The Trouble with Tasers

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/21718/

 

The Trouble with Tasers

 

By Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive. Posted April 11, 2005.

 

 

 

The use of tasers -- even on the elderly and children as young as one

year old -- is increasing

 

 

 

High-powered tasers are the new fad in law enforcement. They are

becoming ever more prevalent even as their safety is increasingly in

question. The proliferation of tasers in police departments across the

country has led to unconventional uses. Among those hit by tasers are

elderly people, children as young as one year old, people apparently

suffering diabetic shock and epileptic seizures, people already bound

in restraints, and hospital mental patients. Police used tasers

against protesters at the 2003 Miami Free Trade Area of the Americas

demonstration and against rowdy fans at the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. School

systems are employing the weapons, with some officers carrying tasers

even in elementary schools.

 

But doctors, reporters, and human rights groups have raised questions

about the safety of the devices, which shoot two barbs designed to

pierce the skin. The barbs are at the end of electrical wires carrying

50,000 volts. Last summer, The New York Times reported that at least

fifty people had died within a short time after being hit with a

taser. By November, when Amnesty International released its own

report, that number had risen to more than seventy.

 

In February, Chicago police used the device against a

fourteen-year-old boy, who went into cardiac arrest but survived, and

a fifty-four-year-old man, who died. The Chicago Police Department,

which had recently purchased 100 of the devices, decided not to

distribute them until it had investigated the incidents.

 

The Department of Justice is conducting its own investigation into the

safety of the devices. It has selected researchers at Wake Forest

University and the University of Wisconsin to run independent taser

studies.

 

Taser International, the biggest manufacturer of the weapon, denies

that its product caused any deaths. The company insists that its

products are safe. " The ADVANCED TASER has a lower injury rate than

other nonlethal weapons and has had no reported long-term, adverse

aftereffects, " says the company website.

 

Early tasers, those used from the 1970s until the early 1990s, were

lower wattage devices. " The original taser operated on only five watts

and was followed by Air Taser on seven watts, " says the November

Amnesty International report.

 

William Bozeman, a medical doctor at the Wake Forest University

department of emergency medicine, is investigating the safety of

tasers for the Justice Department. " They've increased the amount of

wattage that's delivered, " he says. Above fourteen watts, he says, you

get " electro-muscular disruption. "

 

According to Taser International, that's the point. The

" uncontrollable contraction of the muscle tissue " allows the taser " to

physically debilitate a target regardless of pain tolerance or mental

focus, " says the company website. The tasers " directly tell the

muscles what to do: contract until the target is in the fetal position

on the ground. "

 

Taser International introduced its " Air Taser " in 1994. Then, in 1998,

" the company began Project Stealth: the development of the

higher-power weapons to stop extremely combative, violent individuals

who were impervious to nonlethal weapons. " Project Stealth led to the

M26, a taser with twenty-six watts of power.

 

In 2003, Taser International started selling an additional version of

the twenty-six-watt taser, called the X26, which is light enough for

police officers to carry at all times.

 

Police like tasers, sometimes for good reason. Greg Pashley, officer

and spokesperson for the Portland Police Department, says the taser

" is a tool that is effective in ending what could otherwise be a

violent conflict without injuries. We're finding that time and again. "

 

Many other officers add praise of their own. " It's increasingly a less

lethal weapon of choice, " says Scott Folsom, police chief at the

University of Utah. " It doesn't have residual effects. It's proven to

be a relatively safe and effective tool. "

 

The Department of Justice is not the only governmental authority

inquiring into tasers. On January 7, Taser International issued a

press release that said the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission was

investigating what Taser International described as " company

statements regarding the safety " of the company's products. Arizona's

Attorney General Terry Goddard is also investigating their safety.

 

Taser International did not respond to repeated requests for an

interview. It eventually allowed The Progressive to submit a list of

questions, but it never answered them. The company did, however, send

several press releases by e-mail. One of those press releases

concerned stories by AP and CBS about a study they said linked the

taser to heart damage in pigs. The company disputed the news reports,

saying, " TASER International is deeply concerned that CBS News and the

Associated Press would publicize erroneous links between the TASER and

heart damage conflicting with the study author's own assertions and

relying solely on statistically insignificant readings. "

 

In Portland, Oregon, police used a taser to shock a

seventy-one-year-old blind woman four times on her back and once on

the right breast. They also pepper-sprayed her and beat her.

 

On June 9, 2003, Eunice Crowder was home when a city official came to

clean up her messy yard. When Crowder objected, he called the police.

The Portland Oregonian reported that Crowder, who claimed to be hard

of hearing, ignored police commands and tried to climb into a city

truck to retrieve her possessions. The police claimed that when they

tried to stop Crowder, she kicked at them. That's when they

peppersprayed her and used the taser. Then they handcuffed Crowder's

arms and yelled at her to stand up. " And she says, 'I bet you wouldn't

yell at your mom like that,' " her lawyer, Ernest Warren Jr., told a

radio station. One of the officers responded, " My mom is

seventy-four. " She said, " Well, I'm seventy-one. "

 

In 2004, Crowder agreed to the $145,000 settlement from the city of

Portland. The police department admitted no wrongdoing.

 

" We don't have age restrictions " for use of tasers, says Pashley of

the Portland Police Department. But he says that policy is currently

" under review. "

 

Crowder wasn't the oldest person hit by a taser. The oldest one on

record was 75-year-old Margaret Kimbrell of Rock Hill, South Carolina,

who describes the electricity from the taser as traveling " all over

your chest like a big snake or something worming to try to get out. "

Kimbrell says, " I prayed, 'Lord, Jesus, make it quicker.' I was

waiting to die so the pain would go away. " Police used the taser on

Kimbrell when she refused to leave a nursing home and, the police

claimed, tried to hit an officer.

 

Some of Taser International's own materials suggest that shocking

senior citizens may pose a danger. In its November report, Amnesty

International cites a " certified lesson plan " from the company that

warns it is " not advisable " to use its high-power devices on someone

who is pregnant or elderly.

 

A study of available medical literature commissioned by Taser

International and available on the company's web site says that older

people may have particular vulnerabilities. " Elderly subjects and

those with preexisting heart disease are perhaps at an increased risk

of cardiac complications and death following exposure to large

quantities of electrical energy, " wrote Anthony Bleetman of the

University of Birmingham. " Since the elderly and heart patients don't

often require to be subdued or controlled with a high level of force,

then this is unlikely to pose a common problem. "

 

Scientists and medical doctors have several theories, some of them

conflicting, about how tasers affect bodies. Electricity near the

heart can be dangerous, explains John Webster, professor emeritus in

biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, " because it

might cause ventricular fibrillation. " Webster and a team of

University of Wisconsin researchers are investigating the taser's

effect on the heart for the U.S. Department of Justice. While

suggesting that the taser may be relatively safe for the heart, they

speculate that an excess of potassium, produced when muscles contract

violently but also produced by cocaine use, may be a key ingredient in

the deaths associated with the device.

 

Many police departments say that use of tasers has reduced injuries

and fatalities. The city of Phoenix saw a 54 percent drop in police

shootings the year it began to use tasers. In 2003, Seattle, which

also uses tasers, for the first time in fifteen years had no shootings

that involved officers. That correlation has made tasers popular.

 

" As of October 2004, over 6,000 police departments in the United

States and abroad had purchased TASER products, " says the company

website. " Over 200 police departments--including Phoenix, San Diego,

Sacramento, Albuquerque, and Reno--have purchased TASER products for

every patrol officer. "

 

But Amnesty International says the tasers are making it too easy for

the police to use excessive force. " Claims that tasers have led to a

fall in police shootings need to be put into perspective, given that

shootings constitute only a small percentage of all police use of

force, " says the November report. " In contrast, taser usage has

increased dramatically, becoming the most prevalent force option in

some departments. While police shootings in Phoenix fell from 28 to 13

in 2003, tasers were used that year in 354 use-of-force incidents, far

more than would be needed to avoid a resort to lethal force. "

 

A number of the stories in the Amnesty report involve police use of

tasers on people who were already restrained, including two who were

strapped to gurneys and on their way to, or already inside, hospitals.

In one such case in Pueblo, Colo., " a police officer applied a taser

to the man while he was restrained on a hospital bed, screaming for

his wife, " said Amnesty.

 

" That was a case where a rookie officer did not understand appropriate

use of a taser, " says Pueblo Police Chief Jim Billings. Although the

incident involved a misunderstanding of policy, rather than

maliciousness, he says, the officer received " a pretty heavy suspension. "

 

Amnesty International wants the devices temporarily banned " pending a

rigorous, independent, and impartial inquiry into their use and

effects. " The investigation should " be carried out by acknowledged

medical, scientific, legal, and law enforcement experts who are

independent of commercial and political interests in promoting such

equipment, " says the human rights organization.

 

In response to the Amnesty report, Taser International issued a press

release accusing the human rights organization of being " out of step

with law enforcement worldwide. "

 

On Dec. 10, 2004, police in Pembroke Pines, Fla., used a taser on a

12-year-old boy who tried to stab another child with a pencil and then

became combative with police. Commander Ken Hall, public information

officer for the Pembroke Pines police, says the case " was looked at

very closely, obviously because of the controversial nature " and found

to be " within the parameters of our policy. "

 

In November, a Miami-Dade officer shocked a twelve-year-old Florida

girl who was playing hooky. At the moment he shocked her, she was

running from him. Although Miami-Dade police did at the time consider

tasers to be an appropriate weapon for use on children, the director

of the Miami-Dade Police Department has raised questions about the

event. " It was his opinion that that incident may not have been within

our guidelines " because the girl was not posing a threat to herself or

others, says Detective Juan DelCastillo, who handles media relations

for the Miami-Dade police. The director is reviewing the incident.

 

Back in May, a nine-year-old runaway girl in Tucson, who was already

handcuffed by police and sitting in a police vehicle, was shocked with

a taser when she began to kick at the car and bang her head. The Pima

County attorney general's office conducted an investigation of the

incident and decided not to bring criminal charges against the officer

who used the taser. " In all likelihood, the use of the taser

prevented " the girl " from injuring herself any further, " wrote David

L. Berkman, the chief criminal deputy, in explaining his decision.

 

Even one-year-olds have been shocked, according to records Taser

International supplied to the Associated Press. The company also told

the San Jose Mercury News that its taser can be used safely on toddlers.

 

In October, in a widely reported incident, police in Miami shocked a

six-year-old. The officers were dispatched to an elementary school

where they encountered " a mentally-disturbed student bleeding and

holding a piece of glass, " says the police report. " Upon their

arrival, the officers were confronted by a highly agitated and

disturbed male bleeding and smearing blood on his face while clutching

a piece of glass in his left hand. " The officers tried to talk the boy

into giving up the glass and tossing it into a wastebasket. The boy

refused and " attempted to cut his leg with the shard of glass. " The

report says that officers then shocked the boy to keep him from

hurting himself more extensively. The boy " dropped the glass and was

subdued without further incident. "

 

The officers shot the boy with the taser " for his own safety and to

stop him from hurting himself, " says DelCastillo of the Miami-Dade

police. As for the appropriateness of shocking a six-year-old,

DelCastillo says, " Our understanding is that there has been research "

and that the taser causes " no aftereffects. " He says there is " no

reason that would cause harm to someone younger than an adult. "

 

But the research is not nearly so clear-cut.

 

A scientist who tested some of the early tasers for the Canadian

government recommended that the government ban the devices. Andrew

Podgorski says his tests showed the devices could cause death. He says

that children could be especially vulnerable.

 

The use of a taser on the six-year-old disturbed Rudolph Crew,

superintendent of Miami-Dade schools. In a Nov. 16 letter to the

police department, Crew wrote, " While I acknowledge the need of law

enforcement officers on occasion to subdue and to restrain members of

the public, I believe that certain tactics should never be used in

dealing with young children--particularly within a school. " Crew

recognized that the student " was agitated and injured. " But, he said,

" Police officers have dealt with other children in this condition

without resorting to a taser. " Crew requested that the police

department " refrain from deploying or discharging tasers against

elementary school students in Miami-Dade County public schools " and

that officers use the taser only as a " last resort " on older students.

 

Tony Hill, the Democratic whip in the Florida State Senate, was so

concerned that he sponsored a bill that would prohibit schools from

using tasers on schoolchildren.

 

" Every day here in Florida, " says Hill, there are reports of " use of a

taser on someone. " But, he says, it was a group of tasings at schools

near Palatka, Fla., that first made him wonder about the

appropriateness of the weapon. " They all were African-American kids, "

he says. " That raised a red flag. "

 

In early January, the Miami-Dade police revised their guidelines. The

new policy " requires officers to consider factors such as age, size,

and weight, " in addition to other considerations, reported the

Associated Press.

 

Crew and Hill are bucking a trend: the increasingly common use of

tasers against students. Taser International says that 32 percent of

the police departments it interviewed include tasers in local school

systems, reported the Birmingham News.

 

In Birmingham, Ala., officers armed with tasers will soon patrol the

hallways of many schools. Superintendent Wayman Shiver says he's OK

with that.

 

" You have got to have something that the children fear, " says Shiver,

who has heard about people who were injured or who died after being

hit with a taser. " We have to be in a position to control these

schools by whatever means possible. "

 

For Virginia Volker, a Birmingham School Board member, " whatever means

possible, " is too much. " It's easier for systems to say, 'Zap them,

throw them out,' something technical, when there's not a technical

fix, " she says. " It's a human problem. "

 

Like Shiver, Volker also talks about problems with fighting in the

schools, but she opposes the taser. " It's treating the children as

criminals, " she says. " It doesn't address why the children are acting

out. "

 

In the South, electronic shocking devices have a disturbing precedent,

says Volker. Back in the time of the civil rights marches, sometimes

the police department would use cattle prods on protesters. " When I

think of the taser, " she says, " I think of that. "

 

Dexter Massey is president of the PTA at Parker High School in

Birmingham. He says he took a taser instruction course from the police

academy, but he still has doubts about the device when it comes to

kids. The trainers, he said, told him that the average shock from the

taser is three seconds. " Who's to say how many seconds it takes to

die? " he asks. " Got my drift? "

 

Taser International, which features the slogan " Saving Lives Every

Day " on its web site, is also hawking tasers directly to consumers.

 

" Choose your citizen taser device, " says the company. Calling them

" home self-defense systems, " the company says tasers are a " safe and

effective defense " that is " easy to use " and has " no aftereffects or

contamination. " The company offers three different consumer models,

including one with a 15-foot range. The police version, the M-26, has

up to a 21-foot range. So, presumably, in a taser duel between a

police officer and a consumer, the officer would win.

 

On Jan. 26, Jim Weiers, House speaker in the Arizona legislature,

announced that he would propose a bill that would give police

officers--and citizens--the upper hand against consumers who buy the

tasers. It would allow the state's " police officers and ordinary

citizens the use of lethal force in confronting people who threaten

them with remote stun guns such as tasers, " reported the Associated Press.

 

The consumer models sell for $399.95, $599.95, or $999.00.

 

Anne-Marie Cusac is Investigative Reporter of The Progressive.