OPINION: Whatever Happened to Justice? Supreme Court OKs Police Tasering Pregnant Women

by John W. Whitehead

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”—Martin Luther King Jr.

Once again, the United States Supreme Court has proven Clarence Darrow, a civil liberties attorney and long-time advocate for the Constitution, correct in his assertion that “there is no such thing as justice—in or out of court.” In meting out this particular miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case of a pregnant woman who was repeatedly tasered by Seattle police during a routine traffic stop simply because she refused to sign a speeding ticket.

Malaika Brooks, 33 years old and seven months pregnant, was driving her 11-year-old son to school on a November morning in 2004, when she was pulled over for driving 32 mph in a 20 mph school zone. Instructing her son to walk the rest of the way to school, Malaika handed over her driver’s license to Officer Juan Ornelas for processing. However, when instructed to sign the speeding ticket—which the state inexplicably requires, Malaika declared that she wished to contest the charge, insisting that she had not done anything wrong and fearing that signing the ticket would signify an admission of guilt.

What happened next is a cautionary tale for anyone who still thinks that they can defy a police officer, even if it’s simply to disagree about a speeding ticket. Rather than issuing a verbal warning to the clearly pregnant (and understandably emotional) woman, Officer Ornelas called for backup. Officer Donald Jones subsequently arrived and told Brooks to sign the ticket. Again she refused. The conversation became heated. The cops called in more backup. The next to arrive was Sergeant Steven Daman, who directed Brooks to sign the ticket, pointing out that if she failed to do so, she would be arrested and taken to jail. Again, Malaika refused.

On orders from Sgt. Daman, Ornelas ordered a distraught Brooks to get out of the car, telling her she was “going to jail.” Malaika refused, and the second cop, Jones, responded by pulling out his taser electro-shock weapon, asking her if she knew what it was and warning her it would be used on her if she continued to resist. Brooks told him “No,” and then said, “I have to go to the bathroom, I am pregnant, I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.”

Jones and Ornelas then proceeded to discuss how best to taser the pregnant woman and forcibly remove her from the car. One officer said, “Well, don’t do it in her stomach; do it in her thigh.” Opening the car door, Ornelas twisted Malaika’s arm behind her back. Desperate, Brooks held on tightly to the steering wheel, while Jones cycled the taser as a demonstration of its capacity to cause pain.

With the taser in a “drive-stun” mode, Officer Jones then pressed the taser against Brooks’ thigh while Ornelas held her hand behind her back. Brooks, in obvious pain, began to cry and honk her car horn—hoping someone would help. Thirty-six seconds later, Ornelas pressed it into her left arm. Six seconds later, he again stunned her, this time on the neck. After being tasered numerous times, Brooks’ pregnant body eventually gave way. As Malaika fell over and out of the car, the officers dragged her onto the street, placing the pregnant woman face down on the pavement, handcuffing her and transporting her to jail.

While Malaika Brooks’ ordeal with the police did not seem to negatively impact her unborn child—she gave birth to a healthy baby girl two months after the altercation—Malaika bears permanent burn scars on her body where she was tasered by police. Thus, looking to the courts to hopefully right the wrong against her, Malaika sued the arresting officers, charging them with use of excessive force and violating her constitutional rights.

Unfortunately, this is where what happened to Malaika Brooks at the hands of the police—behavior that should be roundly condemned and prohibited—becomes yet another example of the cowardice of our justice system and the corrupt nature of life in a police state. Even though the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals recognized that Malaika posed no threat to anyone, nor did she pose a physical threat to the officers, that none of her offenses were serious, and that officers clearly used “excessive force” against her, the justices granted qualified immunity to the officers—a ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court ostensibly upheld when it refused to hear the case. In doing so, the courts have essentially given police carte blanche authority when it comes to using tasers against American citizens.

Indeed, this case highlights a growing trend in which police officers use tasers to force individuals into compliance in relatively non-threatening situations. Originally designed to restrain violent criminals, tasers are now used with impunity against individuals who pose no bodily harm to the police. Rowdy schoolchildren, the elderly, and mentally ill individuals are increasingly finding themselves on the receiving end of these sometimes lethal electroshock devices. Cops who have been shocked in the course of their training have described being tased as “the most profound pain,” and “like getting punched 100 times in a row.”

Police looking for absolute deference to their authority are quick to utilize tasers. For example, there have been a number of incidents where suspects of minor crimes and even completely innocent people were electroshocked into compliance by cops. In Florida, a 15-year-old girl was tased and pepper sprayed after being taken off of a bus following a disturbance. In Arizona, a run-away 9-year-old girl was tased as she sat in the back seat of a police car with her hands cuffed behind her back. In Oregon, police tased a blind and partially deaf 71-year-old multiple times in her own front yard. In another instance, a Florida woman, 12-weeks pregnant, was tased after refusing to submit to a strip search at a jail. She spontaneously miscarried seven days later. In Texas, a 72-year-old great-grandmother was tased after refusing to sign a speeding ticket.

While law enforcement advocates may suggest otherwise, these incongruous and excessive uses of force by the police are quickly becoming the rule, not the exception. A 2011 New York Civil Liberties Union report showed that of the eight police departments surveyed across the state, over 85 percent of taser uses occurred in cases where suspects were not armed. Incredibly, 40 percent of taser uses were aimed at the elderly, children, the mentally ill, or the severely intoxicated. And despite claims that tasers de-escalate tense situations, a Michigan State University study shows that suspects are more likely to be injured in incidences where police use stun guns (41% of the time), rather than when no stun gun is used (29% of the time).

Moreover, although tasers are touted as being non-lethal, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests otherwise. A study recently published by the American Heart Association has determined that taser shocks applied to the chest can lead to cardiac arrest. According to cardiologist Byron Lee, “This is no longer arguable. This is a scientific fact.”

Since 2001, over 500 people have died after being stunned with tasers. In a 2008 report, Amnesty International reviewed hundreds of deaths following taser use and found that 90 percent of those who died after being struck with a taser were unarmed. In late 2007, the United Nations Committee Against Torture declared that the use of tasers constituted a form of torture. Yet despite all of the evidence that tasers are dangerous, taser technology continues to rapidly advance. One of the most recent advances in taser technology is the X12 Taser shotgun, which fires taser rounds at a distance of up to 100 feet, adding nearly 80 feet in range compared to a regular handheld taser. It would not be a stretch to envision police using the X12 against protesters simply exercising their right to free speech and assembly under the First Amendment.

While it is tempting to paint all law enforcement officials as brutish thugs, I truly do not believe that is the case. I have known many honorable law enforcement officials who sincerely struggle with how best to balance the demands placed on them by higher ups in government with the need to treat those around them with respect and dignity.

As John Lennon once remarked, “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them.” Indeed, the varied expressions of the government’s growing power—the excessive use of tasers by police on non-threatening individuals, allowing drones to take to the skies domestically for purposes of surveillance, the government’s monitoring of our emails and phone calls, and on and on—which get more troubling by the day, are merely the outward manifestations of an inner, philosophical shift underway in how the government views not only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but “we the people,” as well.

What this reflects is a move away from a government bound by the rule of law to one that seeks total control over the populace through the imposition of its own self-serving laws on the populace—laws carried out by a police force hired to do the government’s bidding.

Stun gun cases could electrify the Supreme Court | McClatchy

Stun gun cases could electrify the Supreme Court | McClatchy

9th Circuit finds police stun gun use excessive in 2 cases

October 18, 2011
Carol J. Williams, LA Times

Police used excessive force when they fired Tasers at a pregnant woman in Seattle and a victim of domestic abuse in Maui, a federal appeals court ruled Monday in a case that could influence how police handle those resisting arrest across the West.

The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in a full 11-judge forum used to decide important questions of law, could prompt police forces to reexamine their rules and practices for the temporarily debilitating stun guns.

In the Seattle case, a seven-months pregnant Malaika Brooks was driving her son to school when she was stopped by police, ticketed for driving 12 miles over the 20-mph speed limit and blasted with a stun gun three times after refusing to sign the citation.

Two years later and thousands of miles away in Maui, Jayzel Mattos was trying to defuse a brewing clash between her drunk husband and four police officers called to a domestic disturbance when one of the officers suddenly dropped her to the floor with two jolts from his Taser, which was set in dart mode.

The federal appeals court ruled that in both instances, police used excessive force and that their actions violated the Constitution's protection from unreasonable force.

While deeming the use of the stun guns in Seattle and Maui excessive, the court said the officers weren't liable in the civil suits filed against them because the law governing Taser use wasn't clearly established at the time of Brooks' 2004 arrest or when Mattos was jolted without warning for what police said was obstructing police at her home in 2006.

But the court's ruling Monday may now serve to establish that using stun guns without an imminent threat of harm is unreasonable, at least in some cases, exposing police officers to liability in future lawsuits, legal analysts said.

Barry McDonald, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University, said the 9th Circuit ruling wouldn't be unduly restrictive for law enforcement because the circumstances in the two cases it reviewed were unusual and unlikely to be relevant in most instances when police decide to use stun guns.

"They took some pretty sympathetic factual scenarios to establish this law," said Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School, noting Brooks' advanced pregnancy and the allegedly unprovoked stunning of Mattos.

The ruling should encourage police to better assess the threat level they confront and the severity of the offense for which a citizen is resisting arrest, said Levenson, describing the decision as "certainly not a case where the court says police can't use Tasers."

The Los Angeles Police Department has detailed guidelines for officers on the appropriate use of stun guns and their procedures already comply with the court ruling, said Assistant Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur.

Other regional law enforcement agencies have been refining their stun gun rules after a similar decision last year involving Coronado police in San Diego County.

Monday's ruling could influence the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the parents of a San Bernardino man who died in May. Three officers were accused of shocking him repeatedly with stun guns for 10 minutes. Allen Kephart, 43, was stopped by three sheriff's deputies after he honked his horn at them for turning in front of his car, the lawsuit contends.

Four of the 11 judges dissented in part from the 9th Circuit ruling, including Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who expressed concern that restricting the use of non-lethal force with Tasers could result in police resorting to more dangerous means to subdue those resisting arrest.

In the last decade, Kozinski said, half a million police officers were assaulted in the line of duty and 536 were killed, "the vast majority while performing routine law enforcement tasks like conducting traffic stops and responding to domestic disturbance calls."

Two of the dissenters disagreed that Brooks' constitutional rights were violated, saying she brought the action on herself by repeatedly refusing to sign the traffic citation or to get out of her car when police tried to arrest her.

"There are only so many ways that a person can be extracted from a vehicle against her will, and none of them is pretty. Fists, batons, choke holds, dogs, tear gas, and chemical spray all carry their own risks to suspects and officers alike," wrote Judges Barry G. Silverman and Richard R. Clifton.

New hearing for mom scarred by Taser in traffic stop

October 2, 2010
Mike Carter, Seattle Times

In a rare move, judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether to revive the lawsuit of a pregnant Seattle woman who three Seattle police officers shot with a Taser after she refused to sign a traffic ticket.

The court on Thursday said the appeal by Malaika Brooks will be heard "en banc," meaning an 11-judge panel will reconsider the case.

The ruling came after a three-judge panel in March split 2-1 and overturned a Seattle federal judge's decision to let Brooks' case go to trial. The majority — Senior Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain — found the officers were justified in using their Tasers, set in stun mode, to zap the seven-months pregnant woman three times when she resisted their efforts to pull her from her car after a traffic stop in 2004.

In her dissent, Judge Marsha Berzon called their opinion "off the wall."

Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy and was stopped while doing 32 mph in a school zone. She insisted that it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt, according to court documents.

Rather than give her the ticket and let her leave, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks, according to police reports, stiffened her arms against the steering wheel, told the officers she was pregnant and refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her.

The officers — Sgt. Steven Daman, Officer Juan Ornelas and Officer Donald Jones — first attempted a manual "pain compliance" hold to force her from the car. When that didn't work, the officers applied a Taser in the painful touch-stun mode three times in rapid succession on her thigh, shoulder and neck. The officers then pulled her out of the car and handcuffed her facedown in the street, according to the reports and her federal lawsuit.

Brooks gave birth to a healthy baby two months later, but has scars from where she was touched by the Tasers, according to her lawsuit.

Brooks claimed the officers violated her constitutional rights, and U.S. District Judge Richard Jones allowed the case to continue. In a June 2008 ruling, Jones declined to grant the officers immunity for performing their official duties and said Brooks posed no threat to anyone and that her rights were clearly violated.

Brooks' attorney, Eric Zubel, couldn't be reached Friday.

The lawyer representing the officers, Ted Buck, said Friday night he suspects the appeals court is going to use the Brooks case and another recent Taser case to "harmonize" the circuit's law on the matter.

"But I don't expect a different outcome," Buck said. "She was under arrest, resisting arrest, and the officers had the right to use force to take her into custody."

In her dissent, in the 9th Circuit's March ruling, Berzon was unconvinced by the majority's opinion that Brooks was obstructing justice. "I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues are able to conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in response to such a trivial offense," she wrote.

Berzon noted that under Washington law, the officers had no authority to take Brooks into custody: Failure to sign a traffic infraction is not an arrestable offense, and it's not illegal to resist an unlawful arrest.

The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court, the country's largest federal judicial circuit, encompasses nine states and two Pacific Island jurisdictions, and hears only about 20 such en banc cases per year, those reserved for "legal questions deemed by the court to be of exceptional importance," according to the court's website.

Another Nail in the Coffin of TASER

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Another Nail in the Coffin of TASER
By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

When the Fort Worth City Council voted on Tuesday to accept a $2 million settlement in the Taser related death of Michael Jacobs Jr., they cast down their eyes and droop their heads in painful sorrow of this salt in the wound. They wanted to say as little as possible to stir the winds. She was a City eager to heal and move on.

Yet the City would not concede liability into the young man’s death. Maybe, to do so, would expose her to more similar lawsuits. After all, there have been five taser related deaths in the past five years. For to be culpable in one, infers guilt in the other.

Fort Worth Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks spoke for the City and for the community, declaring now to be the time to begin the healing process.

An exhausted pastor, Kyev Tatum, who has led the mass public awareness campaign which gained national and international attention, sighed with some relief that this part of the battle against tasers was over. Tomorrow, he would take up the matter of the Arlington Police Department and its plan to purchase 300 more stun guns. By no means, for him, was the war over.

Pastor Tatum was drawn into the taser controversy when the Jacobs family called out for help. The Fort Worth Police Department had electrocuted the son of Charlotte and Michael Sr., with a 50,000-volt taser, and nobody was saying anything, not even a word of regret or sympathy. There was no explanation from the police department as to why the officer engaged the weapon for a full 54 seconds upon a young man with mental problems. And, no city leader was willing to condemn the officer without all the facts.

The City was silent and complacent and its populous impervious. Michael Jacobs, Jr. was on his way to becoming just another silent statistic in a string of taser related deaths.

Tatum organized a local chapter of the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC) and pulled together coalition of other civil rights organizations, including NAACP, LULAC, ACLU, and community activists. The community coalition called for an investigation, and to make the results public.

The medical examiner, upon finding no contributory causes such as drugs or alcohol in Jacobs’ system, declared his death a homicide. But the police department refused to dismiss the officer, and the grand jury refused to indict. There was no recourse except to seek redress by civil suit; otherwise, no one would be accountable for the death of an innocent, mentally challenged young man.

The $2 million settlement is a small penance to pay for a human life, though the largest in city history, but it may pave the way for reconciliation. The Fort Worth Police Department plans to meet with Pastor Tatum and other ministers to “begin the healing process”, and discuss strategies for better policing in the community. There will continue to be disagreement, however, on the usefulness of tasers and their lethality.

There is an axiom here: As the death count rises, the cost of using tasers will go up.

Although the manufacturer of the weapon, TASER International, has been sued over 100 times, it remains largely unscathed. They sell the instruments based upon its claim of non-lethality, and leave municipalities to pay the cost of wrongful deaths.

“Tasers are not only deadly”, Tatum declares. “They are torture.”

Officer Stephanie Phillips did not know that when she continuously engaged the trigger of her taser that 50,000 volts of electricity continued to course through the body of Michael Jacobs Jr., and that she was inadvertently frying him alive, from the inside out. No one ever told her the weapon was lethal. She was never trained to “disengage” the electrodes before electrocuting the subject. Maybe this is why the Tarrant County grand jury declined to indict her. And, she did not violate department policies by using her own discretion to deploy.

Hindsight is 20/20, and many people wish that certain events could be undone. Had the officer known the deadliness of the weapon, she would have ceased engagement. This being the premise, a Star-Telegram editorial emphasized “better training” as a resolution to taser death.

Not so. Teaching an officer how to use discretion in the field, when deploying the weapon, is no guarantee against abuse, nor does it mitigate the fact that the taser itself is an implement of torture. But proving torture, on the other hand, is much harder than proving the cause of death. By its very definition, a torturous act must be one that horrifies the social consciousness of humanity. And yet we, as a nation, have been conditioned into accepting the Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) as non-lethal and harmless.

We discount the fact that they have been used on pregnant women such as Valreca Redden and claimed the life of the 6-month unborn child of Hannah Rogers-Grippi, that they have been used on senior citizens in their 70s and 80s, against the wheel-chair bound and mentally ill, and that the death count in the U.S.A. and Canada now stands at 481.

What is more, there is now mounting evidence that tasers cause serious and permanent injuries. A young victim is tasered over a minor incident, falls flat on his face, unable to catch himself, and breaks out his front teeth. He sues and wins. And, it has been reported, that those who have been tasered and survived, have “never been the same” since, having suffered neurological brain damages.

These are the risks, and no one is without fair warning.

[Post Note- The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice is soliciting "Alternatives to Conducted Energy Less-Lethal Devices", to wit Tasers (R)]

The handwriting is on the wall: The days of tasers are coming to an end.


http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/2010/05/another-nail-in-coffin-of-taser.html

Court: Seattle police OK to stun pregnant woman

March 26, 2009
By GENE JOHNSON (AP)

SEATTLE — Three Seattle police officers were justified when they used a stun gun on a pregnant mother who refused to sign a traffic ticket, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a case that prompted an incredulous dissent.

Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone. She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt.

Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out, even after they threatened to stun her.

The officers — Sgt. Steven Daman, Officer Juan Ornelas and Officer Donald Jones — then stunned her three times, in the thigh, shoulder and neck, and hauled her out of the car, laying her face-down in the street.

Brooks gave birth to a healthy baby two months later, but has permanent scars from the Taser. She sued the officers for violating her constitutional rights, and U.S. District Judge Richard Jones allowed the case to continue. He declined to grant the officers immunity for performing their official duties and said Brooks' rights were clearly violated.

But in a 2-1 ruling Friday, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Judges Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain held that the officers were justified in making an arrest because Brooks was obstructing them and resisting arrest.

The use of force was also justified because of the threat Brooks posed, Hall wrote: "It seems clear that Brooks was not going to be able to harm anyone with her car at a moment's notice. Nonetheless, some threat she might retrieve the keys and drive off erratically remained, particularly given her refusal to leave the car and her state of agitation."

They also noted that the force used wasn't that serious because the Taser was in "touch" mode rather than "dart" mode, which hurts more. They reversed the lower court's opinion and held that the officers were entitled to immunity from the lawsuit.

The officers' lawyers, Ted Buck and Karen Cobb, said the officers made the right decision under the circumstances they faced.

"Police officers have to have the ability to compel people to obey their lawful orders," Buck said. That's all the court recognized today. The 9th Circuit just applied the law instead of getting caught up in the otherwise unfortunate factual circumstances."

The majority's opinion outraged Judge Marsha Berzon, who called it "off the wall."

"I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues are able to conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in response to such a trivial offense," she wrote.

She argued that under Washington law, the officers had no authority to take Brooks into custody: Failure to sign a traffic infraction is not an arrestable offense, and it's not illegal to resist an unlawful arrest.

Berzon said the majority's notion that Brooks obstructed officers was so far-fetched that even the officers themselves didn't make that legal argument. To obstruct an officer, one must obstruct the officer's official duties, and the officers' only duties in this case were to detain Brooks long enough to identify her, check for warrants, write up the citation and give it to her. Brooks' failure to sign did not interfere with those duties, she said.

Furthermore, Brooks posed no apparent threat, and the officers could not have known how stunning her would affect the fetus, or whether it might prompt premature labor — another reason their actions were inexcusable, Berzon said.

Brooks' lawyer, Eric Zubel, said he would ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case.

"This is outrageous — that something like this could happen to a pregnant woman, in front of an elementary school, at 8:30 in the morning, to someone who posed no threat whatsoever," he said.

Georgia: State doesn’t fund law for taser training

June 27, 2009
By Jeremy Redmon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s Legislature never funded a law it passed in 2006 that requires the state to train police on how and when to use stun guns, weapons families have blamed in the deaths of two Gwinnett County jail inmates.

For training, the state is instead referring local police departments to stun gun manufacturer Taser International.

The head of Georgia’s police training center says the state training would last at least eight hours longer and cover more than Taser’s lessons, including if and when officers should use stun guns on certain people such as pregnant women. Taser officials say they train police to use the weapons safely but leave it up to them to write policies on when and on whom they should be used.

At the same time, an increasing number of Atlanta area law enforcement agencies are equipping their officers with Tasers and adopting widely differing policies on when to use them. Some policies are stringent while others are less so.

“It would be best to have our own state training on that and to develop some sort of standardized policy with a recommendation of when to use a Taser and when not to,” said Frank Rotondo, executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police.

Police promote stun guns as lifesavers that can help reduce injuries to officers and suspects. Critics, however, say the weapons are potentially lethal and can be easily abused since they sometimes leave no marks on suspects.

Police departments in Gwinnett and Fulton counties and in Alpharetta, Atlanta, Marietta and Sandy Springs use stun guns. Cobb County’s police department and sheriff’s office are planning to start using them this year. And DeKalb County’s police department is preparing to arm its officers with them this year after suspending their use in 2005, following the deaths of the two Gwinnett inmates.

When fired, some of the 50,000-volt stun guns have a range of up to 35 feet. They shoot barbed probes attached to wires that can shock a suspect for up to five seconds. The guns can also be pressed against suspects for a “drive stun.” The shock temporarily incapacitates suspects. Police officers who have voluntarily been stunned with the weapon say the pain is excruciating.

Burke Day, chairman of Georgia’s House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, said he sponsored the legislation in 2006 to show Georgia would not tolerate police misusing the weapons following the deaths of the Gwinnett inmates. The Legislature passed Day’s law with a provision that says the state would not be required to offer the training until it is funded. The Republican lawmaker said he doesn’t see a need for the state training now but is considering calling for a legislative study committee to review how police are using stun guns.

“If there were a red hot problem — because the state probably couldn’t afford to pay right now for the training — I would suggest a temporary moratorium on using” stun guns, said Day, Tybee Island’s former police commissioner.

A review of last year’s use-of-force reports from several Atlanta-area police departments shows that officers used stun guns successfully without seriously injuring or killing suspects.

But human rights activists continue to link the weapons to injuries and deaths across the country. Amnesty International USA, for example, claims it has identified 357 people who have died after being stunned with the weapons. Among them was Elier Carlos Rodriguez Escamilla, 27, who died in 2007 after scuffling with Gwinnett sheriff deputies. During the struggle, the Norcross man was shocked with a Taser at least once. Gwinnett’s medical examiner ruled his death was accidental and caused by a syndrome called “excited delirium.” A combination of cocaine, alcohol and physical exertion brought on during the scuffle were too much for his heart, Dr. Carol Terry said.

Taser spokeswoman Hilary Gibeaut said the number of deaths Amnesty International has linked to stun guns is inaccurate. She asserted officials have listed the weapons as a contributing factor in less than 50 deaths and as the cause in only two disputed cases.

“Taser International believes in good policies, training, guidelines, and accountability, which are paramount to have a successful Taser electronic control devices program to protect lives and avoid unwarranted injuries,” Gibeaut said in a statement. “Most would agree that Taser devices and other electronic control devices are safer than punches, kicks, swarms, baton strikes, canine bites, impact weapons or even rubber bullets.”

Several Atlanta area police officers interviewed for this article said the training they got from Taser was thorough. Officers pay the company $295 to attend a course that teaches them how to become Taser instructors who can return to their departments and train their colleagues.

To become instructors, the officers must complete an eight-hour online course and then spend an additional eight hours training with a Taser master instructor. The courses are offered in Georgia and at the company’s training academy in Arizona. At least one part of the training is optional: getting stunned with a Taser.

That would be mandatory in Georgia, however, if the state decides to fund its own training program, which could cost $1 million, said Dale Mann, director of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center. “You need to know what you are giving somebody else,” he said. He wants each officer to get at least 24 hours of training, compared to Taser’s 16-hour requirement.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley approved a law similar to Georgia’s last month; state officials are creating a training program there. Florida is now requiring officers to attend stun gun training based on state standards.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which marched to the Gwinnett courthouse in 2005 after the deaths of inmates Frederick Williams and Ray Charles Austin, called the lack of state training in Georgia “outrageous.” The SCLC said Georgia should suspend the use of Taser stun guns until the state training is in place.

Meanwhile, some Atlanta area law enforcement agencies have adopted policies for using the weapons that do not mirror national standards. The Police Executive Research Forum, a national research organization created by police, for example, has issued guidelines for stun guns that say they should generally not be used on pregnant women, the elderly and young children unless there are urgent circumstances. Taser says in its product warnings that pregnant women and the elderly are “especially at risk.”

The research forum — which developed its guidelines with the help of more than 50 law enforcement agencies that use stun guns, as well as doctors, researchers and others — also says the weapons should not be used on handcuffed people, unless they are “actively resisting” or showing “active aggression.”

The Alpharetta Police Department’s policy is silent on whether to use stun guns on handcuffed suspects, pregnant women, children and the elderly. The Atlanta Police Department, which has assigned only seven Tasers to its SWAT team, has a policy that does not address using them on handcuffed or elderly people. The Gwinnett police and sheriff’s departments and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office’s policies do not specifically address stunning handcuffed suspects, children or the elderly. Officials from these agencies, however, say they require their officers to document each time the weapons are fired so they can be monitored.

“As policy developers, we do not want to restrict the deputies from utilizing their discretion in determining the appropriate use of force needed based on their training,” the Fulton Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Taser International says more than 14,200 law enforcement and military agencies use its products in more than 45 countries. The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, however, has decided not to be among those agencies because of the lack of state training in Georgia.

“We train our people for everything else based on state requirements, so why not this?” said Forsyth Chief Deputy Robbie Hamrick. “We just want to make sure we are getting the best information and best training from someone other than the manufacturer.”

Hamrick added rhetorically: “Why don’t we let nobody but Smith & Wesson train you on how to shoot a gun?”


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How we got the story

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution started reporting on this article after Cobb County commissioners voted in April to authorize its Police Department to use confiscated crime money to buy Tasers for its officers. For this article, the AJC reviewed state laws and Atlanta-area police department policies and use-of-force reports and interviewed local police, state officials, human rights activists and representatives from Taser International Inc.

Vancouver police won't taser themselves or pregnant women, inquiry told

May 8, 2008
Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - Local police won't use a Taser on a pregnant women because they could fall and be injured, a police trainer told a Taser inquiry today. "That's your only concern?" asked inquiry commission lawyer Patrick McGowan. "At this point, yes," replied Const. Tammy Hammell, who is the coordinator of Conducted Energy Weapons (Tasers) program for the Vancouver police force.

Vancouver police no longer use Tasers on officers during training sessions, she told the inquiry probing the controversial use of the electrical weapons. It was stopped about 18 months ago after a request by Workers Compensation Board because of a number of shoulder injuries caused by officers falling during training, Hammell said.

She said Tasers were used about 100 times last year by Vancouver police, up from about 90 times the previous year.

Hammell said she downloads computerized information from each of the 120 Tasers used by Vancouver police. This is done every six months or immediately after an officer discharges a Taser in the line of duty.

She said about 150 officers have been trained to use Tasers, which are classified as an intermediate weapon, the same as police batons, beanbag guns and anti-riot weapons that fire rubber bullets.

The police use-of-force continuum allows police in B.C. to use Tasers when a subject displays "active resistance" to arrest or police commands. A day earlier, Kevin Begg, assistant deputy minister of the B.C. ministry of public safety and solicitor general, told the inquiry that the Taser was approved for use in B.C. in 2000 for situations where a suspect was violent, aggressive or armed. He said he is concerned that in recent years Tasers are being used in lower-risk situations. He suggested Taser use should be moved up the use-of-force continuum for assaultive and combative behaviour.

The inquiry continues Friday with presentations by Dr. Zian Tseng, a U.S. cardiologist, and Paul Corrado, superintendent of strategic operations for sheriff services.

Pregnant woman tasered

August 30, 2007
WTSP Tampa Bay News, Florida

"She raised her arm to the deputy. The deputy felt threatened like she was going to hit him potentially," said Alachua County Sheriff's Lieutenant David Clark. Clark is a certified taser instructor with the Sheriff's Office. He says when he tasered her stomach, he didn't realize she was 8 months pregnant." The deputy is under investigation.

Taser's Product Warnings - Law Enforcement webpage says: persons who are physically infirm or pregnant are among those who may be at higher risk.

Experts dispute risks of using stun guns on pregnant women

January 30, 2007
Heather Hollingsworth
Associated Press

Tianesha Robinson was about four months pregnant last fall when she was jolted with a Taser stun gun while resisting arrest during a traffic stop.

After experiencing cramps for several weeks, the 33-year-old Wichita, Kan., woman miscarried. Her family insists there is a connection between the miscarriage and the roughly 50,000-volt shock that subdued her, though doctors said the link would be more clear had she miscarried immediately after the shock.

That kind of uncertainty is fueling debate over the safety of the devices.

Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz., has said its products are safe law enforcement tools, but did not return several calls for comment on this story.

The human rights group Amnesty International has identified more than 230 people who have died after being stunned since June 2001. The group is particularly concerned about the use of Tasers on vulnerable people, such as those who are pregnant, sick or very young or old.

Dalia Hashad, director of Amnesty's USA Program, said it can be difficult to tell whether someone is a member of one of those vulnerable groups.

"People with heart problems aren't always identifiable by appearance and people who are pregnant are not always identifiable until the later half of their pregnancy, sometimes not until the last trimester," Hashad said.

She said the group wasn't aware of anyone who tracked the number of pregnant women who have been shocked with Tasers, but other women besides Robinson have reported suffering miscarriages after sustaining shocks.

One woman, Cindy Grippi, settled a lawsuit with the city of Chula Vista, Calif., for $675,000. She delivered a stillborn girl in December 2001 after police used a Taser on her when she refused to halt. A medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death and suggested Grippi's methamphetamine use could be to blame.

"There is one thing we know," said Fabrice Czarnecki, an emergency physician and staff doctor for the Police Policy Studies Council, a law enforcement research training and consulting group. "If you are hit by a Taser you are likely to fall. We know even minor trauma during pregnancy, like a fall, is dangerous and could be fatal to the fetus. Again, we don't know whether the risk is 1 percent or 5 percent. We don't know. But we know it's there."

Taser itself warns on its Web site that people who are infirm or pregnant may be at higher risk of secondary injuries, such as those due to falls.

"As far as the electricity on the fetus, I think it may be dangerous," Czarnecki added, noting there's an absence of peer-reviewed research on the subject.

Czarnecki said Taser has conducted one unpublished animal study that found the Taser did not induce miscarriage in two pregnant pigs. But Czarnecki also noted a 1992 case report regarding a woman who was shocked with a predecessor of the modern-day Taser when she was 12 weeks pregnant. She began to miscarry seven days later.

The author, Lewis E. Mehl, concluded that the devices could deliver electrical injuries capable of harming a fetus.

"Ethical questions should be raised about the criteria for the use of the Taser on women of childbearing age," wrote Mehl, now an associate professor of family medicine and psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine in Canada.

In the case of Robinson, there is some dispute about how pregnant she appeared. The Sedgwick County deputy has told supervisors he was unaware that she was pregnant when he shocked her. But her aunt, Betty Arnold, said her niece was obviously showing.

Robinson was jolted Sept. 29 after she wriggled free of handcuffs and fled police during a traffic stop. The deputy chased her down and deployed the taser, but the probes missed. He later pushed the barrel of the stun gun once against the side of her abdomen and once against her back, Sedgwick County Undersheriff Bob Hinshaw said.

Using a Taser that way, known as a "drive stun," causes isolated pain, but not the total incapacitation that would have occurred if the probes had hit her, Hinshaw said.

Robinson was taken into custody and held at the county jail. There, she miscarried Oct. 25 after going into labor.

Six days later, she was convicted of escaping from custody during a July altercation and driving with a suspended license in March 2003. She was sentenced to time already served.

Because Robinson did not miscarry immediately, Arnold said attorneys showed little interest in her case.

"Until someone stands up and holds police departments and manufacturers of this instrument more accountable, I think there are going to be a lot of babies that suffer," Arnold said.

Hinshaw said the department conducted a review and determined the arresting deputy did not violate departmental policies when he used the Taser on Robinson. The jail also conducted a review and determined the care Robinson received was appropriate.

"Regardless of how it got to that point, you're still talking about the miscarriage of a baby," he said. "That's a tragedy, especially for the expectant mother."

He said the incident was not considered a lethal-force situation.

"But ask yourself, if it's a lethal force situation, what's the better situation - a Taser or a firearm?

"It really boils down to the actions of the suspect and the unique factors going on at the time."