Authorities use a training session and a recent incident to demonstrate the stun gun's effectiveness amid questions of its safety.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published August 26, 2004
[Times photo: Ken Helle]
Tampa police Officer Tony Gutierrez, center, reacts as he receives a one-second burst of electricity from a Taser as fellow officers Tim McGinnis, left, and Terry Gonzalez support him Wednesday during a training session.
TAMPA - Tampa police chief Steve Hogue says he's read "all there is to read" about Tasers, gun lookalikes that hit aggressive suspects with jolts of electricity instead of bullets.
But not everything reported about Tasers, now used by thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world, has been positive. Recent news reports raising questions about the stun guns' safety came just as Hogue's department began arming its officers with them.
So when a longtime Tampa officer used a Taser gun this week to disarm a mentally ill man who threatened to kill himself with a 3-foot-long machete, police officials seized on the incident to highlight Tasers' benefits.
With a well-orchestrated series of photo and interview opportunities for the local media Wednesday, the department set out to ease public concerns and to show that Tasers are a safe alternative to guns.
Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy invited reporters and camera crews to Taser training for two dozen officers.
The morning session was light-hearted. Officers got a one-second jolt of the Taser and inevitably screamed, cursed or grimaced - as their fellow officers laughed at them. Then they walked away as if nothing had happened, and said the stinging went away as soon as the Taser ceased firing.
Two television reporters even volunteered to be hit with the Taser, and their brief screams were met with applause and hearty guffaws from officers.
Before the training, Officer John Belk talked about his Monday encounter with the suicidal man in east Tampa, a person police say has a history of mental illness.
As Belk spoke, he held the machete that he said the man pointed at his own throat while threatening, "I'm going to kill myself, I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to make you kill me."
Thanks to the Taser, Belk said, the man got medical attention instead of forcing the officer to shoot him. "This incident illustrates very clearly why we bought these Tasers," Hogue said. "This man is being treated in a hospital, not lying in the morgue."
McElroy said Wednesday's training and the recent Taser incident are the best vehicles to show the officers' latest weapon to the public.
"The (Hillsborough) sheriff's office has already started using them, so they're not really new here," said McElroy.
"We thought, "Let's show people why we're using them.' This case was a great illustration of why. And this is a public police department, so the public has a right to know the weapons we carry and how they work."
Hogue even invited reporters to see footage of him getting hit with the Taser last month during the department's first training session. All 1,000 police officers eventually will carry a Taser, and as part of the training they're required to get a one-second jolt. Suspects usually are hit for five seconds.
"It's really not that bad," Hogue said. "It's phenomenal how it just tightens you up. But your mind is perfectly clear, so you're thinking, "Boy, this isn't much fun."'
Alternative to deadly force
The Taser X26 model, used by Tampa police and the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office, looks like a gun. But the 7-ounce device fires two electrified barbs for a distance of up to 21 feet, and delivers a 26-watt current of electricity with each five-second hit.
The idea is to briefly debilitate aggressive, violent suspects so they can be handcuffed.
"You can deploy it from cover, you can deploy it from long range," said Steve Tuttle, spokesman for Taser International, the Arizona-based company that makes the stun gun. "Cops aren't paid to get hurt, so this has been very popular."
Tuttle said 5,500 law enforcement agencies in 40 countries use Tasers, among them, the Clearwater Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
Taser officials maintain that Tasers cut down on police shootings and reduce injuries to suspects and officers, because officers can calm suspects without lethal force. Miami officers started carrying Tasers in 2003, and it was the first year with no police shootings. Officials there have said Tasers are partly responsible for that statistic. Last year in Phoenix, police officials reported a 54 percent drop in officer-involved shootings after using Tasers, Tuttle said.
Critics say Tasers haven't been tested enough on humans, and they point to people who have died after being shot with stun guns as proof. They also say that because Tasers don't leave obvious marks on subjects, officers can abuse the weapons.
At least 50 people have died since 2001 after being shocked, according to a story last month in the New York Times.
Taser officials insist those deaths were the result of drug overdoses or other factors. Tuttle said medical examiners in several of those deaths - including one in Dayton, Ohio - have determined Tasers were not the culprit.
Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies in May fired the Taser at a 40-year-old southern Hillsborough man who they said was angry and armed with a screwdriver. Henry J. Lattarulo, who had a history of cocaine use and heart problems, died soon after deputies handcuffed him.
Orange County was sued in 2002 by the family of a man who died after his arrest, in which deputies shot him 11 times with a Taser. He stopped breathing after he was handcuffed and restrained facedown on a stretcher.
McElroy on Wednesday gave reporters a British study from 2003 in which two doctors concluded such deaths were the result of pre-existing conditions, not just the Taser.
Dennis Cassidy, a Tampa cardiologist specializing in cardiac electrophysiology, said he's read studies on Tasers - and he'd rather be shot with a Taser than a gun.
"But to say definitively that they cause death, it's unclear," he said. "And to say definitively that they're 100 percent safe, I can't say that either."
In St. Petersburg, police Chief Chuck Harmon has not been sold on Tasers, even as officers and their unions lobby for the weapon.
Last Friday, Harmon allowed SWAT officers to attend a demonstration and has since agreed to buy at least two or three of the X26 model Tasers for SWAT or patrol officers to evaluate.
"I don't want to use a piece of equipment that ends up killing somebody," Harmon said. "How does it work with people with heart conditions, and how do we identify those people? There's still a lot of questions."
Taser used to subdue man
Tampa police officers tracked down the man wielding the machete shortly before 11 p.m. Monday at his mother's College Hill home.
Police say the middle-aged man has been involuntarily committed for mental health evaluations 12 times. He had threatened his elderly mother's health care volunteer and neighbors. Police have not released the man's name, citing medical privacy laws.
Officer Belk had been carrying a Taser along with his gun for nearly two weeks, but had not yet used it during his patrols. Belk said he confronted the man on the porch, as the man put the machete up to his own neck and insisted he wanted to die.
The man resisted officers' attempts to calm him down, and he would not drop the weapon, Belk said.
So Belk pulled out his Taser and fired. The man fell to the ground just long enough for police to take the machete and send the man, a diabetic, to St. Joseph's Hospital, police said.
The man faces no charges but was again involuntarily committed and treated for "critically low" blood sugar, Belk said.
The man's mother, Dorothy Little, was hesitant Wednesday to recall the frightening standoff involving her son. But she said she is grateful that Belk used his Taser.
"I know, they usually do shoot you in a case like that," said Little, 78. "So I'm glad it happened like it did."
to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com
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