Florida officials are turning more and more to the device, hailing it as a nonlethal option. But critics worry about the potential for abuse.
By LEANORA MINAI
Published March 21, 2004
As sheriff's deputies arrested her boyfriend during an unruly New Year's Eve bash, Jacquelyn Jones charged them, shouting profanities.
She bumped a deputy and grabbed his arm. Deputies told her to back off three times.
"Taser, Taser, Taser!" Hernando County sheriff's Deputy Kenneth Keeney yelled.
Keeney squeezed the Taser gun, firing two darts into Jones. She fell to the ground, 50,000 volts of electricity pumping through her.
"It was like my whole body went numb," said Jones, 26, of Brooksville, who was handcuffed and taken to jail. "I couldn't move. I couldn't say nothing."
A growing number of police departments in Florida and the nation are turning to Tasers, a pistol-like device that quickly disables a suspect. Powered by a battery and compressed nitrogen, two small barbs deliver an electrical charge that attacks the central nervous system.
Police say Tasers save lives in standoffs with violent or mentally ill people and help reduce the high costs of litigation arising from fatal shootings.
"It's actually one of the best things that's hit the market," said Hillsborough County Sheriff's Lt. Darrell Brown, whose agency ordered 350 Tasers.
But Tasers are not without controversy. Critics are concerned about whether they can cause death, particularly in individuals who are high on narcotics or suffering from heart disease. They question the potential for abuse of the Taser, which delivers a five-second jolt of electricity with each trigger press.
"If the current gets to your heart, there's no reason why it can't stop your heart like it can stop your leg muscle," said Dr. Terence B. Allen, a former deputy medical examiner in Los Angeles who has studied Taser-related deaths.
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The suicidal man was standing in his trailer, clutching a knife and bleeding from a wrist.
"I'm not coming out," the 6-foot-2, 195-pound man told Pinellas sheriff's deputies who responded to his Clearwater-Largo Road residence Jan. 21.
Deputies pulled the door open and shot the 27-year-old with a Taser. The knife dropped, but the man resisted. He was zapped three more times.
"Deputies at the scene stated that absolutely, had the Taser not been there, the guy would have been killed," said sheriff's Cpl. Nathan Samoranski.
The Taser isn't the answer in every situation, he said. But it allows officers to stand about 20 feet away and incapacitate someone. The barbs' points pierce skin or latch onto clothes, delivering the charge.
"The whole idea is so we don't have to fight," Samoranski said.
That's why Florida, behind only California, has the second most law enforcement agencies using the the weapon, said Steve Tuttle, spokesman for Arizona-based Taser International, which also sells to the public.
In Pinellas County, sheriff's deputies got 34 Tasers in January. By 2005, they'll have 400. In Hillsborough County, Tampa police ordered 512; Hillsborough sheriff's deputies will get 350.
Across the country, 4,300 police agencies are using Tasers, and 180 more are signing up each month, according to Taser, the only maker of the weapon. The company's stock was $2.19 a share in 2001. On Friday, it closed at $59.60.
The device and holster costs $650 to $800, depending on the model, and it's typically worn on an officer's belt. The weapon can be shot or applied directly to the body, like a stun gun.
"You can equip a whole lot of officers with Tasers for a fraction of what you settle one lawsuit for," said Sgt. Randy Force of the Phoenix Police Department.
In Phoenix, police pistol shootings last year dropped 54 percent, to 13, the lowest number in 14 years, which officials there attribute to the Taser.
"Law enforcement needs a reliable and effective weapon to use in those cases where someone has more than just their bare hands but less than a firearm," Force said.
But not everybody is sold on Tasers.
St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon said officers already carry intermediate weapons - an expandable baton and pepper spray. He does not want officers fumbling for another tool.
"The more options you have might create a delay in the officer doing what they can to protect themselves," Harmon said. "Also, the officer may get questioned, "Why did you deploy this instead of this?' They're making split-second decisions."
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One of the toughest questions about Tasers is when to use them, and when to use deadly force.
Clearwater police officers are told, "the decision to use it must be a prudent one," according to the city policy.
"Our general rule is you don't take a Taser to a gunfight," said Orange County sheriff's Sgt. Paul Hopkins, who has shot a Taser 38 times to disable suspects. His agency turned to the device at the end of 2000.
Rules vary, but most officers in the Tampa Bay area are told not to use a Taser as the only weapon against a deadly threat. Some policies allow officers to fire it at someone who won't listen; others say officers need to be faced with someone who evades them.
"Guidelines cannot be written to encompass every possible application for the use," the Pinellas sheriff's policy says.
As Tasers gain popularity, more officers are firing them during calls that might have otherwise resulted in injury or death.
In Orlando last year, Orange County sheriff's deputies disarmed a man with a samurai sword.
"He was coming at them, and they used the Taser instead," Hopkins said. "Afterward, his words were something to the effect of that is not how he wanted it to end. He wanted suicide by cop."
Pinellas sheriff's deputies have shot their Tasers about 20 times since mid January.
Several cases involved suicidal or mentally ill people with knives, officials said. Most people shot with a Taser resisted or fought deputies.
A Pinellas deputy recently fired a Taser during a traffic stop in which crack cocaine was found.
"He was stepping on the crack, destroying the evidence," Samoranski said. "The guy continued to do it, and he tasered him. What were his options? Let the guy destroy the evidence?"
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Amnesty International, a human rights group, has called on law enforcement agencies to stop using the Taser, pending further study.
American Civil Liberties Union officials in Colorado and Miami are concerned about the potential for abuse, that police could use it as a tool of compliance.
But police and the makers of Taser say the electrical current is safe and that 40,000 people have volunteered for a Taser hit. The weapon stores the time and date of each fire to guard against misuse.
"Those who say this is a human rights issue are missing the bigger picture," said Tuttle, the Taser spokesman. "This technology reduces injuries to the suspects and officers alike."
But the ACLU in Denver has asked Denver police to review its policies, citing a growing number of Taser-related deaths nationwide. In Miami, the ACLU is investigating incidents of police shooting Tasers at protesters during the Free Trade Area of the Americas demonstrations in November.
"The concern arises if a Taser is used in circumstances where it isn't necessary," said Randall Marshall, legal director for the ACLU of Florida.
Tuttle said that since 1998, 41 people have died "minutes to hours to days" after being shot with a Taser. Nine deaths were in Florida, including one that resulted in Taser getting sued in recent weeks. No deaths were in the Tampa Bay area.
"No medical examiner has ever declared the Taser a cause of death," Tuttle said. "In the vast majority of those deaths, the people were in the middle of an overdose or excited delirium."
Ronald Kornblum, chief medical examiner in Los Angeles County, evaluated 16 deaths associated with Tasers between 1983 and 1987. He said the weapon, in and of itself, did not cause death. In most of the cases, he said, drug overdose was the cause.
But in one man, Kornblum said, the Taser may have contributed to death. The man, high on cocaine, was shot by seven Tasers and collapsed in water.
Kornblum's findings, published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, drew a response from his deputy medical examiner, Terence B. Allen.
Allen, who was assigned to the questionable Taser-related death, said Kornblum ignored logic in examining the cases.
"Namely that certain medical conditions, including drug use and heart disease, may increase the risk that the Taser will be lethal."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.
