Queensland police will investigate why a Taser failed to subdue a Brisbane man later shot dead by officers during an incident on the weekend.
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Commissioner Ian Stewart on Monday announced there would be a full investigation into the death of Liam Scorsese, 31, in a suburban street at Wakerley on Sunday morning.
Two officers opened fire on Scorsese, named by media as a Comancheros bikie club associate, after he threatened residents of a home.
He had tried to break into the property and the occupants called police who first used a Taser to try to subdue the "enraged" 31-year-old.
When that failed they retreated down the street but police say Scorsese followed them and threatened them while armed with a knife, forcing the officers to open fire.
Mr Stewart said the investigation would look into why the taser was ineffective, but hinted it was unlikely to be a technical fault.
"Tasers are not a panacea, there are many issues we look at when a taser is deployed and it doesn't have the effect we expect it to have," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"That can be partly due to technical faults with the taser, that's a rarity, but more importantly, where the subject is affected by various substances also comes into play."
Scorsese's Gold Coast lawyer Ashkan Tai said his client was not a member of any outlaw motorcycle club and was working to get his life in order.
"He had enrolled in a barber's course. Just because he got into one incident with the Comancheros, police label him. He wasn't a bikie, he was just a man that was tattooed and had some bad friends," Mr Tai has told The Courier-Mail.
"His family are obviously extremely distressed ... I would hope Ethical Standards investigate fairly the question of how a man can be shot dead by police, in suburbia, in the early hours, on a Sunday morning."
Mr Stewart on Monday would not comment on whether Scorsese had links to bikies,
The officers involved are receiving counselling and the Queensland Police Union says they acted courageously and professionally.
"You hope you never ever have to use your firearm but at the end of the day you have to do what you have to do to protect your own life," union president Ian Leavers told ABC radio.
The Queensland Police Service's Ethical Standards Command has launched an investigation on behalf of the State Coroner, with the assistance of the Crime and Corruption Commission.
It is the second shooting incident involving Queensland police in less than two weeks, after a 16-year-old boy was shot after allegedly lunging at officers with a knife at Springfield, southwest of Brisbane on February 14.
He was later charged after being released from hospital after treatment for non-life threatening injuries.
Australian Associated Press
