Maker of Taser stun guns used by Syracuse police reacts to NYCLU report

October 19, 2011
Robert A. Baker / The Post-Standard

Syracuse, NY -- Taser International, the maker of stun guns used by Syracuse police and other police agencies in the state, reacted to several points made by the New York Civil Liberties Union in a report released today on Taser use in the state.

The NYCLU studied Taser-use reports from Syracuse and seven other police departments in the state and found that police departments are “consistently misusing and overusing Tasers” and faults an absence of sound policies, training and guidelines in the use of Tasers.

In a release today, Syracuse police said they have yet to read the report, which became available to the public at 11 a.m. today.

“The Syracuse Police Department will have no comment on this report until we are provided with an official copy of the report and we have had time to thoroughly read and examine the information contained in this report,” the release said.

Taser International, which also had not received a copy of the report, reacted to what was published this morning in The Post-Standard.

One point was on the number of deaths quoted in the report. More than 200 people died after being shocked by Tasers, according a Department of Justice figure quoted in the published report.

Tasers were listed by authorities as the cause or contributing cause in only 12 of those cases, Steve Tuttle, vice president of communication for the Arizona-based manufacturer of stun guns, said today. And of those 12 deaths, the majority were from injuries suffered in a fall after being stunned.

The report said only 15 percent of the incidents reviewed involved a subject who was armed or thought to be armed, which, the NYCLU said, “shatter the illusion that Tasers are primarily used as an alternative to deadly force on armed or otherwise dangerous subjects.

Tuttle said that he was surprised that the number was so high. Nationally, he said, the number is closer to 10 percent. The vast majority of subjects who are hit by Tasers should be unarmed, he said.

“You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,” Tuttle said. “You don’t replace firearms with Tasers.”

Taser International does not train police departments on the use of the Taser, Tuttle said.

“We don’t train users, we train certified teachers,” Tuttle said.

The departments send officers to train with Taser International to become teachers in their own departments, but Tuttle said.

“It’s up to the police departments to train their officers,” Tuttle said.

Each department may have different standards for defining use of force, which includes when to use a Taser device, he said.

“We can’t teach officers use of force. We are not experts in the use of force,” Tuttle said. “We show them safe operation.”

"If they are suggesting good training and good policies are part of Taser training, they are correct," Tuttle said.

As far as people of color being stunned in greater proportion than white people, Tuttle said that number must be compared to the arrest rate of each community studied.

“Is there a higher proportion being arrested?” he asked. If there is, he said, it stands to reason that a high proportion would be stunned as well.

October 19, 2011
Robert A. Baker / The Post-Standard

Syracuse, NY -- Police in Syracuse and seven other police departments in New York are overusing and misusing Tasers and are inadequately trained in the use of the stun guns, the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a report to be released today.

Officers are using Tasers on people who are not a threat, targeting vulnerable areas of the body, administering excessive numbers of shocks and excessively long shocks, failing to give prior warnings, and using Tasers on vulnerable populations and a disproportionate number of people of color, the report states.

“If you look at Syracuse’s Taser policy, like most of the policies we reviewed, it does not comport with what experts say is appropriate use of Tasers,” Corey Stoughton, the report’s author, said.

The report calls for agencies to expand training beyond Taser International guidelines and for New York state to regulate and monitor Taser training and the use of force policies in departments statewide.

Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler declined to comment until he’s had a chance to read the report, which was embargoed until today.

The report, called “Taking Tasers Seriously: The Need for Better Regulation of Stun Guns in New York,” was based on 851 Taser-use reports filed by eight police departments across the state from 2005 to 2009. The departments are Syracuse, Albany, Glens Falls, Greece, Guilderland, Nassau County, Rochester and Saratoga Springs. The report, which The Post-Standard has received a copy of, will be released at 11 a.m. today.

The departments were picked for their size and each department has a liberties union office in the area, a spokeswoman said. The NYCLU also looked at the use-of-force policies and the Taser training procedures in the eight departments as well as the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the Suffolk County Police Department.

There are 350 law enforcement agencies that carry Tasers in New York, the report says. Two-hundred people, including a Central New York man, have died after being stunned by a Taser, according a U.S. Department of Justice statistic cited by the report. Tasers deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity, either from probes that are shot from the gun or by placing the device directly against the skin of the target.

The report cited two Syracuse incident as examples of inappropriate Taser use:

•In 2009, a 15-year-old boy was hit by a Taser probe fired by a Syracuse police officer in an attempt to break up a fight at Fowler High School. The officer was aiming for another student. The NYCLU is representing the boy and his mother in a federal suit against the Syracuse Police Department. The family could not be reached for comment.

•A mentally ill man who was shocked at least a dozen times by three Syracuse officers using Tasers. Charges were never filed against the man, the NYCLU said. The NYCLU report calls the incident “particularly disturbing.”

According to Syracuse Police Department Taser-use reports on the incident, police were called a “mental complaint” Aug. 5, 2006, in the city. The 6-foot 2-inch, 260-pound, 53-year-old man refused officers’ orders to get on the floor. One officer noted that the man was “highly agitated” and “became combative” after a first use of the Taser had no effect. The report does not identify the man or say where the incident took place.

In the reports, the three officers gave their estimates on how many times they each used their Tasers: five to six times, three to six times and four to five times. After the Tasers were used, the man was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the report states.

Although the advocacy group did not study cases involving the Onondaga Sheriff’s Office and the now-defunct Clay Police Department, incidents involving those agencies are singled out:

•The death in March 2008 of Christopher H. Jackson, who was pronounced dead after he was hit by a Taser used by a Clay police officer inside Jackson’s home in Norstar Apartments in Clay.

•The January 2009 use of a Taser on a mother in the town of Salina by Onondaga County sheriff’s Deputy Sean Andrews after the woman was pulled over in a traffic stop. The deputy pulled the woman from her van and used a Taser on her in front of her children. The incident made national news and the county settled a resulting lawsuit for $75,000.

The two cases were pulled from news stories because they are examples of the points the NYCLU is trying to make, Stoughten said.

In reviewing the Taser-use reports statewide, one statistic stood out, Stoughton said.

“Sixty percent of the reports had not documented information for using the Taser,” said Stoughton, a senior staff attorney with the NYCLU. “That’s crazy.”

Instead of being used as a non-lethal weapon of last resort, “you’re seeing Tasers being used as a pain compliance tool for people who are passively resisting or are restrained,” Stoughton said.

In Syracuse, 56 percent of the people involved in a Taser incident with Syracuse police were black. That is disproportionately high considering blacks make up 25 percent of the city’s population, the NYCLU said.

In Albany, where blacks make up 28 percent of the population, 68 percent of the people who were shocked were black. In Rochester, 48 percent of the people who were shocked were black. Blacks comprise 38 percent of that city’s population.

Each time a Taser is used, departments document the incident in a Taser-use form. While those forms are compiled, the NYCLU found “almost no police departments surveyed” required a review of the data to assess their Taser programs.

The Syracuse and Greece police departments “actively interfere with attempts to provide sufficient information” through the forms they use to report Taser use, the NYCLU said.

The form the Syracuse department uses to report Taser incidences has little room for officers to describe the incident, the NYCLU said. And, when the officers have room, they often neglect to justify why multiple cycles of Tasers on individuals were justified.

The report calls for greater oversight by the state on the use of Tasers and Taser training of police.

Misuse of stun guns is linked directly to inadequate use-of-force policies and inadequate training on the use of Tasers, according to the report. Most departments rely solely on training materials prepared by the manufacturer, Taser International, to train police, the report states.

“The training Taser International provides is, literally, how to operate the weapon,” Stoughton said. “It doesn’t cover appropriate use or the dangers of multiple and prolonged shocks.”

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Police Executive Research Forum both warn departments that they should not rely solely on the Taser training manual, “but it appears that’s what we do in New York State,” Stoughton said.

Civil liberties group sues Albany over Taser policy

September 1, 2010
By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Times Union

ALBANY - The New York Civil Liberties Union is suing the city police department over its refusal to release a complete copy of its policy for the use of electric stun weapons known as Tasers.

In refusing to release a copy without some information blacked out of the policy, Albany joined Saratoga Springs as the only two of 10 departments polled statewide to do so, the civil liberties group asserts in its suit, filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in Albany.

NYCLU already sued Saratoga Springs over its refusal and eventually and received an unredacted copy of that city's policy, said Melanie Trimble, director of the NYCLU's Capital Region Chapter.

According to the suit, state Supreme Court Justice Thomas D. Nolan Jr. ruled there was "no basis" for Saratoga Springs' refusal to release its entire policy.

"The public has every right to complete information on the Police Department's use of Tasers," Trimble said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

The group said it made its Freedom of Information Law request in January, which was seven months before Police Chief Steven Krokoff was sworn into his current job. At the time, Krokoff was serving as deputy chief and the department's interim leader.

In partially denying the group's request, the city cited an exemption that allows it to withhold information that might threaten the safety of officers or the public, the lawsuit says.

One of the few exemptions to state FOI law allows records to be withheld if their release "could endanger the life or safety of any person."

Releasing the full policy, the city contended in its denial, "would lead to the perpetrators attempting to evade or thwart a police officers (sic) ability to perform his/her duties."

NYCLU, however, contends the city "did not provide any factual or evidentiary basis for its conclusion."

Assistant Corporation Counsel Jeffery Jamison acknowledged that the city had partially denied the group's request but said he had not yet been served with a copy of the lawsuit.

"We have tried to be as open as we can with every FOIL request, and we have tried to release everything single document that is possible," Jamison said, "but at certain times there are exceptions that apply."

NYCLU says Brooklyn man’s death shows potential danger in expanding NYPD’s use of tasers

September 25, 2008
Empirestatenews.net

NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union Thursday expressed concern about the NYPD’s consideration of expanding its use of Tasers, in light of the death of Inman Morales, who died from a fall Wednesday after police shot him with a Taser as he stood on the ledge of a Brooklyn apartment building.

The following statement can be attributed to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman:

“At a time when the NYPD is considering arming patrol officers with Tasers, this incident illustrates the dangers they pose and highlights the need for both clear policies and extensive training on the use of these potentially deadly weapons.

“Clearly, firing a Taser at someone is a poor substitute for strong police negotiating skills and common sense. While there may be instances where Tasers are effective and appropriate law enforcement tools, they require the same degree of scrutiny and supervision as handguns.

“The NYPD has appropriately acknowledged that the Taser use in this incident violated Department guidelines. We urge Commissioner Kelly to proceed cautiously and seek public input as he considers the Rand Corporation’s recommendation to expand the Department’s use of Tasers.”