‘I support the police in the tasering of an eleven year old child’-Bereaved mother backs police use of force.

We continue our articles on knife crime awareness.

“I do understand the public’s concern over the tasering of a child, but the outcry should be over the fact that an eleven year old child is brandishing a knife.”

Sue Hedges knows about knife crime first hand. In 2016, Sue lost her son Ricky Hayden to knife crime. Ricky was stabbed in the thigh and despite the best effort by doctors, he lost his life. Sue and her family had to make the heartbreaking decision to turn Ricky’s life support machine off. This family has not and will never recover from losing Ricky.

Now, Sue and her daughter April have dedicated their life to campaigning against knife crime.

“The incident of the eleven year old being tasered was alarming, but to be honest, not surprising with everything going on today. The police have taken a lot of abuse recently, but in this case I do believe it was the right thing to protect the public and themselves.

“I have seen people upset over the tasering of a child. It is upsetting, but what is very disturbing is that we have a child that could still be at Primary school, waving a knife and filming himself doing this. He is a child, why is a child waving a knife about at police? What on earth can make this child feel the need to get a knife, film himself waving it about and threaten the police with it? It is so sad for myself and other bereaved families to see children aged just eleven years old handling knives in this manner.

“Any society that encourages children to wave knives about to be popular with friends is extremely messed up.This is what we should be tackling. Those that are angry with his tasering, should be equally horrified that a child, as young as eleven is waving a knife about in public and threatening police officers with it.”

The shocking incident took place over the weekend in Scotland and has caused concern amongst many that a child was tasered by police.

“This is the state our society is in, we have got to the point that the police have to use force such as a taser on a child. We have got to this stage because no one cares about knife crime. It is left to the police and anti knife crime campaigners to fight this alone,” continues Sue.

“Last weekend another five people were stabbed, no mention by anyone of this as always. Children are dying on the streets of London most weeks and as I repeatedly state-nobody cares. I campaign hard to make a change in society, promoting knife crime awareness. This has been my priority since Ricky was killed.

“We know police officers deal everyday with knife crime incidents across the capital, it is a lottery who will survive and who will not. Who will be another statistic like my Ricky, that is dead because of the knife.

“Families are left completely broken like mine, unable to ever recover. Police officers are left traumatised too watching a child die in front of their own eyes. Yet once again nothing is done about it.

“This incident shows us clearly that children accessing knives are getting younger and younger as the epidemic continues and no one tackles these horrors.”

Sue has been fighting knife crime since 2016 and is tired of not being heard.

“We carry on, but after years and years of campaigning, we are tired of not only being ignored, but of no one caring.”

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