Police and Taser Usage

Ah ha, another thread hop.

Taser replaces the use of a gun. So if the use of a gun was justified, but a taser was used instead, that is the intent. If instead of using other methods and you escalate to a taser, that is not justified. The taser can kill, so it is classified at the same grade as a firearm.

The problem is that the media mostly only reports taser deaths and those usually only occur because the police officers in question beat the guy to death and tasered him twenty times. People pick out the detail of the taser rather than the fact you had some highly abusive officers there ruining the force.

> Taser replaces the use of a gun

is this correct assumption ?

one of the criticism of taser use, is statistically after given taser, police use it much more frequently than gun.

what is law enforcement doctrine on this ? is taser just gun replacement ? is there any situation that before taser, you do not use a gun but using taser now ? can taser replace baton use ?

Well that's the official policy here, but police keep using it in non-gun situations which goes against their own policy.

I think they should have tasers but they use it like candy. It's not really a solution to all their problems, it's just another tool for them to use. I feel like they've gotten this new item and they give it too much credit.

Not usually. Taser is an intermediate step, between baton and gun. Before the taser, if the person they were trying to arrest could stay more than about 8 or ten feet away, "gun" and "let 'em go" were the only two options they had. Tasers extend the reach before those are the only two choices, up to 35 feet.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

No, it's not. At least not in my line of work. A taser is less than lethal force, a gun is deadly force.

Law Enforcement is slowly moving away from the baton, which I'm sad about. I love ASP fighting, it's a hell of a weapon and you can whoop some serious ass if someone tries to take you on. The taser, however, is way better for putting down someone who is resisting, but not trying to hurt you. It's a pacification tool as opposed to the baton, which is a self-defense weapon. You should never go to the baton to get someone to stop resisting arrest, which is an error I see lots of LEO's do.

OC Spray is meh. It's a good tool for quickly reacting to someone attacking you, but the fact that it doesn't work well on intoxicated people and many are immune to it means you can't confidently rely on it to work a certain way, too many variables. My favored hierarchy is Verbal Commands>Pain Compliance>Taser>Baton>Gun, in order of lethality.

edited 20th Jun '11 11:04:28 PM by Barkey

I prefer less lethal to less than lethal to describe the Taser.

This is because I heard a county sheriff deny that the Taser could be lethal in any way. I was so tempted to ask him if he wanted to test that.

It's not common enough to actually classify it as a lethal weapon. Plus that verbage counts for a lot, if the taser was classified as a less lethal weapon then we wouldn't be able to use it in lots of situations where it's needed, and there wouldn't be a point to even carrying it. It'd be a special weapon for riots and such, like rubber bullets. No LEO would want to carry it.

edited 20th Jun '11 11:05:50 PM by Barkey

There is no such legal distinction here, it's merely a mental difference, one which I consider important.

Is there one elsewhere?

In law enforcement there is indeed a legal distinction which all equipment which counts as a use of force fall under. Pain Compliance, Handcuffs, Batons, Guns, Tasers, OC Spray, Rubber Bullets, you name it. All of those count as a use of force which falls on a big scale that we're all taught to understand. The line of thought you are taught is to use the minimum amount of force necessary to safely accomplish your task, and you are responsible for properly articulating why you felt it was within that minimum force threshold to use the techniques or equipment that you used to do your job when you write the report. This makes a huge difference to law enforcement officers, less than lethal implies that short of a small fluke of chance, a taser is a less than lethal weapon which is justified to use in apprehending an actively resistant suspect, which is the purpose it is most often used for. If it qualifies as less lethal, you have a much harder time justifying it's use.

Rubber Bullets, as an example, are less lethal. If a guy is on the ground getting froggy as shit and not letting you handcuff him, but not trying to take your head off, you can't just pump rubber bullets into his back. You can, however, tase him, which is a pretty common method of subduing an actively resistant suspect. If you call a taser less lethal, then it falls into the excessive force category when it's being used for the task it is most often used for in the first place.

Long story short, if you legally recognize the taser as less lethal, most cops will just shelf the damn thing and never use it since the only time you're allowed to use it are either riots or when your own life or someone elses life is in danger, which is what your gun is for. It'd be one more piece of equipment weighing down your belt and not being worth having which would be a real shame because tasers are really useful.

Edit: Legal distinction is not the proper term, it's more that in law enforcement it is recognized as such. Recognizing it as less lethal sets a sort of precedent, similar to a supreme court ruling.

edited 20th Jun '11 11:19:14 PM by Barkey

You went on a long explanation, but you seemed to miss out on my point, which was that there is no such legal distinction here.

Less lethal and less than lethal are already grouped together here. It's a non-distinction in the law. So for me, it's a mental habit to be avoided*

, not a question of law. I also found several reports, and policies describing tasers as less lethal, so I wonder where it is an actual distinction, and the less than lethal is used to describe them.

Certainly tasers may be lower or higher on the scale than other less lethal options, but I just wonder where it is a legal distinction.

Then that precedent is already set. There are also several existing court rulings on the subject, and placing Tasers on the spectrum, beyond some other options.

edited 21st Jun '11 12:47:49 AM by blueharp

blueharp you might want to identify "here". If you and barkey are talking about two completely different jurisdictions, which it sounds like you are, then that needs to be clear, so that you aren't talking past each other, or saying what sounds like "No you're wrong", when he is in fact right for the jurisdiction he's talking about.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Um, was an awareness of that not clear to you? I thought it was pretty obvious.

Indeed. What jurisdiction are you talking about Blue? I'm referring to my own and the precedents we have set already, these issues have a tendency to vary from place to place.

And from a law enforcement perspective, the verbage most widely recognized is the biggest issue. If an officer can say that they were taught that the taser is less than lethal, they can properly articulate its use.

edited 21st Jun '11 7:45:35 AM by Barkey

Well we all are. I mean here it's graded same level as a gun and such distinction is used across the country. The problem is that the lethality of the taser depends on the person's biology, which a police officer has no ability to determine while dealing with a person. So they grade it quite high. Most of the complaint is that police ignore this directive and use it as the same level as non-lethal weapons.

For instance, a guy who they could just pepper spray they use a taser instead. Then you see officers do very different things in different areas, like a guy charging you with a knife. Recently an officer used a taser and took down the suspect. That was heralded as an excellent use of the taser. On the other hand, there's been people who are just drunk in the street and they would taser him five times, which is completely out of hand, given the description of the tool by the police to the public. There is a statistically significant chance a person dies when you hit him with a taser, so it's not really possible to classify it less than a gun in this jurisdiction.

There's also people who've died from being OC'd... We still use that.

Now given, there's no reason to tase a person more than once unless you're outnumbered. Soon as they crumple you cuff them and it's over, but there's no reason to classify the taser at the same level as a gun because there's an extremely small chance of a person reacting badly to it.

Also, on the pepper spray example, it doesn't work for shit to people who are drunk. Their pores get clogged and their eyes are wet enough to where they overcome the effects quickly.

They need to design some effective form of less than lethal that works efficiently, until that happens I'll stay a fond supporter of the taser. I don't even carry my OC anymore. Then again they could go back to supporting batons more widely, but the problem with a baton is it's really easy to break bones, so some sort of compromise needs to be made. Either let the police run the risk of breaking a bone, or let them tase people. There isn't really any alternative right now, and a less than lethal tool is absolutely necessary to effectively doing the job.

edited 21st Jun '11 8:19:40 AM by Barkey

I'm not against the use of a taser but the problem is to recognize that the rate of death in the use of taser isn't extremely small. It's several percent. There's a variety of reasons for it, one is that it seems that the main manufacturer of the product (taser) for conducted energy weapons appears to constantly make them 10x to 50x too powerful (surprise, a corporation is cutting product quality to reduce costs). Another is that there is a lot of standard deviation on the strength of someone's nervous system.

I view the taser like this; previously there were a lot of situations where a cop had to pull a gun, now those number of situations is reduced.

To us it's another big piece of equipment that we have to carry, in the scenario you describe carrying something I would rarely use that takes up half of my accessible left side of my duty belt is unsat.

We need to just all wear tac vests all the time, then we could fit plenty of gear.. And I could get a crossdraw for my pistol...

I would hope your taser is something you rarely use. The situations where using it would be appropriate should not come up that often.

It's not a go-to tool, which is something all too many people don't understand. Hence my preference for saying "less lethal" over "less than lethal" as the latter tends to mislead, even if the distinction is meaningless legally.

Like I said, I heard a county sheriff declare it could not be lethal in any way. He just did not understand the weapon at all. I am so glad he lost his next election.

Also, it seems California's Penal code classifies them as less lethal weapons, if my reading of it is correct.

edited 21st Jun '11 9:17:39 AM by blueharp

California does, but the Do D does not, at least the use of force regulation I adhere to.

Do they still classify them as non-Lethal then?

Taser actually had to walk away from that description because of some legal issues with that.

The military's definitions are often of limited usage in the civilian world.

edited 21st Jun '11 9:25:29 AM by blueharp

That's true, but I was more talking about for the scope of my job. We do interact with civilians, but it's only for traffic stops outside base in our concurrent jurisdiction on the freeway and side streets, and when contractors are on the installation. I like the way we handle things much better.

I rarely ever have to use my taser, but then again part of that is because people in the military tend to know we can use it without a moments hesitation if they get too froggy. Nothing puts down an intoxicated marine like a good shock to the nervous system.

edited 21st Jun '11 9:31:16 AM by Barkey

Well also, you can be much more rough with military individuals than you can with civilians.

We can be just as rough with civilians on our own property.

The only problem with being in a military jurisdiction is that while people are more well behaved most of the time, the ones who try to fight you have combat training and are in good shape. Usually saying "WHAT UNIT ARE YOU WITH SO I CAN CALL YOUR FIRST SERGEANT?!" is enough to put fear of god into any troop. If you got disciplined at work, had your pay docked, and got your salary lowered for getting in a barfight in the civilian world, there would be much less bar fights.

Yeah but that's usually because you aren't getting into bar fights on corporate property. Besides, you can get fired for under performing at work, usually at will, since we're in north america.

I appreciate that we have a taser but it's not quite as non-lethal as I would like. So we still need to work on making and providing more options to police forces so they can use less force to get the same results.

I'm trying to get funding to start working on a device to stop time in a localized area, but so far nobody has offered me a dime.

Pity.