The old stun guns have cameras built into them but this drains their power. Photo / RNZ
By Phil Pennington of RNZ
The police are going ahead with updating their old Tasers but are still not sure how.
They have also been looking at replacing them entirely later (after 2023) and whether to buy body cameras which would record Taser use.
The old stun guns have cameras built into them but this drains their power.
Newer Tasers are usually matched to body-worn cameras, triggered when the Taser is drawn.
Police have been debating for months what to do, facing a multimillion-dollar bill.
“The police executive has recently made the decision to proceed with updating the current Taser fleet from 2023, but there is significant work to be done on what this will look like,” a spokesperson told RNZ.
It was at the early stages of planning, and police would “announce any changes to our people, and the community, as soon as we are able”.
Before any replacement, there would be public consultation, they said.
On body-worn cameras, this was “still an issue we are considering as part of wider ongoing work”.
The police annual review to Parliament said it was working to understand the impact of introducing body-worn “camera/Taser beyond the current version of Taser”.
“What impact will this have on... complaints, investigations, prosecutions, procedurally-just contacts with the public, etc.”
Police have been using Tasers from US tech company Axon - formerly Taser International - for about 15 years.
Axon’s main business worldwide has evolved beyond supplying the stun guns themselves, to running the data storage and processing systems for handling all the video that law enforcement body cams generate, in the US, UK and Australia.
New Zealand police already use Axon computers in Australia to store T\taser footage and evidence such as video interviews from family violence cases.
-RNZ
Police never charged anyone after Hemi Rapaea's death on SH2, south of Hastings, in 2016.