Moment Met Police officers taser man 'threatening bus passengers with unknown substance' in Croydon

This is the moment police tasered a man on a bus after reports someone was "threatening bus passengers with an unknown substance".

Emergency services - including workers in chemical suits - stormed the bus when it stopped outside homes in Croydon at 8.30pm last night.

Police say a man was arrested but the substance was found not to be harmful.

The incident came less than two weeks after 12 people were injured in an incident involving a corrosive alkaline substance in Clapham.

Amber Nurse, 38, an admin clerk, watched the incident unfold outside her home. She was in bed when her son woke her up after spotting the commotion outside.

She said: "I got up and walked to the window. There was a big queue of traffic behind the bus.

"The police were there and then I saw the armed police too looking around. That's when I thought 'this is quite serious'.

"At first they were just waiting and I guess observing the guy. They had a guy come up into the block of flats to look at him from his level, because he was in the top deck.

"The guys in the blue suits were there. There was a negotiator trying to get him downstairs.

"Then they went up. They approached him and finally tasered him."

She added: "After he was tasered they carried him down. That took a while. They were probably checking his health. There were so many blue suits it was hard to see.

"They took him to one side and stripped him and put him in other clothes. He was taken away in an ambulance."

She said the incident was not over until around 11.45pm.

A Met Police spokesperson said: "A man has been arrested by Met officers responding to an incident on a bus. The man had made threats but no hostages were taken.

"Police were called to London Road, Thornton Heath shortly after 8.30pm on Sunday February 11, to a man threatening bus passengers with an unknown substance.

"Nobody was held hostage. The man made threats and everyone else on the bus immediately got off. The substance was not thrown.

"Shortly before midnight, the 44-year-old man was arrested for affray. The substance was found not to be harmful.

"Taser was discharged prior to his arrest and officers believe the man had taken drugs. As a precaution, he was taken to hospital. His condition is not believed to be life-threatening."