GILROY
– Less than a month after city police officers began carrying
TASERs on their daily rounds, a national controversy has erupted
over whether the stun guns are capable of killing people.
The Gilroy Police Depart-ment is taking the storm in stride.
”
Right now, with everything we’ve seen and heard, we’re very
comfortable with (TASER technology),
”
GPD spokesman Sgt. Kurt Svardal said Wednesday.
GILROY – Less than a month after city police officers began carrying TASERs on their daily rounds, a national controversy has erupted over whether the stun guns are capable of killing people.
The Gilroy Police Depart-ment is taking the storm in stride.
“Right now, with everything we’ve seen and heard, we’re very comfortable with (TASER technology),” GPD spokesman Sgt. Kurt Svardal said Wednesday. “If things change, we will absolutely think over where it should be.”
According to Sunday’s Arizona Republic, medical examiners found stun guns partly responsible for three deaths of arrestees: in Las Vegas in February, Indiana in November and Florida in 2002 – although a second medical opinion overruled the Florida finding. In two other deaths in Los Angeles (2002) and Ohio (2001), examiners’ autopsy reports did not rule out stun guns as a possible, partial cause of death.
TASER International – the only company that makes stun guns – contests these medical reports, saying the deaths were due to drug overdoses and heart attacks. Uncertain coroners added “electric shocks” to lists of causes to cover themselves, the company claims. In a campaign to prove its weapons are completely nonlethal, the Scottsdale, Ariz. firm claims 4,000 lives have been spared by police using TASERS, and it points to stories of people killed in police shootings that could have been avoided with stun guns.
Gilroy police have only “tased” one person since they began carrying the weapon, they say, but the threat of incapacitation from a 50,000-volt shock has caused more than one belligerent person to back off and comply.
Without stun guns, police might have drawn a baton or pepper spray – each of which has more lasting side effects than a five-second TASER stun – or a handgun.
“We know, if we go to deadly force, what’s going to happen to the person, whereas the TASER is less-lethal force, and that is better hands-down,” Svardal said. “The whole thing here is to keep people safe and keep us alive.”
In the past year, TASER International has been rapidly gaining on its goal of equipping every police officer in the country with one of its stun guns. A huge deal with the U.S. military was announced early this month.
Like other agencies, the GPD bought the $800 weapons with the understanding that they were nonlethal, even to people with pacemakers or heart conditions.
“There have been zero causes of death across the country attributed to TASERs,” Gilroy officer Joseph Deras, one of the GPD’s two stun-gun training officers, said on June 22.
That claim is now the subject of a national debate.
The Arizona Republic reported that in each of the five alleged TASER-related deaths, the subject was tased multiple times: 11 in the Florida case and seven in Las Vegas. In each of these, medical examiners said the repeated shocks made it hard for the man to breathe. Each man was also high on illegal drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine and PCP.
“It is unfortunate, but there are people who end up dying in custody,” Svardal said. “If they are heavy narcotics users and they’re putting that kind of strain to their body, did the TASER cause it? I don’t know.”
What he does know, he said, is that police want to use deadly force only as a last resort, and a TASER is an excellent alternative.
Gilroy TASER use infrequent but effective
On Tuesday in Las Animas Park, a man confronted a police officer who was questioning his juvenile family member, according to Svardal and Deras. The officer drew a TASER, pointed it at the man and told him he would zap him if he didn’t back off. The man complied, and the officer allowed him to leave without charges.
“Those kind of situations are going to become more and more prevalent, and that’s the desired effect,” Svardal said.
It was the second time a Gilroy officer drew a stun gun in the field, Deras said.
The single TASER firing came within a week of the sidearm’s Gilroy debut. According to Deras, the subject was under the influence of alcohol and psychological medication and began resisting an arrest for suspected domestic battery and parole violation. The stun gun subdued him without injury, police said.
“Afterward, he was quick to point out that he would never again fight with police,” Deras said. “He had a history of fighting the police, I might add.”
Clashing claims
Police nationwide have tased roughly 50,000 civilians since 1999, according to TASER International. As many as 100,000 police officers have been tased as part of their training, the company adds. Gilroy officers were encouraged, but not required, to sample the TASER’s shock.
TASER International has compiled a report of 42 instances of people who died in police custody after being tased, acquitting the stun gun in each case.
The latest such death happened Saturday, in a Toronto suburb, after police tased a 29-year-old boxer who violently confronted them at a motel, according to the National Post. TASER International is overseeing a coroner’s investigation. Amnesty International Canada has linked TASERs to two 2003 deaths in British Columbia.
The New York Times published a critical report of TASERs the same day as the Arizona Republic, saying the stun gun is largely unregulated and that the company tested its most powerful and prevalent gun, the M26, solely on a single pig in 1996 and five dogs in 1999.
The X26 model, which Gilroy police carry, is newer and less powerful. Despite the company’s claim of no attributable deaths, the X26’s instruction manual calls it a “less-lethal” weapon and warns that a person could be hurt or killed from falling after the shock.
Both Gilroy police and Amnesty International officials, who are advocating for suspending TASER use pending further study, compare the stun gun controversy to a similar one over pepper spray several years ago. Amnesty maintains that pepper spray has killed people, while Deras said time has proved it to be an effective tool.
“As we know, it does its job, and we expect that to be the same with the TASER,” Deras said.
