The murder of Donte Wright, a young African-American man, in the suburbs of Minneapolis in the USA, happened when a policewoman switched her gun for a stun gun, according to the police.
So how is it possible to mix two weapons?
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How are stun guns intended to be used?
Tasers fire small electrodes, similar to darts, that can deliver a high-voltage shock to temporarily incapacitate a suspect and allow officers to deal with violent or potentially violent people from a distance.
They are used by police forces around the world.
According to one estimate, almost all American police departments now issue Tasers to their officers.
The American company Axon, whose stun gun was used by the Brooklyn Center police involved in this incident, claimed that their weapon was designed to be different from a gun.
"A number of features and training recommendations have been incorporated to reduce the possibility of these incidents occurring" — such as making them look and feel different from firearms.
Recognizable characteristics of electroshockers:
- they are often produced in bright colors
- they weigh significantly less than police weapons
- they usually have different handles
- they do not have a trigger safety mechanism, as most pistols do
Police officers are usually trained to holster their pistol on their dominant side, so as not to confuse it with their stun gun, which is worn on their belt on the other side of their body.
The Brooklyn Center police manual says officers must place the taser "in a reaction side holster on the belt opposite the service weapon."
"So if you're right-handed, you carry your firearm on your right and your taser on your left," Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters after Wright's murder.
He added: "It appears to me ... that this was an accidental shot that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright."
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What could have gone wrong?
Na video of the incident released by police shows the officer yelling, "Taser, Taser, Taser" before firing, then appears to realize she used a gun instead.
The officer's name is Kim Potter, who has worked for the Brooklyn Center Police Department for 26 years.
She quit her job and was charged with second degree murder.
We do not know all the circumstances, and the police are investigating what happened.
However, experts say gun confusion does happen and that training is key to preventing such incidents.
"It comes down to how often she trains with the stun gun," US police adviser Jeff Noble told the BBC.
"It's a tool that's not used very often.
"You have to constantly improve professionally," he says.
Brooklyn Center's police handbook says officers should be trained at least once a year.
The training should include "demonstrating hand draw or cross draw to reduce the possibility of accidental draw and firing of the firearm," it states. news agency Reuters.
Other experts point out that even if the Taser and the gun are holstered on different sides of the body, if both are carried in such a way that the dominant hand can easily access them, it can lead to errors under pressure.
Is this already dfailed?
Mistaking a stun gun for a stun gun is rare, but it has happened before.
Comprehensive nationwide figures are not available.
However, a law journal published in 2012 found nine examples that were the police accidentally used a gun instead of a taser between 2001 and 2009.
Two of these incidents resulted in death.
There were more recent cases where the suspect was shot instead of electrocuted:
- In Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2015, a man was killed by a sheriff's deputy who accidentally pulled a gun.
- In 2019, a police officer in St. Louis, Missouri accidentally discharged her revolver and seriously wounded a shoplifter.
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