to slow down and be careful, ‘my angels’.

Instead, it’s raining, the wind-driven type of rain that whips around your face like ice and makes your ears ache. My mum is standing at the head of her son's 8-foot grave, laying bright orange and yellow tulips. She doesn’t like to go. None of us do, but she can’t leave the grave untidy so she goes religiously and talks to her son. Her child who was killed three years ago during a mental health crisis by police officers.

It is not real. Not to any of us and that may sound odd after three years but only a family who had been through the hell of having a child and brother killed by an agent of the state and subsequently dragged through one of the most traumatic ‘systems’ on earth would ever be able to relate. It took 7 months for Marc’s badly decomposed body to be returned to our family in such an appalling state that the funeral director advised us that Marc would be best left in a sealed coffin. That furthermore, we wouldn’t be able to dress him for burial or view him. At all.

You need a funeral to make the death of your child real don’t you? But how can you accept that it is real when you have no body to bury? How can you function every day knowing your brother is lying in a morgue with his organs missing for nearly a year? How can you ever begin to comprehend a country in which it is ok for an officer of the law to take the life of your child, then take the body of your child, then take the organs of your child and to then take the burial of your child?

Three years later we attended an Inquest, just recently in January. These last three years have been agonizing and nearly driven us to lose our minds on several occasions. You cannot grieve with proceedings like these hanging over you. You cannot engage in any trauma-therapy at the same time as constantly and continuously having to read graphic evidence about your brother's last moments that is being slowly drip fed to you as the case progresses. You cannot heal whilst at the same time fighting a protracted legal case and justice campaign. Make no mistake, the system following a death after police restraint is deliberately designed to grind you down. It wants you to get sick and to suffer. It hopes that you will shrivel and retract and go away. It hopes that it can blame the victim for his or her own death.

Marc had been at his friends’ house when he suffered an episode of psychosis. Marc had mental health issues and was struggling and fighting against himself, knowing he needed medical help but at the same time feeling terrified of doing so. Instead Marc had used drugs to self-medicate on the night he died which had exacerbated his pre-existing mental health condition. It is hard for most people to understand what psychosis must feel like, but on a basic level it is a disorder of perception. The way you perceive the world becomes distorted. You may see or hear things that appear absolutely real to you but are not really there. You may hold beliefs about things happening that appear absolutely real to you but are not really happening. Most people who experience acute psychosis experience extreme terror and fear.

My brother died absolutely petrified. He was running away from people he believed were trying to kill him. His thoughts were racing and disordered and his palpable terror was clearly demonstrated to anyone who saw him that night. He wasn’t violent. He wasn’t aggressive. He wasn’t antagonistic. He wasn’t deranged. He was very urgently unwell and he was terrified. That part of the run-up to Marc’s last moments on earth culminated in him self-harming with a knife.

Four police officers who attended that night said that Marc needed to be stopped from self-harming and fired a Taser at him. Then they reactivated it and held the trigger down and kept electrocuting Marc for 42 seconds. A total of three times. While Marc was lying on his back, in the prone position, not resisting, not moving, just lying helpless on the floor. Then they used a metal baton to strike Marc’s wrist twice before applying double cuffs to his wrists.

Less than four minutes later Marc was still cuffed when he went into catastrophic cardiac arrest. 20 minutes later he was dead at the scene.

Before the Inquest started, Devon and Cornwall Police asserted that the Taser download log, which automatically records the times and durations of all Taser firings, was faulty. They also submitted an application to give evidence anonymously, which they later withdrew. During the Inquest it transpired in evidence, that the officer PC WILSON gave three different statements at three different times. He only admitted to tasering Marc twice. It soon became clear that he had actually tasered Marc three times, actively lied and then admitted under cross-examination that he had been given advice about what to say about his use of force against my brother by the Federation of Police.

PC Kevern embellished an account of Marc’s demeanour stating that he was walking around with his top off and that he was ‘growling’ and aggressive. Growling is a word officers like to use in an attempt to dehumanise the person they have killed. It is often used by officers to dehumanise victims who had been suffering mental health issues, which should go some way to explain the regard with which officers attend mental health patients who need urgent medical attention. When pressed under cross examination she still maintained that Marc was aggressive and resisting and had his top off.

All of this was directly and very quickly shown to be untrue and deliberately falsified when the attending Paramedic told the court that after Marc had been tasered he had to actually cut Marc’s top off to give him emergency CPR. Multiple eye witnesses who witnessed the entire scene said that Marc was only gesticulating as if to harm himself. He hadn’t actually harmed himself but that they were all concerned for his welfare. They all said that they did not feel threatened by Marc in any way because he was not violent or aggressive. He just seemed unwell.

A critical eye witness then said she saw police officers charging at Marc and screaming at him to put down the knife. She says she clearly heard and saw Marc say ‘why what have I done?’ A second eye witness saw and heard Marc say this. They both said he sounded scared and confused. Both eye witnesses said that the police did not give Marc a chance to reply or even respond. They just kept charging at him and it is my understanding that this mishandling of the situation and failure to deescalate an urgent medical emergency situation using their training is what then forced Marc in his terror and confusion to self- harm.

This was then they fired the Taser at him. The eye witness said Marc went down like a sack of spuds and didn’t ever get back up again. The Taser discharges for a period of 5 seconds on the X-26 model before having to be actively retriggered again. PC Wilson retriggered the Taser twice more with only one second between each firing. So Marc endured a near continuous 42 seconds of electrocution which is nearly ten times the length of what he actually should have been tasered for, as each cycle is only five seconds long.

That is the longest recorded case of Taser torture, actively and significantly being a causative factor in the death of a young UK citizen with mental health issues in the history of this country. Medical experts who specialise in Cardiology said that the timeline of events was particularly significant in Marc’s case. They agreed that yes, Marc had cocaine in his system, but that he was ok until he was tasered, after which he dropped immediately to the floor and went into cardiac arrest within 4 minutes. Put simply, he didn’t suffer a cardiac arrest after using cocaine over 30 minutes earlier. He suffered cardiac arrest after being tortured with a Taser for ten times longer than he should have been.

Marc’s self-harm wounds were proven in pathology to not have contributed to his death in any way. No traces of cocaine were found in Marc’s brain or heart chambers, suggesting that the drug metabolised very quickly and that there was no history of chronic or sustained drug abuse in his organs, so while the cocaine certainly pre-disposed Marc to the enhanced risk factors of Taser-torture, it wasn’t a case of drugs being the precipitating causal factor.

 After hearing all the expert evidence, the jury made the correct decision and found that the Taser actively made a significant contribution to the causative factors in my brother’s death. They directly linked the Taser to the death of Marc Cole and actively rejected the embellished version of events given by Devon and Cornwall Police. They found no evidence of violence or aggression on Marc’s part but instead concluded that Marc had been behaving erratically and self-harming due to mental illness and the use of cocaine.

Despite this conclusion being made on the grounds of expert medical evidence, no officers were charged with manslaughter or even misconduct. There has been no recourse to date for any of the officers who deliberately lied in statements, or under oath and sat laughing and joking throughout the whole traumatic proceeding as if it was a bunch of pals out on their jollies. PC Wilson and his barrister tried to submit that he had been suffering with PTSD. No clinical evidence was submitted to the court to support this claim. However, one has to ask, if an officer genuinely is suffering with PTSD as all members of my family are, it should follow that the officer should have a restriction placed on all his operational duties. Returning to work after 3 weeks and carrying a Taser again is not usually the course of action a traumatised individual would take. PTSD takes a lot longer than 3 weeks to be clinically diagnosed and in any case an individual suffering any type of flashback-related symptoms should not be left in charge of a Taser on the grounds of profound unsafety.

The attending paramedics offered sincere condolences to us at the Inquest. In contrast the police did not. I didn’t see one ounce of remorse on their faces as I watched them exposed in lie after lie. But that’s okay, because the truth keeps talking long after the conversation has finished. There may not be any man-made justice for my poor brother, but to be honest I don’t think it’s mans’ to give. When you are involved in the loss of a human life, when your actions take a father from his children, when you destroy multiple families, when you choose to make a deliberate decision to self-preserve instead of tell the truth, then that is no longer between you and a judge. That is between you and God. You cannot wash the blood of a man from your hands quite as easily as you can laugh in the face of a grieving family in a court-room.

If a different emergency-responder had attended first I believe sincerely that Marc would still be alive today. I truly feel that going forwards we need to urgently implement a new system in dealing with mental health in the community. The police should not be anywhere near a person who is experiencing a mental health crisis. Too many people die in the hands of the police, despite ‘mental health training’ they do not appear to use it and routinely dehumanise people who just need a bit of empathy and a calm person to make them feel safe. The best scenario would be for the government to invest in mental health first-response cars consisting of paramedics and mental health nurses.

This scheme was piloted in London but I definitely feel that Cornwall urgently needs a similar mental health emergency response given the prolific numbers of young people in crisis, particularly young men in the area. Specialist ambulance crews are what is needed and a suitable place of safety for patients to be taken to. Police cars and A & E departments are not desirable places for people in acute distress. Sending a group of police with an increasing militarised response to aggressively restrain a terrified person is barbaric and never ends well.

The government needs to put less police onto the streets and more funding into mental health and community-led services. If you address the issues in society that lead to mental ill-health in the first place, then the police wouldn’t need to be called and people would not end up dead in their incompetent hands.

There have been 1,732 deaths after police contact in this country since 1990. Zero prosecutions of police. The IOPC reported in their annual review of 2018-19 that a total of 10 people with mental health issues were found dead after police restraint and a further 13 people with co-morbid drug or alcohol issues were also found dead in police custody. You only have to look at the well-publicised cases of all the young men and women aggressively restrained or neglected in police custody who end up dead to see that police forces all over the country continue to dehumanise, deliberately misunderstand and fail to learn from people presenting with mental health difficulties.

Marc Cole, Adrian McDonald, Darren Cumberbatch, Andrew Pimlott - all tasered to death during a mental health crisis. Sean Rigg, Seni Lewis, James Herbert, Thomas Orchard, Kingsley Burrell, Mzee Mohammed (18) - all restrained to death during a mental health crisis. Devon and Cornwall Police alone have been involved in the deaths of Marc Cole, Thomas Orchard, Antony Kitts, Leslie Douthwaite, Andrew Pimlott and Logan Peters.

Theresa May actually called for a review into the use of force by police citing that physical restraint and Tasers were more often used against victims who had mental health issues. She found that 30% of people tasered by the Metropolitan Police had mental health difficulties and a staggering 50% of people tasered by police were from black or other BME backgrounds. In the year 2017, the year that Marc’s life was taken, 25 victims died following contact with the UK police. That was the highest and sharpest rise in deaths after police restraint since 2008.

Increasingly children up and down the country are being routinely tasered in playgrounds and pupil referral units. These children often have SEN Needs and mental illness. In 2018-19 for example in figures obtained from a freedom of information request, Cheshire Police had tasered children a whopping 25 times.  We need to urgently push back against this militarisation of the police. Police have absolutely no place in schools and especially not with Tasers. Of particular concern is the uncertainty and confusion that officers appear to present with when questioned on the safety of Tasers in relation to their use on vulnerable people.

In the Taser training manual that had been used to train Devon and Cornwall Police, only ONE power-point slide was included in the effects of tasering vulnerable people. People vulnerable to tasering are specifically referred to as having enhanced risk factors. They can be read about in other research and reports, however the training provided to rank and file police officers in this one power point slide was incredibly sparse. It seems that officers do not know much about the risk of death and serious injury when using Tasers against people with enhanced risk factors. Enhanced risk factors that make people vulnerable to death and serious injury following tasering are any person presenting with mental ill health, intoxication, pregnancy, epilepsy, the elderly or children. The Taser trainer stated that there was an incremental increase in risk the more times a Taser firing was repeated.

However, despite there being very clear and serious evidence regarding the very real risk of death when tasering vulnerable people, there does not appear to be ANY guidelines whatsoever on the safe upper limit of time that you can Taser a person for without causing cardiac arrest. The advice given to officers is to just keep on tasering at your own discretion.

This is highly disturbing given the scientific evidence presented by DOMILL in relation to enhanced risk factors, the increasing number of deaths in the UK following Taser restraint (see Cole, McDonald, Begley, Cumberbatch, Pimlott, Atkinson) and the very fact that a UN committee of ten experts declared that Tasers are a form of torture that CAN kill. Given that Marc’s Inquest found that the Taser played a pivotal role in his death due to electrocution, it follows that his death directly violates the UN’s Convention Against Torture.

As a result of Marc’s Inquest conclusion the Coroner has written a Prevention of Future Deaths Report to the Home Office and they have 56 days to respond. Our family are also waiting from a response from the Secretary of State with regards to a meeting and Louise Haigh MP has also raised the issues arising from Marc’s death in Parliament.

We sincerely hope that Marc’s death has not been in vain and that an urgent review of the safety of Tasers, particularly when used to restrain vulnerable people, will be conducted. We do not want any more people in mental health crisis to die in the hands of the very people who should be taking them to safety for medical treatment.

*

The preceding statement, written by the sister of the deceased man, is a harrowing testament to the reality of our nation’s way of dealing with a mental-health crisis. I am convinced that Marc Cole’s death was totally unnecessary. The facts, as detailed above, speak for themselves. Marc was in need of skilled intervention, of help that would not be perceived as threatening. Far too often, in situations like this, force is used by police to try to subjugate the person in crisis and typically, the suffering individual is terrified and further traumatized by the forceful approach of police and these already highly stressed situations are escalated when just the opposite approach is what is needed.  Such escalation frequently results in tragedy.

My own particular angle on all this is that I have been campaigning against police use of Taser stun-guns for ten years now and have seen the death-toll in Britain grow from just one in 2010 to over a dozen and, as I fearfully predicted back then, I have lived to see this dubious weapon of torture bring death into my local area.

My attempts to discuss the legality of Taser, particularly in view of the UN’s position on stun guns and Britain’s non-ratification of the UNCAT, have met with such a solid and unyielding brick-wall that I have become convinced that true democracy and the rule of law are flouted at will by those paid and entrusted with upholding them. Approaches to former MP Andrew George (Lib Dem) bore no fruit. Promises from current MP Derek Thomas (Tory) to raise the above matter in Parliament have proved false. Similarly, the promise of dialogue from Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, Sean Sawyer has proven empty. All this correspondence has been documented exhaustively on this website over the last ten years, mainly categorized under the RESIST CARDIAC ARREST Campaign. In conclusion, having exhausted all the official channels of redress and debate and found the ‘authorities’ lacking any desire to live up to the transparency and accountability they like to boast of, I feel that we, the ordinary people, have to try to put forward our own positive solutions to these problems.

Police are fighters. As part of their job they have to tackle violence in public life so they naturally have a strategic mentality. Whilst this may be necessary in some areas of life, it renders them particularly inappropriate responders to mental-health crises. By studying many cases of fatality-by-police, certain patterns emerge and similarities crop up again and again. But lessons that could easily be learned are not being successfully integrated into police-training.

I strongly support the idea of a new emergency-service, tasked with responding to mental-health emergencies and treating them primarily as a health issue, rather than a matter of subduing a person who is seen as acting disturbed in public.

There are serious problems over justice in the case of Marc Cole, as in so many cases. For example, can you imagine being caught lying in a Court of Justice and facing no disciplinary action if the case concerned the death of a police-constable? And yet two of the constables involved in the death of Marc Cole were found to have been lying but faced no perjury-charge or reprimand whatsoever. Would the ordinary public get away with such falsification if the case involved a police-constable? I don’t think so.

While police in fatality-cases are provided the finest QC’s to plead their cases – at tax-payer’s expense, ordinary folk who lose their loved ones have to go through the Legal Aid minefield or somehow stump up money for a lawyer themselves. There is currently a campaign to equalize this process and provide automatic free legal aid to those bereaved by State-violence.

The so-called ‘Taser’ evolved from a simple cattle-prod into a hybrid electric harpoon that delivers 50,000 – yes, fifty thousand, volts to its victim. It has been associated with hundreds of cardiac arrest deaths around the world and is known to stop the heart if the prongs hit the cardiac-area during a certain point in the rhythm of the heartbeat. Combined with excessive levels of adrenalin (from stress) and also intoxicants and restraint, the Taser is all too often a bringer of death. The police have every right to defend themselves – but not with a weapon that violates the UNCAT – even though Britain secretly never ratified the Convention we had helped to draft! The UN informed me of Britain’s failure to ratify UNCAT when I complained to them about a previous case of Taser-torture by Falmouth police. Ironically I only went to the UN because the local police would not take on the complaint.

With the continuing Wall of Silence from police and MPs over these issues it seems unlikely that stun-guns will undergo the immanent legal-challenge they so badly need. And with the policy of ‘Austerity’ that has so withered public services and undermined the healthy fabric of society, it seems that more vulnerable people will be harmed or slaughtered by this sinister new weapon that has been imposed upon us without debate or consensus.

Which raises the question of what can people do to try to foster and protect mental health in our communities and what steps can we take to try to save people from the tragic fate of 30 year-old Marc Cole from Falmouth?

Even when we are dissatisfied with our political representatives, I think it is still worth trying to talk to them and trying to get them to commit to making mental-health a top-priority when forming policy. Why is suicide the number one cause of death of young men between 25 – 35 in Britain? This is an epidemic and it needs to be treated as such, not responded to with military-style force in our streets.

My own view is that if the government fails us, then we have to look out for each other more – to come out of our personal bubbles more and reach out to others and say ‘are you alright?’ or ‘would you like a chat’ or whatever, to merely break down the isolation between people and look with a loving eye on our neighbours, friends and families. There are also various groups and societies, holding meetings where people can share their feelings and help each other through difficulties. There is a lot of good in the community and this can always be built on and increased. However, ultimately matters of policing, mental-health etc are largely the business of government and until officialdom can treat people decently and fairly and enter into dialogue on these issues, and until those in power are willing to uphold the rule of law and truly represent the populace, the deadly threat of Taser will remain with us.

This needs to change.

THE CONCH-HOUSE JOURNALISM OF THE LIMPET

Well dear friends, The Limpet newspaper is switching from monthly to occasional publication.  The Limpet ran as a monthly from September 2008 till August 2019, running to 204 issues.  The paper initially got started as a vehicle to publicize Cornwall Council’s disastrous plan to destroy a small beach and area of tidal rocks at the heart of Penzance.  The business consortium involved included H.R.H. Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall and future King of England.  After rallying popular opposition to this plan, working in partnership with a small group of local activists, we won the case and defeated the opposition.  A small beach was saved and you can visit it to this day.  We saved the Holy Headland (Cornish: Pen Sans) and The Limpet was deeply happy to have played a part in that struggle.

After the police-slaughter of Ian Tomlinson in London I wrote extensively on police-violence and murder and covered a variety of cases in Britain and abroad.  The Limpet brought attention to the Lao Gai system of slave-labour camps in China, producing cheap goods for the western market and also the barbarism of organ-harvesting that continues in the Chinese state.

The Limpet’s RESIST CARDIAC ARREST campaign got started in 2010 and has robustly campaigned for a moratorium on tasers and weapons of conducted energy.  The RCA campaign succeeded in getting an admission from the British Government that tasers are lethal weapons.  This contradicts the aggressive strategy of Taser International, the manufacturing company, that spent millions in suing coroners who linked fatalities to tasers in USA. 

After making contact with Florida’s “Caged Crusader,” Harold Hempstead, The Limpet largely concentrated on amplifying Hempstead’s advocacy for justice for Darren Rainey, a mentally-disabled black Muslim man who was steamed to death in a specially adapted torture-shower in Dade prison, Florida, back in 2012.  Harold was awarded for bravery by the American Civil Liberties Union due to the risks he took to reveal the story of Darren Rainey.  He was himself an inmate at Dade, Florida’s most lethal prison and his life was in the hands of guards who themselves described the place as “Auschwitz.”  I’ve written more on this topic than any other, as the contemporary horrors and injustices of the US penal system represent a vast human rights crisis that gets barely any coverage in the big media.  Harold is serving 165 (one hundred and sixty five) years without parole for his part in some non-violent burglaries.  Overwhelming evidence exists to prove that his trial was conducted illegally and his case really is one of the most outrageous distortions of justice that you could ever hear of.  Please consult the numerous articles on Harold Hempstead and Darren Rainey and also check out his book, that talks about the system we set up whereby he would send me messages from prison to publish from Britain.  In my position as a ‘foreigner’ I was able to help him with communications without fear of intimidation and revenge by the corrupt authorities of the State of Florida.  Working with Harold has definitely been the high point of my journalistic efforts and I regard him as a man of immense integrity, vision and courage.

I deeply recommend his book, Department of Corruption, and also the website I edit for him: Harold Hempstead Caged Crusader.  They are both scrupulous and encyclopaedic archives of evidence proving a miscarriage of justice in the Rainey case and also throw light on Harold’s own background as a childhood Confidential Informant for Florida police departments and how he was set up and exploited from an early age. 

There will definitely be more publications on Harold Hempstead on this channel.

Recently The Limpet has given coverage to the planetary crisis we all now face in the form of Climate Chaos.  I am convinced that cooperation and open communication between all of us is absolutely vital for humanity to have a chance of literally saving the world before it’s too late.  Only democratically accountable and transparent activism can succeed in this, the ultimate theatre of action, and it’s natural for any movement to attract egotistic ‘leader-types’ but the movement must evolve beyond that level if it is to attract mass-participation.  The Limpet recommends that everyone, meaning everyone, starts germinating and raising trees for guerrilla-gardening.  Don’t leave it to others to plant the trees we need, start your own little forest on your window-sill. 

Limpets will still appear when the tides are right.  

Wishing you all peace and happiness.  A better world is in our hands if we dare to reach for it.

Jeremy Schanche, Editor, The Limpet – nature, democracy, free speech – Since 2008.

Justice For The Mentally Ill

The state should be protecting the mentally ill - not using the police to kill them and the prisons to torture them in as they do in Florida and so many other states and nations around the world -

Anybody can suffer an emotional crisis and at least in the so-called more "civilized" world we supposedly have systems in place to help - protect and support the most vulnerable - those going through the frightening and traumatic experience of mental illness -
Anybody can go through a temporary or long-term period of confusion - pain and disorientation - perhaps to the level of psychosis which could include auditory or visual hallucinations -  There are many causes for these types of crisis - Particularly in the developed Western world stress is so common as to be an almost universal disease -  Suicide is the number-one killer of the 18 - 30 age-group in both Britain and the USA - To me this suggests a cultural sickness that affects societies - not just individuals -
In other words a healthy culture - a healthy socially-integrated life in a positive environment would not produce runaway suicide figures - let alone the other types of crime and distress that result from the dehumanization of our daily lives in the name of progress - modernity - security - money and material goods -
In these highly stressed conditions it is hardly surprising that so many people reach crisis-point - particularly with so many financial worries - austerity - lack of opportunity - bad-diet - vast social pressure to conform to somebody-s idea of a standard - all these and many other factors contribute to emotional crisis and when it comes it can often be a public incident - a public outburst - and this is where the police all too often get involved with tragically fatal results due to over-reaction to people who are not a genuine threat in many cases -  
Having been writing about and campaigning on this issue for many years it is still deeply distressing to discover the extent to which people are dying when police intervene in what is commonly termed a mental-health crisis -  All too often the police use over-kill tactics - particularly if the "suspect" or "patient" has picked up any kind of weapon - no matter how ineffective it might be - the police frequently shoot first - whether with taser or gun - and ask the questions afterwards -
My correspondence with the British Government over the issue of taser goes back to 2010 - Just recently the MP for North Norfolk stated that the UN regard taser-usage as potential torture - This is the first time I have heard of an MP making such a statement so it is very encouraging that someone in his position is listening to the UN -  After all - we did draft the treaty against torture in the 80s so surely our nation should live up to the spirit and meaning of the convention -
With my own MP refusing to talk to me on this issue - despite a filmed promise to do so! - and the Chief Constable for Cornwall and Devon Police also failing to deliver a promised response on this issue - it is hard to have much faith in the credibility of the British democracy -

Help with depression - suicidal feelings and other problems:   The Samaitans

  the luminous nature of mind - how consciousness is seen in Buddhism -

Chief Constable Challenged To Live Debate On UNCAT - Taser - Death of Marc Cole - Falmouth 23 May 2017

To:  The Editor etc - The Cornishman newspaper - Please consider printing this in the letters section thank you -

Open letter to:  Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer - Devon and Cornwall Police     4:3:2017

Re:  The Death of Marc Cole -Falmouth - UNCAT

Dear Chief Constable Sawyer-

Four days after Marc Cole was killed by Falmouth Police taser in May 2017 I wrote to you requesting clarification on the legal status of the taser weapon -  As I have been pointing out to the British government and police for eight years now the UN declared the taser x-26 a weapon of torture in violation of the UNCAT back in 2007 - To this date I have never received a satisfactory response from any representative of the government or police - You responded to my letter by sending it to the IPCC as a complaint!

My Conservative MP Derek Thomas promised me on youtube to look into the UNCAT back in 2016 but he has never responded over this and refuses to respond to me or represent me at all -

I asked you to liaise with the British government and the UN to clarify the legal status of the Taser X-26 Stun Gun - You have now told me you are passing this matter to a Superintendent to deal with - This is not satisfactory as a Superintendent lacks the authority required to liaise with the government and United Nations - 

Since I have been campaigning against tasers I have watched the death toll grow from just one in Britain to over ten - Andrew Pimlott was burned to death in a taser-incident in Plymouth and now Marc Cole from Falmouth is also dead for no justifiable reason whatsoever -

Since I am the main anti-taser activist for this area and you are the main policeman I suggest you rise to my challenge - if you really represent open - transparent and democratic policing as you claim - and meet me in the arena of public debate - An unedited youtube interview would easily clarify this legal and moral problem for the public - You can hardly expect the police to start using lethal weapons on the streets of Britain without some kind of open public discussion of it -

I have no legal training and am a busker by trade - I challenge you to debate me on taser and UNCAT -

Sincerely - Jeremy Schanche

Marc Cole - The First Cornishman Killed By Police Taser - The Chief Constable - The Tory MP and The Busker

Marc Cole was the first person in Cornwall to die from a police taser stun-gun - This publication is dedicated to him and all those around the world killed - tortured and traumatized by tasers  -  a weapon the United Nations designated as an instrument of torture in contravention of the United Nations Convention Against Torture over ten years ago!  The RESIST CARDIAC ARREST CAMPAIGN has been trying to get answers from the British government and police about the UNCAT and taser for eight years and what follows is the latest attempt to get legal clarification on this lethal problem from Cornwall-s chief of police:

Marc Cole

Public Message To:  
Shaun Sawyer - Chief Constable of Cornwall and Devon Constabulary    24th February 2018

Re:  Death of Marc Cole by Falmouth Police - UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE - Illegality of Taser stun-gun - Lying MP Derek Thomas etc 

CC:  Diane Abbot - Shadow Home Secretary - 

       Alison Drive - Police and Crime Commissioner - Devon - Cornwall and  Scillies

       Clare Moody - Member of European Parliament

       Amnesty International - London

Dear Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer -
I wrote to you on 27th May 2017 requesting that you clarify the legal position of the stun-gun X-26 manufactured by Taser International and increasingly carried and used by British police -
You didn-t respond to my letter but rather passed it to the IPCC who of course took no action and also failed to respond to the legal matters I have raised - 
I would like to ask you again to clarify the law over stun-gun usage on humans - 
In 2010 I made an extensive study of the above phenomena and also started questioning the British government and police about the law and tasers -
To this day I have never had a satisfactory response - or even a genuine response at all from the government or police except for an admission from the now disgraced Tory cabinet minister Damien Green who agreed with me in a letter that the taser is indeed a lethal weapon - despite the multi-billion dollar campaign of Taser International to suppress any such legal argument even by suing coroners who had linked stun-guns to deaths by cardiac-arrest!
Against such a background I spent years having my letters on stun-guns being ignored by three separate British governments two Chief-Constables and various other police-people - and two MPs - my current Conservative Party MP Derek Thomas has maintained an almost total boycott of me and in effect I have no official  political representation - However on one rare occasion Derek Thomas gave me a filmed interview in which he promised to investigate what I had told him about the UNCAT - that it has never had Article 22 ratified by Britain and this is the loophole that allows British police to ignore the UN and effectively use stun-guns to torture and kill British citizens with no democratic mandate to do so -
On 27th May - four days after the death of Marc Cole by Falmouth police taser - I wrote to you - the Chief of Police for Cornwall and Devon - stating that the UN had declared taser-usage constituted torture in 2007 and asked you to explicate this situation - 
I formally requested that you as part of your duty as Chief Constable talk to the UN and get clarification from them and our British Government on the legal status of stun-guns - 
Since I have been informed by the UN that the British government can-t deal with taser-torture cases from British police due to the non-ratification of Article 22 - and since Derek Thomas refuses to do his well-paid duty and communicate with his constituents - or raise the life-and-death issues he has promised to raise with the government - I see no option but to repeat my request that you yourself respond over this as head law-man for the west-country - 
Surely if the UN is saying taser-usage contravenes the UNCAT and an MP has promised - on youtube - to raise the issue in parliament but is lying about this intention - then I would contend that this issue lands squarely on the desk of the presiding Chief Constable of the area in which the man - Marc Cole - was killed - 
After all - you are the highest Commanding Officer for the entire local jurisdiction - you are head of law and order and you have another death on your hands - 
I ask you again to talk to the UN and the British Government about the legal status of the Taser X-26 stun-gun in view of the Deaths of Marc Cole - Andrew Pimlott and all the others killed and the children electrocuted with these weapons - 
Specifically I ask you to look into the UN-s findings and declarations regarding Lisbon November 2007 and the case of police torture-slaughter in the cells over there in Portugal - This is when the UN made their declaration about the X-26 contravening the United Nations Convention Against Torture and obviously the UN will be able to provide you (and the British Government) with the paper-work on this - 
I-ve been telling the British police and government that taser is an illegal weapon of death and torture since 2010 -
Having provided legal argument supported by the United Nations - the Green Party and Mebyon Kernow I say to you Mr Sawyer will you please communicate with me fully on these matters - Preferably before the next person having a wobbler on the street is slaughtered with 50-000 volts -
Sincerely - Jeremy Schanche - RESIST CARDIAC ARREST

Previous correspondence from me to Chief Constable Sawyer - all unanswered:

Public Message To:  Chief Constable Sean Sawyer, Cornwall and Devon Police, 27th May, 2017

Dear Chief Constable,

Since 2010 I have been attempting to get the British authorities to uphold the law regarding torture, namely the UNCAT.  I have had communication with your predecessor, the former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Constabulary;  Andrew George MP;  Derek Thomas MP;  various members of the British Government and police.  I have a written admission from a cabinet minister that stun-guns are indeed lethal, despite contrary claims by the manufacturer.

Since a young man has just died having been shot with a stun-gun by Cornish police in Falmouth, I thought I would point out to you that the use of the taser x-26 and similar weapons is illegal.  

An MP recently let me know that this fact is virtually unknown in the House of Commons.  However, it is know to some, including the Prime Minister, the Law Lords and the United Nations.  Taser usage became illegal in Britain in 2007, following the UN declaration in Lisbon.  The fact that this change in the law has not filtered through the British Government to the Cornish police in no way diminishes the legal reality of the situation. I believe ignorance of the law is not a recognized defence. 

I understand that the UN Committee Against Torture can not order the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary to cease using their illegal weapons of torture, and I also understand the mechanism by which the British Government avoids its legal obligation to uphold the UNCAT.  I know this from having communicated directly with the United Nations in Geneva myself.  The reason I took a complaint to Geneva was because Falmouth police (who have just been involved in a taser-killing) (and also shot dead a man who had an air-gun) were torturing a handcuffed man in the street with a taser.  Since Penzance police falsely told me they could not take my complaint, I took it to Geneva, that being the obvious route to justice which was not available in this jurisdiction.  My communication with the UN in Geneva explicated for me the mechanism of deception by which the British government(s) since Thatcher in 1985, have been evading their responsibility to uphold the UNCAT by failing to ratify Article 22.  

As a result of the continuing illegal use of stun-guns in Cornwall and Devon, resulting from the British government and police failing to properly engage with my legal objections to this weapon's deployment, constables of our local force recently burnt a disturbed young man to death by electrocuting him when he was doused with petrol - proving they were incapable of following the basic guidelines that are supposedly taught to ensure the 'safety' of this weapon.

We now have a second disturbed man apparently killed by an illegal stun-gun in Devon and Cornwall.  I know other injuries were involved in this case, but it seems highly likely that the stun gun was a major contributory factor.  

Have the Devon and Cornwall police been warned that the batteries in their weapons are known to be carcinogenic, and highly dangerous if damaged?  Since this warning comes in printed form with each new weapon, I trust you have put the safety of the constables first and informed them of the carcinogenic nature of their weapons.  Failure to do so would seem to be placing their health in jeopardy unnecessarily.  

If you have any doubt about the validity of what I am imparting to you, then I request that in your role as head of law and order in Cornwall and Devon that you please contact the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva and request them to inform you of their judgement given in Lisbon in 2007.  I believe they will make it clear to you that the UN's Investigative Committee has indeed defined the said weapon as an instrument of extreme pain and torture, likely to cause death.  They recommended its use be discontinued instantly as it was in violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.  Please verify this information for yourself and liaise with the British Government and respond to me on this (preferably before anyone else is killed in the street with one of these weapons.)

It is my informed belief that Great Britain is in breach of UNCAT by our continued use of taser and similar weapons.  I have informed the government and police of this many times and have never received a satisfactory response from any official, clarifying the government and police's position in law.  It is my belief that Britain's continuing breach of UNCAT has led directly to the deaths of Andrew Pimlott in Plymouth and Marc Cole in Falmouth as well as numerous other deaths in Britain.  Politicians who have evaded discourse on this issue bear some responsibility for these deaths.  Derek Thomas has broken a public promise to me over this and failed to raise the matter of UNCAT ratification with the British Government.  I believe Mr Thomas is criminally negligent in this regard and I will be proceeding against him.

I have informed you of the law, as I see it and am sincerely asking for remedy by the steps mentioned above.  I am extremely distressed that a human life has been taken, I believe unnecessarily and this is a crime against nature.

I trust you will respond promptly to me and engage with me, over this point of law, and over this wasted human life.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Schanche

Newlyn, Cornwall.

--------------------

Marc Cole

Public message to: Chief Constable Sean Sawyer,  Devon and Cornwall Police Headquarters, Exeter, Devon.  1st June, 2017

Re:  The killing of Marc Cole by Falmouth Police, 23rd May, 2017

Dear Chief Constable Sawyer,

It is my understanding that usually when the police kill someone, the family is offered the chance to speak with a Liaison Officer.  To the best of my knowledge, no such offer has been made to the Cole family.  Would you please take appropriate action on this?

I gather that it is your policy to conceal the identity of officers who kill citizens - we can all see why.  I'd like to ask you whether the constable(s) involved in this latest killing have been suspended, if so are they still being paid?  What is the current employment status of the constables involved in the killing of Marc Cole?

Sincerely,

Jeremy Schanche

--------------------

So much for our open and transparent democracy where the police are public servants who police by consent - taking their instructions from our government who represent us and uphold international law for us -   Anyway here-s the article I wrote to start my campaign against stun-guns in 2010 -

WELSH COPS CHOP FINGERS OFF

The pictures of James Clark-s severely mutilated hand are hard to look at - So is the footage of him being muscled into a British Police station by several burly constables - without due process of being booked in - and severely assaulted in a cell in Llanelli - Wales on 20th June 2016 after he was arrested following a complaint from a neighbour over noise during a domestic dispute -
The videos do not show him being threatened with a stun-gun - in contravention of the United Nations Convention Against Torture - and neither do they show him being gassed with chemical irritant - both these weapons were turned on Mr Clark during his physical subjugation and legal arrest by the squad - 
(18th December 2017:  CORRECTION:  It has emerged that Mr Clark was NOT sprayed with irritant - this lie was spread by The Sun  - Britain-s foulest newspaper - I apologize for any confusion caused by this)
They do show what happened after the man had been stripped naked and seriously worked-over by several large law-upholders - When they finally dismount him and leave him alone he goes to the door and it is slammed on his fingers - again - the film is very hard to watch - be warned -
There are certain inescapable similarities with so many other cases - Jordan Begley of Manchester - Andrew Pimlott of Plymouth - Marc Cole of Falmouth amongst others - police are called to what is often a potentially-controllable emotional-crisis and it ends in death or serious injury due to excessive and quite unnecessary use of force - In so many of these cases there seems little or no attempt to de-escalate a volatile situation but rather a gang of heavies wades in and starts throwing their weight around - (as with Sean Rigg for example)
Happily this is not always the case and my respect goes out to all police men and women who act with discretion and humanity when upholding the law - I have no problem with proper police-activity but will vigorously expose and oppose corruption and violence whenever I encounter it - This is one of the rights my family fought wars for and I am happy to enjoy my freedom as much as possible - Sadly my actual right of democratic representation has been violated and abandoned by my lying rogue-MP Derek Thomas but I am at least free to write - publish and speak my mind in public -
I only heard about what happened to James Clark today and will be publishing more about his case in the near future - The kind of police-behaviour described here is precisely what gives police a bad image in the public eye and undermines all the efforts of every good cop in the nation - Llanelli Police might inspire fear or perhaps contempt amongst the public they are paid to serve - but have they settled for the public-s fear at the cost of the respect that police can achieve when they act properly?

Notes:
James Clark had to battle the "authorities" to get hold of the film-evidence from the police-cells that they wanted to suppress from public attention -

It is typical in Britain - as elsewhere - in cases where police assault citizens  for the victim to then be accused of assaulting the police - as I can verify from the personal experience of a British citizen whom I interviewed in a previous case -

If James Clark assaulted a cop in front of several other cops as they claimed - why did the court believe otherwise and find otherwise - why were the police-s statements "inconsistent?"

Mr Clark was not booked-in on arrival at the police station as is customary and lawful but was forced along to the cells in a headlock - police were wearing blue rubber globes - a typical sign of impending police-violence -

After the savage assault was over three of James Clark-s fingers lay on the floor of the police station - This reminds me strongly of the case of Darren Rainey - the black Muslim man who was tortured to death by the State of Florida on 23rd June 2012 and whose skin was scraped off the floor and thrown into the trash - a similar disregard for basic humanity is demonstrated in both cases

The hours-long delay in getting Mr Clark the urgent medical attention required after finger-amputation is obviously another grave crime by the police -

The fact that the police committed the assault knowing the camera was watching suggests to me that they acted on an assumption of impunity -

WHY DID THE COPS STRIP HIM NAKED?
WHY DID A GANG OF THEM ABUSE AND BATTER HIM?
WHY DID THEY LEAVE HIM SCREAMING IN AGONY ISOLATED IN A CELL WITH THREE FINGERS MISSING WHEN THEIR DUTY WAS TO PROTECT HIS WELL-BEING?
WHY HAVE THESE THUGS BEEN ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH THIS AND CARRY ON AS PUBLIC SERVANTS?
WHAT KIND OF MONSTROSITY IS THIS?

BBC News report on the attack on James Clark

BBC News report about James Clark suing the police

Please share this blog and print and display the poster - it-s for justice!

Derek Thomas - Enemy of Democracy

Derek Thomas you broke your promise - 

You say you're into Jesus - 

But with Austerity you squeeze us -  

You give the rich still more - 

And say you're for the poor - 

Well, we met in the street - And we talked with some heat - 

You said you'd do an interview - But I ain't even into you - 

Then you lied to my camera - You're in my YouTube lens - 

But you can't lie to the People - So your Soul you must cleanse - You're meant to be The Right Honourable - 

But you talk sheer bull and it's horrible - 

You wasted so much of my valuable time - 

And I don't just charge by the nickle and dime - 

You owe me something - And you promised the Nation - 

For 68 Grand you'd give REPRESENTATION - 

But time has gone by and you get no better - 

You can't even answer a blinking letter! - 

You Tories are a bunch of sly little rats - 

I'm gonna VOTE FOR THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS!

Derek Thomas plots Britain's 'Snooper's Charter,' Europe's most invasive and draconian piece of communication-surveillance legislation



This open letter to The Cornishman newspaper about Derek Thomas's dereliction of duty was published in the paper, despite my doubts that it would be.

Derek Thomas MP promises to investigate Britain's failure to ratify the UNCAT - this was in July 2016 and I still have not heard a word back from Derek. So much for a Conservative promise.

Derek attacks the disabled.


Housing scam - is Derek a landlord or not? Does anyone know?


One of many times I challenged Derek Thomas to debate with me

Call this democracy? How things are done in Cornwall...


Derek drops 200,000 children into poverty



Things got a little ugly there for a while...  and we started getting crazy headlines about farm-yard goings-on amongst the Conservative Party, hence Derek's Pig-Gate Denial  in which he said he had no interest....


Then it got to the point where Tory Depression started to smother Britain....



The Limpet challenges Derek Thomas on Human Rights....
not for the last time...


Defend Human Rights  This is the poster that went up around all the country lanes of St. Buryan when Derek and Co. were still threatening to remove the Human Rights Act.



Derek Thomas MP challenged on Fox-Hunting - he says the issue should be decided on principle - it already was - I asked him which principles it should be decided on - I never found out... which principles, Derek?


Derek's little threat to liquidate the Human Rights Act



Derek Thomas - Exterminator!  Reynard the Fox is argued over by me and Derek, in an early encounter.  Right-wing politicos in Britain always threaten to 'bring back fox-hunting' - it's guaranteed to cause a storm of protest (which I endorse) but is also a great diversionary tactic.  While we're all off chasing the fox, the Tories are looting the town.

Version 2 - Tory Class-War


Introducing Derek.... this was in the early days of our romance, before we started taking each other for granted.  Even then, I had a hunch he wouldn't be right for me.


Derek on film:  We finally got to have our 'little chat'...


Derek lies to me about the United Nations Convention Against Torture:


Derek Thomas' disgraceful record on Human Rights  is reflected in this letter to the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall police about the tragic and unnecessary police-killing of Marc Cole, a 30 year old man in Falmouth on 23rd May, 2017.

This London cabbie has got a message for you young voters out there who would like some clarity on what it's all about....  believe me, this guy's got the knowledge.


Some Traditional Songs About Derek Thomas and The Conservatives....







No Future For You, Derek Thomas!

Marc Cole, Cornwall's First Taser Death

30-year old Marc Cole - a painter from Falmouth who  had a recent history of severe and enduring mental-illness - a severe condition of the brain called hydrocephalus and a family history of Bi-Polar Disorder died on 23rd May 2017 after being shot by Devon and Cornwall police with a Taser stun-gun when they were called out to attend a mental-health-crisis - Mr Cole is the first person in Cornwall to die after being stunned with a taser - 

Letter to:  The Cornishman newspaper  Cornwall, Britain and other press, 29:5:17

Dear Editor,

I was extremely distressed to hear that 30 year old Marc Cole, a painter from Falmouth died on Tuesday 23rd May, having cut himself in the street and been shot by police with a taser stun-gun.  

Over the last seven years I've had a lot of communication about tasers with the police, government, UN and human rights organisations.  The law around tasers is something I have touched on with Derek Thomas MP, who has kept me waiting eleven months for a response.  

As a citizen of a democracy, I expect my representatives to engage in discussion with me over the issue of arming our police.  I agree with the UN that the taser is not safe for street-use.  As I've watched the taser-fatalities accumulate in this country, I'd imagine the relatives of the deceased might agree with me. Safer weapons are available.  May we as a people discuss this?

Sincerely,

Jeremy Schanche

------------------------

NOTICE:

I am very keen to speak to the family of Marc Cole, the man who was killed in the above incident.  They can contact me at: save the holy headland at yahoo dot com - I'm a human-rights activist who has worked on taser-law issues for several years and would like to offer them any help I can give.  

Jeremy Schanche

-------------------------

note:  since writing the above notice, I have made contact with the family of the man apparently killed by police in the street in Falmouth.  If anyone else has been shot or threatened by police with a stun-gun, please contact me for free legal advice.

Please check out my in-depth investigation of everything related to taser RESIST CARDIAC ARREST  written in 2010, when I launched my campaign against these illegal and vicious weapons of torure, having seen what was happening in the USA, where people were dying on a very regular basis from being shot with these weapons.  The town of Falmouth, in West Cornwall, Great Britain, has played a very important part in the RCA campaign, as it was a previous incident of Falmouth police taser-torture that led to my communicating with the United Nations and learning about how Britain's politicians have lied to us since '85 on this issue. This is an interesting example of 'cause and effect,' or a 'chain of causality.'

Nutshell Version:  tasers arrive in UK, RCA Campaign starts after death of Brian Loan, 1st fatality;  UN Declaration says tasers are illegal instrument of torture; Brit Gov non-communication and evasion after many, many letters from me about legal basis of weapons;  UNCAT never ratified as politicians won't go there or talk about it;  police continue to stun-gun people;  man dies in Cornwall, as predicted in 2010.

Also:

They now have machine-guns.

Welcome to the Western Democracy.  Bullet-proof jackets are available for going shopping.

A brother speaks of a lost brother - dead after police taser attack.

Tributes to Marc Cole from the community.
Please remember Marc Cole, 'Colsey' of Falmouth, Britain and his family, in this most distressing situation.  Please respect the family's request to be left in peace.