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BRIEF, AUSTRALIA
Man dies after QLD police Taser him

Simon Butler

13 June 2009

A man died soon after police used a Taser on him on June 12. Police say they were trying to arrest the man in Brandon, north Queensland.

The June 12 Brisbane Times said the man was believed to have been undergoing mental health treatment at Townsville hospital the day before his death.

The death has raised calls for the use of Tasers by Queensland police, introduced last year, to be suspended. The Queensland Police Service claims Tasers are a non-lethal weapon.

Terry O’Gorman, vice-president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, told the Brisbane Times the death “explodes the police myth that Tasers don’t kill”.

Former state MP and former police officer Peter Pyke told the media in April that he predicted a Queenslander would die in 2009 from a Taser. He told the June 12 Australian: “Tasers are not the ’non-lethal’ weapons the Queensland Police Service leadership claims.”