Police say stun gun is key to avoiding officer injuries and use
of deadly force against suspects
Gilroy – Officer Doug Remmick watched as a 6-foot, 6-inch, 300-pound suspect fought off police dog and an officer with a baton last summer. The man was wanted on suspicion of kidnapping and being involved in a vehicle pursuit and would later test positive for PCP.
Remmick pulled out his Taser and fired one five-second round of 50,000 volts into the man.
“The guy went straight down to the ground,” Remmick said. “I told him to ‘stay down on the ground. Don’t move.'”
The second officer was gaining control of the K9 while the man got to his knees and started to fight back. Remmick subdued him again with another shortened round of shock as back up officers arrived on scene.
“The fight would have just continued (without the Taser),” he said. “I don’t know what the next step would have been. I’m not saying I would have shot him. It’s just we were already using a lot of force already with the K9 and the baton.”
In the 20 months since GPD first got its Tasers, 80 suspects have been tased and 16 have submitted to arrest after the weapon was displayed.
Tasers operate by sending a shock that briefly immobilize a person by disrupting the signals sent from the brain to the muscles. The shock is administered either with prongs pressed into the body, or with projectile cartridges that shoot two metal prongs into the person that are easily removed.
“They are very incapacitating. When you get hit with a Taser, it stops the fight – and that’s what we want,” said Sgt. Kurt Svardal. “In a perfect world, we would just like to say, ‘You’re under arrest. Here are the handcuffs, let’s go.’ But that’s not reality.’ ”
But, the use of Tasers has come under fire after a handful of forensic experts nationwide have attributed the stun guns to contributing to the death of suspect. Last month, a Santa Clara County coroner listed Taser use as one of the factors causing the death of a 38-year-old man in San Jose.
However, Taser manufacturers maintain that the stun guns are a safe and effective tool for law enforcement officials and help reduce the number of victims killed by police by lethal firearms.
Police officials like having another option – one that has no long-lasting effects – to prevent officers from getting injured in fights with suspects,
According to Svardal, after pepperspray is used, suspects must decontaminate at the station and may still feel the effects up to an hour later. Batons leave bruises. With Tasers, recovery begins immediately after the electric shock ends, he said.
A 2004 report by Amnesty International revealed concern that law enforcement agencies are using electric-shock weapons as a routine force option to subdue non-compliant or individuals who do not pose as serious danger to themselves or officers such as schoolchildren or intoxicated individuals.
The report indicated that sometimes the use of the stun guns appear to violate standards set under the United Nations conduct codes for law enforcement officials, requiring that force should be used as a last resort and that officers should apply only the minimum amount of force necessary to obtain a lawful objective.
“You’re only supposed to use as much force is necessary to bring somebody into custody,” Svardal said. “It’s just not bring out the Taser. You need to look at the circumstances. You need to look at how resistant is this subject? How far away is back up? We would rather have them tasered than use deadly force because we know what the outcome is with deadly force.”
The department keeps a file on Tasers documenting all uses of force, which supervisors review to see whether the action was warranted and appropriate. No officers have been cited for misuse, and no formal complaints have been filed by anyone tased.
Currently, every sworn officer carries a Taser.
Despite questioning by groups such as Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union about law enforcement agencies using Tasers, the department has not considered removing them from their belts.
“How many people have not been killed because (police) didn’t have to use that kind of force?” Svardal said.
Many of the coroner reports that have attributed Tasers as factors in the death of an individual also list that the person was under the influence of drugs or had heart disease.
“I’m not a doctor. I don’t understand all of the medical stuff, but I do know that before Tasers, people were dying for the same reasons,” Svardal said.
The department will continue to pay attention to Taser studies and reports, he said, but will not stop using the stun guns.
“When I was zapped I was completely conscious. I was very aware of my surroundings,” said Svardal, who was tased during training. “You’re completely cognizant of what’s happening around you.”
He believes Tasers help prevent officers from getting injured on the job, and prevent the individuals actually tased from feeling long term effects.
During the first 10 months they were deployed, two individuals submitted to arrest when police displayed the Taser. The last 10 months, 14 individuals complied with police upon viewing the weapon.
Some officers believe that just knowing police have Tasers is working in their favor.
“I think that it works psychologically,” Remmick said. “People know what the Taser is and they don’t want to have to go through that.”
