Police officers who caused outrage after footage emerged of them Tasering a 63-year-old race relations champion were “doing what the public expect of them”, the chairman of the local police federation branch has said.

Vince Howard defended the actions of the police who Tasered Judah Adunbi outside his home in Bristol last week, after mistaking him for a wanted man.

Howard, who speaks for rank and file officers in Avon and Somerset, said the two officers were faced with someone who was “uncooperative, rude and threatening”. He told the Bristol Evening Post: “Officers try to de-escalate the situation by explaining who they are looking for and their belief that he is the wanted man.”

The incident has caused the force great embarrassment: Adunbi once sat on Bristol’s independent advisory group, which is designed to forge links between the police and the community, and has worked with the Crown Prosecution Service’s local community involvement panel.

Howard added: “At no time during the interactions between the officers and this man does he say he is not the wanted person, he simply continues to be abusive towards the officer. The two officers then arrest the man, during which time one of the officers is assaulted and Taser is deployed. The officers were doing what the public expect of them, attempting to detain a wanted and potentially dangerous man.”

Adunbi was taken to hospital and was then arrested and charged. The charges were subsequently dropped.

The incident was filmed by a neighbour and is being studied by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the police watchdog.

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Sue Mountstevens, the police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset, expressed concern over the incident and has said she is widening a Taser advisory panel she set up prior to the incident.

She said: “I am supportive of the use of Tasers and the police have been given amazing powers and there always need to be checks and balances regarding these powers ... We have a number of independent panels who will be looking to see what lessons we can learn from this.”

Speaking about the incident, Adunbi said he had feared for his life. “I felt that was it. Because of the way I fell back. The way I fell backward on the back of my head. I was just paralysed. I thought that was it. I thought they were taking my life.”

He added that he felt humiliated. “At first, you don’t accuse someone of being someone else. You ask questions. The first thing they should have done is come to me in a polite manner. The way they approached me – they were accusing me. That is wrong.”

Howard however told the Bristol Evening Post that police “made every effort to gain the cooperation of Mr Adunbi and had he given that cooperation this matter could have ended very differently”.