By Jennifer Litz
Editor
February 20, 2008

It’s election season—for president, nationally (in November, of course), and for police chief, locally (in May). Every such season brings about issues, and skeletons from closets past.

Tasers have been big news the last few months. The biggest case in national memory was the University of Florida student tasered last September at a John Kerry forum. The student’s cries—“Don’t tase me, bro!”—became a catch phrase.

A few months before, San Angelo police had been the subjects of a Texas Ranger investigation: In June 2007, Johnny F. Lopez doused himself with gasoline and subsequently was burned to death during an altercation with local police. Ranger Shawn Palmer conducted an investigation as to whether SAPD’s tasering the man is what caused him to ignite. Palmer couldn’t release all of his information because of possible pending civil litigation at the city level (an open records request has been filed). He did offer a bit of information.

“I can tell you that Tasers were deployed by the officers,” Palmer says.

Officer Dennis McGuire is in charge of Taser training for the SAPD. McGuire says trainees are warned against using the “less-than-lethal” weapons, as they’re called, around flammable objects.

Where did the breakdown between training and implementation occur? Perhaps in the lack of state-mandated accountability. Records on police Taser usage are not kept, as they are in areas such as racial profiling. There’s not even a state-mandated training standard for Tasers at this point. A Texas House of Representative member tried filing bills to make Taser usage more transparent. None of them passed.

Which leaves the responsibility surrounding this controversial weapon back at individual stations.

It will be interesting to see how the new police chief directs department Taser usage.

How They Work

Tasers are usually referred to as “less-than-lethal” weapons, usually grouped in with others like pepper spray or police batons.

TASER International describes the weapon’s mode of operation:

“TASER devices utilize compressed nitrogen to project two small probes up to various ranges . . . These probes are connected to the TASER device by insulated wire. An electrical signal is transmitted through the wires to where the probes make contact with the body or clothing, resulting in an immediate loss of the person’s neuromuscular control and the ability to perform coordinated action for the duration of the impulse.”

The impulse can reach 50,000 electric volts.

How SAPD Uses Them

Most law enforcement officials say Tasers provide another line of defense before deadly force to subdue an offending subject. Police spokesman Lt. Curtis Milbourne quotes the general orders manual on a Taser’s approved usage:

“The officer is justified in using a Taser when there is an eminent threat of aggression towards the officer, any other person, or property, and there is a reasonable likelihood that officers or the suspect will be injured if other force options are used,” Milbourne reads. “Prohibited—no children under 12, persons over 60, a woman who is known or obviously pregnant, or someone who may have another medical condition.

“Even then, we have exceptions—if it’s a 10 year old who is holding a gun,” Milbourne says.

San Angelo policemen have been using Tasers since late 2003 or early 2004, according to officer Dennis McGuire. McGuire is in charge of training the police force to use Tasers; as an instructor for the force, he must get recertified himself at TASER International’s roving training programs every two years.

“We have an 8-hour training class,” McGuire says of the class he instructs for his SAPD officers. “We do classroom and live-fire exercises; reloading exercises, things like that.”

McGuire says training includes technical information about how the Taser works. There are also live-fire drills to help officers target the weapon, learn what distances to aim it from, and how probes will strike a target. Officers are advised how to manage Taser usage around flammable objects, water, and chemicals.

Other gray areas are covered: “We also teach them—for instance, if we have a person who wants to commit suicide by jumping off a building, we tell them that if you Taser that individual the chances of them falling off are more prevalent,” McGuire says.

“ . . . There is some material as far as medical testing and things like that, and it’s in a big addendum to those instruction materials. TASER International can give all the info about the medical aspects. Like heart stoppage and all those kind of studies that have been done in private sector.”

TASER International cites medical studies claiming that Tasers do not harm healthy individuals.

Some believe there’s something less-than-exemplary about a product’s manufacturing company conducting training classes for law enforcement. Especially when considering the safety issue.

Reform

Representative Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) filed four bills in the Texas House last session concerning Tasers. One that fared especially well in a hearing called for some sort of reporting mechanism on police Taser deployment so that a database could reveal usage trends. Burnam staffer Doug Lewin says such a database would quantify how often Tasers are deployed, and whether they’ve reduced the incidence of police firearm usage (some Taser proponents argue they do).

Another bill aimed to standardize and mandate Taser training for law enforcement. That one didn’t move beyond the committee level.

None of the bills passed by the time the session ended last May. Lewin’s reasoning? Congressmen don’t like to appear soft on crime.

Less-Than-Lethal?

The explanation for death when a person dies after being Tasered in police custody is often “Excited Delirium,” usually implicating the role of drugs and adrenaline in the situation. Fort Worth lawyer Bob Haslam, chairman of the AHA Taser Litigation group, doesn’t buy this open-and-shut explanation, which isn’t even agreed upon as a legit medical term in the medical community.

“Anytime there’s a death, TASER’s all over the medical examiner,” says Haslam. “They’ll come in and talk to the medical examiner, and swamp them with information.

“I’m not a medical doctor . . . [but] people have died [in custody] and nobody seems to explain it except, ‘it was the drugs.’ It seems like anyone on cocaine that gets tasered dies. So there’s gotta be something to it. Problem is, TASER doesn’t know. Anyone that looks at their medical literature—there’s nothing definitive that they’ve done. They’ve tested [safety] in non real-world situations.”

Some of those situations were during TASER-administrated police training. Haslam says there’s evidence that even healthy policemen have been injured during controlled Taser training.

“For a year or so, TASER insisted that any officer being trained on a Taser take a hit,” Haslam says. “Well, they stopped that because they realized officers can be injured in that.

“[There have been] lots of injuries by the officers. There’s an affidavit from a former TASER secretary claiming that TASER destroyed document[s] of officer injuries. We know officers are contending they’ve been injured in static, super-controlled environments. Well, [take] someone on cocaine that’s already doped up, depending on where the darts hit . . .”

Haslam says he knows of several medical examiners who contended they believe Tasers incited deaths.