Why Taser is paying millions in secret 'suspect injury or death' settlements - when does 'less lethal' actually mean deadly?

December 13, 2013 - Matt Stroud, The Verge

On the day before Thanksgiving this year, international stun gun and cop-cam company Taser International, Inc. announced it had given up its fight in two major legal battles over "suspect injury or death." In a 275-word statement submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company's chief financial officer said it would pay a total of $2.3 million in settlements to plaintiffs who had sued the company in product liability cases.

This was rare. Taser prides itself in fighting to the bitter end in any case alleging that its products do anything but save lives. Yet there it was in a financial disclosure — Taser backing down.

Taser brushed it off as a remnant of simpler times. According to the vaguely worded statement, enhanced "risk management procedures" and "revisions to product warnings" in 2009 corrected a legal vulnerability. The $2.3 million payouts would address the last lawsuits tied to that vulnerability; they would amount to housekeeping — cleaning up lingering messes that had remained on the company’s books since before 2009.

WHAT WERE THESE "RISK MANAGEMENT PROCEDURES"?

But what were these "risk management procedures"? What were these "revisions to product warnings"? What was the vulnerability? And what were these cases? Taser’s press liaison told The Verge that its SEC declaration "speaks for itself" — a clear indication that the company has no plans to say anything further about settlements unless it’s forced to.

But a little research helped to pin down procedural changes Taser made in September, 2009. And a public records search helped to narrow the possibilities down to four representative cases that may have been settled. Those cases have a few major factors in common: they involve a Taser shot at someone’s chest; they involve someone going into cardiac arrest; and they involve an accidental death.

For years, Taser has battled in court to show that its electronic control devices — its ECDs such as the X2 and the X26 — cannot kill. But if its recent settlements are any indication, the company may either be slowly backing away from that premise, or at least attempting to draw a line in time after which the company feels it's no longer liable for someone’s death.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

As bars were closing at about 2AM on April 19, 2008, 24-year-old Kevin Piskura was at a music venue about a block away from the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio. As the bar closed its doors and patrons exited, a fight broke out. Oxford Police were called. According to a civil complaint filed in 2010 by Piskura’s parents, an officer ordered Piskura to "step back or back away" from the fight. It’s not clear whether he did or not, but the officer soon pulled out a Taser ECD and shot Piskura in the chest. Piskura went into cardiac arrest; his heart stopped beating. He was taken to a nearby emergency room and soon life-flighted to a Cincinnati hospital where he died five days later. This past March, Piskura’s parents settled with the City of Oxford and the Oxford Police Department for $750,000. In October, Piskura’s parents suggested they were considering a settlement with Taser.

The Piskuras did not return calls from The Verge, and an attorney representing their case declined to comment. But Kevin Piskura’s death fits a pattern consistent to ongoing product liability cases involving Taser-related incidents in which someone was killed prior to September, 2009. The $2.3 million payouts likely stem from similar cases; these incidents occurred before Taser made its switch from "non-lethal" to "less lethal."

Regarding that: letters to medical journals and plenty of anecdotal evidence have suggested at least since 2005 that even healthy people could suffer cardiac arrest if shot near the heart with Taser’s "non-lethal" ECDs. By September, 2009, Taser changed its product warnings accordingly. Today, Taser’s ECDs are branded as "less lethal" instead of "non lethal," and its training materials warn that "exposure in the chest area near the heart … could lead to cardiac arrest."

Another ongoing cardiac arrest case against Taser involves Ryan Rich. A 33-year-old physician in Las Vegas, Rich went into cardiac arrest and died in January, 2008 after he was shot five times with an ECD, including once in the chest. That case is headed to trial in January.

A third case comes out of the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, and will head to trial in May, 2014. It involves the 2009 death of 16-year-old, 5-feet-2-inch Robert Mitchell, who died in an abandoned house after being shot in the chest by a Warren police officer with a Taser ECD.

"TURNER COLLAPSED 37 SECONDS AFTER THE DEVICE WAS ACTIVATED."

Darryl Turner’s case is a fourth possibility. Turner was 17 years old in March 2008 when he got into an argument with his boss at the North Carolina Food Lion grocery where he worked as a cashier. According to a complaint later filed by Turner’s parents, the argument escalated to shouting and Turner’s boss eventually called 911. A police officer from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department arrived and asked Turner to "calm down." When the teenager refused, the officer pointed his Taser ECD at Turner’s chest. Turner began to step toward the officer, so the officer "held down the Taser’s trigger, causing the device to continue emitting an electrical current, until Turner eventually collapsed 37 seconds after the device initially was activated." Paramedics soon arrived to find Turner handcuffed and unconscious. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

In an uncommon outcome, Turner’s family was awarded a massive payout in 2011. Taser appealed. In November of this year, an appeals court issued its opinion that Taser should remain liable for Turner’s death, but that the jury’s award needed to be reconsidered. "We have no doubt that Turner had significant value to his parents," the appeals court’s decision read. But the court couldn’t agree with a "reasonable level of certainty" that the boy’s life was worth $6.15 million. The parties are scheduled to head back to court in 2014 to haggle over that figure. Unless, that is, Taser has decided to cut its losses and settle out of court.
ON THE RECORD

Taser International is very good about keeping records. In addition to its Axon Flex on-body police camera that allows officers to record interactions with suspects, the company also collects data every time a Taser ECD is fired. But it’s up to police departments — and up to Taser International — to decide how much of that information is revealed publicly.

The company takes a similar approach in the courtroom.

Taser typically insists on keeping its legal settlements — such as those referenced in its recent $2.3 million payout — secret. Rarely are the terms made public. But it happens occasionally. One Northern California case involved a drunk man off his psychiatric meds who was shot with a Taser ECD after refusing to get off a bus. He went into cardiac arrest. An emergency crew was able to resuscitate him on scene, but after going 18 minutes without a breath, the man suffered a crippling brain injury. He would require a caregiver from that point forward.

After a long legal battle, Taser agreed to settle that case. As per usual, it demanded that the settlement agreement be kept secret. The defendants in the case agreed. But eventually it was revealed that the company had settled for $2.85 million. The settlement figure was only made public after a probate court judge made the unusual decision to disclose the dollar amount in open court.

THERE WAS, THE JUDGE SAID, "THERAPEUTIC VALUE" IN MAKING THE INFORMATION PUBLIC

A report from the San Jose Mercury News later explained the judge’s reasoning. There was, the judge said, "therapeutic value" in making the information public.

Whether or not a judge makes similar decisions about Taser’s recent settlements, it’s clear that the company has decided to settle cardiac arrest cases as quietly as possible because it has maintained for years that its weapons are effective, non-deadly alternatives to firearms. If too much attention focuses on Taser-related deaths, there’s a risk that police departments might choose to sidestep the controversy altogether and opt against Taser's products.

There’s a lot at stake on both sides. For Taser, its NASDAQ-traded stock value is on the line. And for those engaged in open legal battles over Taser-related deaths involving cardiac arrest and factors such as "excited delirium" ("a euphemism for ‘death by Taser’") — as well as those who may literally find themselves facing down a Taser ECD in the future — the value of an open settlement may amount to more than mere therapy. It could amount to life or death.

Taser lawsuit dismissal is upheld on appeal

9th Circuit Court says Taser International had no reason to advise in 2004 that repeated jolts from its stun guns could cause a condition that raises heart attack risk.

Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

July 11, 2012

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against the manufacturer of Tasers, ruling the company had no duty to warn that repeated jolts from the stun guns could trigger death.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed unanimously that Arizona-based Taser International had no reason to advise police agencies in 2004 that the stun guns could cause metabolic acidosis, a condition in which lactic acid, produced during physical exertion, accumulates more quickly than the body can expel it. The condition raises the risk of a heart attack.

The parents of Michael Rosa, 38, who died in 2004 after police repeatedly shocked him with electricity from Tasers, sued the manufacturer on the grounds the company should have warned of the risk. The company maintains there is no evidence that Tasers cause acidosis but began warning about it anyway in 2009.

The suit stemmed from an incident in the Monterey County city of Del Rey Oaks. Someone called police to report that a "pretty disturbed" man was walking around and yelling. The first officer on the scene believed the man, Rosa, was "either really high or crazy" and called for backup, the court said. More officers arrived, and officers repeatedly fired Tasers at Rosa before wrangling him into handcuffs.

"At this point, Michael slumped, his lips blue, his breathing erratic," Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain wrote for the court. "He quickly stopped breathing entirely."

Efforts to resuscitate Rosa failed, and he died shortly thereafter. High levels of methamphetamines were discovered in his blood, and his death eventually was linked to acidosis, the court said. But studies previous to the Rosa incident failed to substantiate that Tasers cause acidosis, the court said.

John Maley, an attorney for the company, said it has been sued several times on the grounds the weapon caused the condition. One case led to a jury award of about $200,000 against the company. Maley said he hoped Tuesday's ruling would end the litigation.

"The science even today doesn't establish that dangerous acidosis results from Taser application," Maley said. He said the company decided to issue warnings only to avoid potential liability.

Peter Williamson, one of Rosa's lawyers, disagreed, citing a 2005 study that he said showed Tasers can trigger the deadly condition. The Rosa suit was dismissed only because the death occurred before that study was published, Williamson said.

American Heart Association publishes study claiming Tasers can be cause of death

April 30, 2012
Julie O'Neill, WCPO

CINCINNATI - An article just published by the American Heart Association's premier journal, "Circulation," presents the first ever scientific, peer-reviewed evidence that Tasers can cause cardiac arrest and death.

The article, written by Electrophysiologist Dr. Douglas Zipes of Indiana University, is already generating a buzz among cardiologists in the Cincinnati area, according to Dr. Terri Stewart-Dehner, a cardiologist at Christ Hospital.

"Anyone in cardiology has heard of Dr. Zipes. He is very well respected," said Dr. Stewart-Dehner.
Stewart-Dehner said any article published in "Circulation" has great significance and will be taken very seriously by cardiologists around the world.

"Peer reviewed is a big deal," said Stewart-Dehner. "It means the article goes through a committee just for consideration into the journal. Then cardiologists review the validity of the research; it means it's a reputable article."

The conclusions of Dr. Zipes' article, which looks at eight cases involving the TASER X26 ECD states: "ECD stimulation can cause cardiac electric capture and provoke cardiac arrest resulting from ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation. After prolonged ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation without resuscitation, asystole develops."

To view the abstract of the article, click here or go to http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/recent.

Speaking on behalf of the American Heart Association, Dr. Michael Sayre with Ohio State Emergency Medicine, said, "Dr. Zipes' work is very well respected. It's a credible report. It's a reminder to police officers and others who are using these tools that they need to know how to do CPR and know how to use an AED."

Dr. Zipes has been discounted by the manufacturer of the Taser, Taser International, because he has been paid to testify against the weapon, but Dr. Zipes says the fact that his research has withstood the rigorous process of review by other well-respected cardiologists and was published in this prestigious journal proves his case.

"It is absolutely unequivocal based on my understanding of how electricity works on the heart, based on good animal data and based on numerous clinical situations that the Taser unquestionably can produce sudden cardiac arrest and death," said Dr. Zipes.

Dr. Zipes says he wrote the article, not to condemn the weapon, but to properly warn police officers of its potential to kill so that they can make good policies and decisions as to the proper use of the weapon, and so that they will be attentive to the possible need for medical care following a Taser stun.

The Taser, used by law enforcement agencies across the Tri-State and by some 16,000 law enforcement agencies around the world, was marketed as non-lethal. Since 2001, more than 500 people have died following Taser stuns according to Amnesty International, which said in February that stricter guidelines for its use were "imperative."

In only a few dozen of those cases have medical examiners ruled the Taser contributed to the death.
It was nearly nine months ago 18-year-old Everette Howard of North College Hill died after police used a Taser on him on the University of Cincinnati's campus.

The Hamilton County Coroner's Office has still not released a "cause of death," but the preliminary autopsy results seemed to rule out everything but the Taser. The office is now waiting for results from a heart specialist brought in to review slides of Howard's heart.

The late Coroner Anant Bhati told 9 News in an exclusive interview before he died in February that he had "great respect" for Dr. Zipes and that he too believed the Taser could cause cardiac arrest. He said he just wasn't ready to say that it caused Everette Howard's death until a heart specialist weighed in on the investigation.

Dr. Bhati also agreed with Dr. Zipes that the weapon should come under government supervision and be tested for its electrical output regularly.

Taser International has said that because the Taser uses compressed Nitrogen instead of gun powder to fire its darts, it is not regulated and testing of the weapon is not legally required.

The company also says the Taser fires two darts, which enter a subject's skin and send electricity into the body in order to incapacitate the subject so that officers can get a subject into custody without a physical fight.

Research shows the Taser has saved lives and reduced injuries among officers.

Taser International has changed its safety warnings over the years.

An I-Team report in October showed that Taser International's website stated in its summary conclusion on cardiac safety, "There is no reliable published data that proves Taser ECDs (Tasers) negatively affect the heart."

With the publication of Dr. Zipes' article, Dr. Stewart-Dehner says it can be argued that statement is no longer the case.

The new statement on Taser International's website quotes a May Department of Justice study on deaths following Taser stuns. It states, "While exposure to Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) is not risk free, there is no conclusive medical evidence that indicates a high risk of serious injury or death from the direct effects of CED's (Tasers)."

Here is Taser International's complete response to Dr. Zipes' article:

While our medical advisors haven’t had a chance to review the details, it is noteworthy that the sole author, Dr. Douglas Zipes, has earned more than $500,000 in fees at $1,200 per hour as a plaintiff’s expert witness against TASER and police. Clearly Dr. Zipes has a strong financial bias based on his career as an expert witness, which might help explain why he disagrees with the findings of independent medical examiners with no pecuniary interest in these cases as well as the U.S. Department of Justice’s independent study that concluded, "There is currently no medical evidence that CEDs pose a significant risk for induced cardiac dysrhythmia in humans when deployed reasonably" and "The risks of cardiac arrhythmias or death remain low and make CEDs more favorable than other weapons."

Steve Tuttle
Vice President of Communications

Inadequate reporting on the actions that lead to taser tragedies

Food for thought from a Concerned Canadian:

Up to 721 taser-related deaths?!  As sad as that is, there has been some positive progress in awareness and responsibility on the West Coast.  The Vancouver Police Department has fewer officers than ever signing up for Taser training. Perhaps they've read the long list of risks & warnings on the volunteer waiver?  It is anecdotal, but in Vancouver rank & file officers are rarely seen carrying them now. 

The Edmonton death will be interesting to watch.  The police there are already saying they believe the man  was on a "substance".  Yet he'd been in custody, awaiting a bail hearing. How was he able to imbibe, if he was in a supposedly secure jail?  By mentioning a 'substance" to the media, it is very much like Dziekanski and many other such deaths.  Villify the victim.

It is true no one - outside of the investigators and the involved officers - knows exactly what happened.  There were security cameras, so hopefully there will be some visual evidence. 

Also the Edmonton reporters have failed to ask CRUCIAL questions such as:

How many stuns?
Duration of stuns?
Number of weapons used?
What mode of use- drive stun or probe mode?
Where on the body were the shocks delivered?

Edmonton police don’t seem to be on top of recent rulings in the U-S courts, where the Taser is now considered a ‘deadly weapon’.  The manufacturer lost a significant product liability case (Turner in Charlotte, NC), where the jury found Taser International failed to warn about the risk of chest shots for nearly fours years, after health risks were discovered by their own scientists.  This is a far cry from what the company crowed about in the beginning, when its senior managers said Tasers are “safe to use on any assailant.”   Police have got to ask themselves whether they want to risk using a potentially lethal weapon as a compliance tool. 

This is made all the worse because no one in law enforcement anywhere is measuring Tasers for ‘output variance’, yet the few tests that have been done have revealed that not all Tasers perform the same way.  Despite what the company claimed early on, the current being emitted from Tasers is NOT uniform.  This poses risks to both the public and the police. 

Even more concerning, there is still no independent standard of measurment developed for Conducted Energy Weapons; the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) AND the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are collaborating to create a scientifically valid test protocol.  As it stands now-- and it is difficult to fathom --  there is still NO electrical safety standard developed to measure invasive shocks. 

Concerned Canadian

Letter from a Concerned Canuck

In response to this November 18th report: "Cop sues taser after riding the lightning" I received the following letter from "Concerned Canuck":

Questions- so many questions. Judging from the news of this lawsuit against Taser International, it would seem some police are finally waking up to the real risks, after dozens have suffered life-altering injuries after 'riding the lightning'? Or worse, the Tucson PD officer last week, who suffered a fatal massive heart attack a day after a Taser training exercise?

More questions- Will it take the Taser-related death of a child, a celebrity or another cop, before someone, anyone in government somewhere, agrees that a federal investigation is warranted to clear the air on how such a now legally defined 'deadly weapon' (defined as such by a recent ninth circuit court decision in North Carolina) could be introduced as a 'non-lethal police tool'. Why was the lethality not recognized by anyone a decade ago when Tasers were foisted on us by eager and in some cases compensated cops?

C'mon now - 700 people are dead after being 'tased'. Taser International's numbers game of comparing the percentage of fatalities to the number of uses, doesn't mean a thing to the families who have lost loved ones. All they know is their loved one, who was alive one minute, was dead the next. Taser's lawyers and the company's allies in the Justice, Science and Medical communities have almost always thrown it back on the victims, blaming them for bringing such unfortunate outcomes upon themselves. They cite quite rightly that many had previous health problems, were drunk, high on drugs, had mental illnesses or ran away too vigorously from their Taser-toting pursuers. Some probably were violent. But did all 700 fall into this category of the truly violent? Robert Dziekanski didn't. He was a confused but compliant traveller, newly arrived in Vancouver, who was felled by an RCMP Taser and then multi-stunned while being held down by four burly officers. Nor did Darryl Turner-- a healthy teenager in Charlotte, NC-- who was shocked twice for having a temper tantrum at his workplace. His family was awarded $10-million dollars last summer. This award came after a jury of average citizens agreed Taser International made fatal mistakes by not warning law enforcement of the real risks, after numerous opportunities to do the right thing and own up to their errors.

The company motto about 'saving life' didn't ring true for the 700.

At the heart of the Turner case is the jaw-dropping revelation that in 2006, company execs were informed by their own research scientist that a fit young volunteer suffered cardiac arrest during a training exercise. Luckily a defribrillator was on-hand and the volunteer was saved. But it proved cardiac capture was indeed possible. But instead of warning its police customers or the public of this shocking occurrence, Taser International kept silent and continued selling its products. A warning to avoid chest shots didn't come until late 2009, buried in a training bulletin. That is nearly FOUR YEARS that Taser knew of the cardiac risks, but they FAILED TO WARN. Canadian media were the first to discover and report this news about the risks of chest shots- although Taser reacted by saying they were just trying to "avoid the controversy" whenever there was an unexplained death during a Taser incident. The company had inside information- that cardiac capture was possible- but they didn't admit this. Not yet.

It was May 2010, when Taser finally released a much longer list of risks and warnings - in the fine print of another training bulletin. However there was no mention to law enforcement that the company had known since 2006 of the potential cardiac dangers. No doubt Taser International issued this list in anticipation of the Turner case coming to trial. Now when citizens are injured or die after being tased by police, the product liability belongs to law enforcement and its employers, and not where it should lie- with the manufacturer.

The Turner family was awarded the $10-million, because of Taser International's FAILURE TO WARN. Police would be well advised to read the publically-avaliable judgement in detail. As a matter of course, Taser is appealing. It is one of dozens of company-crippling wrongful death lawsuits lined up against the company. What other choice does Taser International actually have when facing such steep multi-million dollar losses? They either settle for undisclosed amounts or they appeal. It is the same thing the company is doing by counter-suing this now crippled cop, whose doctors say his back was broken from the force of a Taser shock during training. One can hear Taser's lawyers now -- perhaps the officer had a pre-existing condition of osteoporosis, which is responsible for the injuries - but not the Taser? And for God's sake, why didn't the officer read the latest waiver before he signed it, where the risks of injury and death are plainly but finely printed for all to see?

In Montpelier, Vermont, officials there appear to be aware of the rising liability risks. A prescient City Manager and a sensible Police Chief have decided that arming their officers was NOT worth losing the trust of their citizens. Was it wisened worry of the possiblity of paying out huge damages if there was any proven police misuse? And misuse is bound to happen when many officers are still convinced Tasers are "safe to use on any attacker", as the company's early promotional material stated. Much of this same propaganda made its way into the first police evaluations of the higher 26-watt technology a decade ago- and was treated as truth.

Perhaps some police were knowing collaborators, but I'd like to think most were hapless victims. So many took it: Taser hook-Taser line-and-suspect sinker. The first clue should have been the skimpy science of testing of one pig in 1996, five dogs in 1999 and several hundred young police recruits who were given half-second zaps with taped leads rather than darts with the full five second stun. Sadly law enforcement brass never bothered to verify the manufacturer's safety claims or questioned the electrical theory of operation, when Taser made the drastic leap from 5-watt weapons to 26-watt ones. Now after 700 deaths, Taser International states in the fine print of its manuals and waivers, that police are responsible for their own research! What kind of upside-down Bizarro-World are we living in, where a device that allows dangerously high current to enter the human body and is associated with hundreds of deaths, expects its customers do its own research? The pharmaceutical companies wouldn't dare do that, so why is Taser getting a free pass?

Perhaps Taser International will be brought to its senses, or at least brought back into court when its shareholders launch another class action suit for failure to disclose all known safety risks? A dozen complainants shared a $21-million dollar out-of-court settlement in 2005, to buy the silence of this small group of compassionate shareholders . In the court documents of this case, seven former employees signed affadavits and testified there were so many 'returns' - defective units being sent back - because thousands of Tasers weren't operating properly or not at all, triggers were sticking with some staying on, etc. There were SO many returns they had to rent extra warehouse space to store them all. The witnesses claimed the bodies of these returns were cut open, the defective high-voltage boards were taken out and placed into new bodies with new serial numbers - and sold out the front door as new product.

No one has ever attempted to investigate Taser for any of this, because no one in law enforcement or the Justice department is paying attention or cares to. Taser called the accusations absurd but settled with the shareholders anyway; what is absurd is paying out $21-million dollars to a dozen complainants in what has to be one of the highest nuisance suit payouts in legal history.

Given the number of deaths and injuries, one wonders if any of these defective units being re-sold as 'new' were recycled into other police departments, where some of these 700 "unintended consequences" or dozens of "training injuries" occurred? There is no way of knowing for sure, because police do not measure the output of each Taser upon receipt from the company. SO there is no benchmark for product quality or reliability set from the start. There is no way of charting degradation over time. Which means there is no way of knowing the shelf life of Tasers. How will that be determined without proper measurement?

Since Taser International has shouldered the liability risks onto police- and those who employ them- municipalities, provinces, states, and federal bodies should consider the sense of seeing these untested, unregulated weapons measured regularly. That was one of the recommendations of the Braidwood Inquiry. So far no police agencies anywhere in North America have heeded this sage advice. The RCMP has supposedly tested its fleet of 36-hundred or so BUT many of them performed outside of the safety allowables set by Taser International. But what is the peak output/body current of the Tasers involved in the 700 deaths? Who knows? Again- there are just too many unanswered questions.

A proper Justice Department investigation of how all this occurred without proper checks & balances, is needed. The many questions demand answers. There needs to be accountability for the 700 and their families. Congressional hearings might be the only way to illuminate more of the truth about how Tasers were introduced without proper oversight and substantiated by rigorous, independent research. If we're stuck with the lethal Taser, it really should only be used in the rarest of circumstances, just below the firearm, NOT as a mere compliance tool. Regular measurement using a recognized electrical safety standard would go a long way too, in insuring this Russian Roulette-style of law enforcement is kept to a duller roar.

Concerned Canuck.

Letter from a Concerned Canuck

In response to this November 21st report: Caught on tape: Officers using tasers I received the following letter to FOX 8 Cleveland from "Concerned Canuck":

FORCED to use Tasers? The police choose to use the weapons when and how they do. In your edited examples, you showed unarmed, non-combative citizens being repeatedly shocked with a weapon the U-S Courts have decided is "deadly". One man was even hand-cuffed.

I write to you as a concerned Canadian citizen who has examined this issue extensively for many years. Please check the recent ninth circuit court decision in North Carolina, where the judges unanimously agreed Tasers are, by legal definition, "Deadly Weapons". Should police be using such a weapon on a handcuffed or unarmed suspect?

And now the manufacturer of this 'non-lethal police tool' has itself admitted its devices can cause dangerous metabolic and cardiac changes, which can lead to death, especially among vulnerable populations. It warns police not to use multiple or prolonged stuns. It warns police to avoid chest shots.

If you check the fine print of the latest training manual for the X26 model you'll discover, like I did, that there is a very long list of risks and warnings that was not there a decade ago, when police first purchased Tasers. The company said then that their devices were "safe to use on any assailant". That is not what they are saying now.

Has human physiology changed in ten years? Has the technology changed? NO-the only change seems to be the manufacturer's opinion of its own products. This admittance in the waiver should be all you need to see --to tell you the truth -- that Tasers were deployed prematurely without enough scientific scrutiny by any government on either side of our shared border —and now the legal responsibility is being thrown over to law enforcement. Police failed us too, with a lack of due diligence, because they never verified the initial safety claims made by Taser International.

Also of great concern is the fact that these electrical devices are not measured regularly in any police detachments across North America. This is -- ahem-- shocking, when you consider that according to Truth-Not-Tasers.Com, which has kept a death toll based on media accounts, 700 citizens have died after being 'tased', including a Tuscon police officer last week. Officer Fung was a healthy man who suffered a massive heart attack, a day after being 'tased' in a training exercise. I wonder if he bothered to read the fine print of the waiver? Did he sign it? And will his cop buddies agree so readily to being 'tased'?

A few other things your reporter might like to dig into -- shocks between 30 to 100 milliamps can kill. Yet Tasers have peak outputs of 151 to 162 milliamps. Don't be fooled by Taser's use of 'averages', as the danger is in the peaks. And despite taser's assurances that the there is consistent current being emitted, our national public broadcaster, the CBC, proved there is 'output variance'. They found in a random test, using Taser's own test protocol, that 12-percent of the weapons performed above the safety allowables set by the company.

Neither the UL, IEC or CSA have ever measured the Taser, nor would they, they say, because one of the modes of use of the weapon utilizes invasive probes which emit current INTO the body, where resistance is next to nil. Check with the UL -- they will tell you there is no electrical safety standard yet developed for internal shocks, just external shocks, where skin resistance provides a barrier.

The lack of safety standards for non-lethal technologies is why NIST - the National Institute of Standards & Technology - is working with other scientists to develop a proper measurement protocol. But there will have to be TWO TEST PROTOCOLS for the TWO MODES OF USE: drive stun and the more dangerous dart/probe mode.

It took a major Public Inquiry in British Columbia to do it, but Canadian police have raised the Taser in the use-of-force continuum, to just below the firearm, only to be used as a last resort, in truly violent, life-threatening situations. Americans have to decide too — is it okay for police to continue to use the taser so cavalierly? Lakewood’s police chief told you this is exactly what the taser is for, “allowing us to have somebody compliant … without actually having to put hands on, wrestle or fight with them.” Should a deadly weapon be used to gain compliance? There have been too many "unintended consequences", but deaths will continue if police use the Taser the way they have.

Concerned Canuck

Canadian condolences to the family of Tucson PD officer Henry Fung who died of an apparent heart attack on Tuesday this week, one day after he reportedly "volunteered" to take a taser jolt on Monday for "training" purposes.

The medical examiner must STRONGLY recommend that the taser(s) used on Henry Fung be measured for 'output variance'. As we have learned in Canada, not all tasers perform the same way. Many have tested way outside the safety allowables set by Taser International. The medical examiner (and all the doctors in the world) CANNOT rule out the taser until the shock from the weapon itself has been definitively ruled out. Proper measurement is required.

On CBS News last week, Taser International said that proving the taser did NOT play a role in a person's death is an UNPROVABLE supposition. There's your starting point. Click here: http://bit.ly/tT8iYq

It's notable that no one has reported the duration and number of stuns Officer Fung recieved. Usually when a citizen dies after being shocked by a Taser, he or she is blamed, because they had so-called "excited delirium", were on drugs or had a previous medical history (doesn't everyone have a previous medical history??).

Taser International has been warning about multiple and prolonged stuns only in recent years even though, at the beginning, they told police, policy-makers and the public that the taser was "safe to use on any assailant".

That is NOT what they're saying now. One must wonder if Officer Fung was given an opportunity to read the fine print of the latest Volunteer Waiver Taser International put out.

Read closely and it is ALL there: Tasers CAN CAUSE dangerous and deadly metabolic and cardiac changes. Several "suspects" have died MANY HOURS after taser shocks because of changes brought on by acidosis, which causes the muscles surrounding the heart to fail.

The city of Tucson cannot accept the "averages" Taser International spouts -- according to the original spec sheets, the true PEAK OUTPUT of Tasers varies between 151 and 162 milliamps, when "working properly". Any first year med student can tell you that shocks between 30 to 100 milliamps can KILL. Add to that, the invasive nature of a taser used in 'probe mode' - resistance under the skin is next to NIL.

And another shocking revelation: there are NO electrical safety standards for shocks UNDER the skin. Check with the Underwriters Laboratory, the IEC or Canadian Standards Association and you will quickly confirm this fact.

Taser International has some SERIOUS explaining to do. And you can be sure that their damage control machine is in full swing. I follow the company on TWITTER and they are a company which normally posts several TWEETS per day. They've been ominously silent since the day police officer Henry Fung died.

The Department of Justice ought to investigate how this technology was approved without enough rigorous science being applied.

One pig in 1996 and five dogs in 1999 and no true human trials until years after initial sales, should be alarming to all citizens.

Cop sues Taser after riding the lighting

See also Taser shreds injury reports

November 18, 2011

Andy Butler, a Dallas police officer, filed a lawsuit against Taser International after being willingly zapped with over 50,000 volts of electricity during a Dallas Police Department training session.

The “ride,” which being tasered is often referred to, is what Butler blames for fracturing his back and leaving two metal plates in his neck.
For Butler it has been a “ride” he will never forget.

"I don't think any responsible person would have made that decision, knowing what I know now," Butler tells KDAF.

The 2009 incident required Butler to have surgery to repair three herniated discs in his neck, where one was forcing pressure on his spinal cord. Apparently Butler’s back muscles constricted so tight with the jolt that it crushed his vertebrae.

Butler, now under constant pain, has become a part of a rising number of law enforcement officers across America who are suing Taser International. According to the lawsuits, Taser has fallen short of effectively warning officers and their departments about the dangers of being tasered.

"Taser has known since 2004 that every time an officer is tasered, he is at risk of serious injury or even death," Butler's attorney, Mark Haney, tells KDAF.

Although Dallas PD does not require cops to be tasered, some in law enforcement say its all but a necessity.

"It seemed like a rite of passage, that everybody had to do it," Butler said. Butler admitted that peer pressure also played a significant role in experiencing “five seconds of pure pain.”

Butler adds the waiver he signed from Taser alluded to possible "physical exertion or athletic-type injuries” but failed to mention anything of this magnitude.

“They hint around about it, but they don't just come out and say that 20-40 officers have been injured and these are the kinds of risks you pose, if the department allows officers to be tasered," Butler’s attorney tells reporters.

Now the stun gun maker is counter-suing Butler, claiming he should have known the risks.

In a recent deposition for Butler's lawsuit, the CEO of Taser, Rick Smith, testified that instruction manuals disclose that ten officers have been injured while in Taser training. Smith admitted in his testimony that Taser never made an attempt to have the department put an end to Tasering its officers in training.

According to Taser's website, over 559,000 devices have been sold to more than 16,000 law enforcement and military agencies.

"That is a weapon we use on the public. If we think it is unsafe and harms officers, then I couldn't reasonably deploy those weapons against the public," says Deputy Chief Floyd Simpson, who is the head of the department's policy on Taser training.

Taser still stands by their products and credit the device for saving countless lives by providing police with a nonlethal option when dealing with uncontrollable criminals.

“I’m not saying there’s not a place in the law enforcement for a less-than-lethal option. I think a Taser is better than a 9 mm every time. But police officers need to understand these consequences and limit the risks in training,” Haney adds.

Taser International's Volunteer Warnings, Risks, Liability Release and Covenant Not to Sue

Tucson PD officer Henry Fung reportedly volunteered to be tasered on Monday as part of his training.  On Tuesday, sadly, Officer Fung died of a fatal heart attack.  Before being tasered on Monday, he would have (likely) been made to sign the following Taser International waiver.  To see the waiver in its entirety, please go to Taser International's site:  http://www.taser.com/images/training/training-resources/downloads/11-5-31%20volunteer%20exposure%20release%20001.pdf

Volunteer Warnings, Risks, Liability Release and Covenant Not to Sue

PRIOR to any TASER ECD Exposure, all volunteers MUST: (1) read the most current TASER ECD warnings; and (2) read and sign this form.

Please fill out the sections below. If you have a condition or pre-existing injury that would be aggravated by muscle contractions, physical exertion, or stress check the appropriate box and notify the Instructor prior to participating in the TASER ECD Exposure.

I have no injuries, physical or mental conditions that could be aggravated by muscle contractions, physical exertion, stress, or exposure to the electrical discharge of TASER ECDs.

I have the following pre-existing physical or mental conditions/injuries that could be aggravated by the TASER ECD Exposure: _________________________________

I freely and voluntarily agree to be exposed to the electrical discharge of the TASER ECD under the following conditions: _____________________________

LIABILITY RELEASE, COVENANT NOT TO SUE AND HOLD HARMLESS

In consideration of receiving information on the TASER products and a TASER ECD Exposure, I acknowledge and agree as follows:

1. I understand that a TASER ECD Exposure results in strong muscle contractions, physical exertion, and stress and involves the risk of physical or other injury. I acknowledge that I have read the above Warnings and Risks and current TASER ECD warnings and with full knowledge of such risks, I voluntarily agree to experience a TASER ECD Exposure and I assume all risks, whether known or unknown, foreseen or unforeseen, inherent in the TASER ECD Exposure.

2. Intending that this form be legally binding upon me, my heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, I hereby waive, release, and forever discharge the instructor, the TASER distributor, my agency and employer, TASER and all of its agents, directors and employees of and from any and all claims, demands, rights and causes of action of whatsoever kind and nature, arising from, and by reason of any and all known and unknown physical and mental injuries and consequences thereof, whether foreseen or unforeseen, suffered by me from any TASER ECD Exposure. I specifically waive any statutory rights I may have regarding the release of known or unknown claims.

3. I further agree that neither I nor my heirs, estate, personal representative, nor any other person or entity will ever institute any action, litigation or suit at law or in equity against the instructor, the TASER distributor, my agency and employer, TASER and all of its agents, directors and employees for any damages, costs, loss or injury arising out of any and all activities related to and including any TASER ECD Exposure.

4. I further agree to indemnify and save harmless the instructor, the TASER distributor, my agency and employer, TASER and all of its agents, directors and employees from all liability, loss, costs and obligation of any and every kind on account of or arising out of any injuries or losses incurred by me, however occurring, arising out of any and all activities related to and including any TASER ECD Exposure.

5. In signing this form, I agree that I have read and understand this entire form; I affirm that I am competent to agree to, sign, and be bound by this form; I understand that it is a promise not to sue and a release and indemnity for all claims; I further understand that by signing this form I am giving up certain legal rights including the right to recover damages in case of injury; and I agree to abide by the terms and conditions of this form.

6. This release does not release any rights I may have under Workers’ Compensation Laws. I waive any Workers’ Compensation subrogation rights against TASER. I agree that any recoveries under Workers’ Compensation Laws do not change, extend or enlarge the waivers and protections inherent in this agreement.

Can Tasers kill? I-Team asks Taser CEO tough questions

October 27, 2011
Julie O'Neill, wcpo.com i-team

CINCINNATI - The parents of Everette Howard want to know why their son is dead after being Tasered on UC's campus in August and say they don't want any other parent to have to go through what they're dealing with.

The I-Team went to the heart of the Howard investigation to try to find answers to one key question: Can Tasers kill?

The I-Team traveled to Chicago to speak one-on-one with the CEO of Taser International. We also went to Indianapolis to talk with a prominent cardiologist who's come out swinging against the company concerning its warnings.

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Chicago, we caught up with Taser International CEO Rick Smith.

Smith showed us Taser's newest weapon for sale, the X-2. Smith explained to us how the X-2 precisely controls the weapon's electrical current.

"This is measuring the electrical charge of every pulse as it comes out of the device," Smith said.

Smith also says the new Taser includes an option for an automatic shutoff.

"You'll hear it for four seconds, it'll sound an alert then it will shut off, so it alerts the officer then it shuts off and they would have to re-trigger the device at that point in time," said Smith.

The safety advances of the new weapon deal directly with the safety concerns over the one used on UC Upward Bound student Everette Howard before he died in August, and used by police agencies across the Tri-State. It's also the same model weapon involved in the most damaging court ruling against Taser International to date.

This past summer, a jury awarded the family of 17-year-old Darryl Turner $10 million, ruling Taser knew its weapon could kill and didn't tell police.

Dr. Douglas Zipes is an electrophysiologist specializing in heart rhythm. He's published hundreds of articles and won numerous awards for his knowledge of clinical cardiology. The cardioverter he invented is keeping former Vice President Dick Cheney's heart ticking.

Dr. Zipes takes issue with Taser's claims that its weapons cannot cause death.

"Taser has said it can't happen with Taser equipment because the pulses are too short, the energy is insufficient and it can't capture the heart," Dr. Zipes said. "That's absolutely, totally wrong."

In March 2008, court records reveal store clerk Darryl Turner was Tasered for 37 seconds, until he fell, and soon dies. So what caused it??

Dr. Zipes says adrenalin may have already spiked Turner's heart rate, but he says the Taser spiked it beyond what it could handle.

Dr. Zipes explained that where the two Taser darts hit is key.

"So the Taser darts need to in some way span part of the heart or be close enough to the heart so that the electricity traveling between the two darts is able to reach the heart itself and capture the heart."

But that's not the only factor.

"One of the important ingredients as to why somebody dies and somebody else doesn't is the duration of the Taser shock," Dr. Zipes added.

We asked Attorney John Burton, who tried the Turner case, if he thought the officer involved in that Tasering believed Tasers could kill. Burton strongly believes he didn't.

"Oh he absolutely did not know that Tasers could kill," Burton said. "He never would have used the device in such a trivial setting had he understood what the real risks were. That's why the jury did what it did."

Taser International has appealed the Turner decision.

The I-Team asked Rick Smith whether he believes Taser was causal in that death.

"Look, we look at that case and that is one case that certainly is one we're concerned about and that's one of the reasons that we do warn, trying to avoid chest shots," Smith said.

Dr. Zipes says it's tough to prove a Taser-caused a death because a dead body doesn't show the presence of electricity.

"I stumble on why did the sudden death occur exactly when the Taser shocks were going into the body. To say that that's not causily-related I think becomes ridiculous," Zipes said.

Smith questioned Dr. Zipes' motives.

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about a plaintiff's expert that's paid $1,200 an hour to testify against the technology," Smith said.

Dr. Zipes made the following recommendations: "I would argue that Taser number 1 should fess up to the fact that it can produce cardiac arrest, number 2 that law enforcement should be educated to this possibility and that they should not use the Taser weapon in a haphazard freewheeling fashion."

The I-Team asked Smith why Taser doesn't err on the side of caution and say in rare circumstances, in the chest a prolonged shot could increase the risk, and tell departments to make sure officers know this possibility exists and be ready to take medical action.

"We absolutely do that in our training, our warnings you can download them from our website," Smith said.

But when the I-Team checked Taser's website, we found the "Summary Conclusion: Do Taser ECD's affect the heart?" states: "There is no reliable published data that proves Taser ECD's negatively affect the heart."

The I-Team also asked Smith whether he recognizes that in rare circumstances the Taser can affect the heart.

"There's no evidence that supports that it affects the heart in humans," Smith said. "There is evidence that it has happened in pigs."

Yet the I-Team found on Taser's liability release form, under "Known and Potential Side Effects," you'll see listed "heart rate, rhythm capture."

Amnesty International tracks deaths after Taserings. Their latest number: 466 deaths have followed Taserings since 2001. But Amnesty also says a number of these deaths have been attributed to other causes, and what 9 News is hearing from doctors and medical examiners is that it's hard to know definitively in a lot of these cases how much of a role the Taser may have played.

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.

EDITORIAL: Here's key in taser use: police using good rules

September 28, 2011
The Charlotte Observer

We don't argue with the idea that Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers should be armed with the safest weapons available. So in that sense, the Charlotte City Council's decision to buy new Tasers that prevent officers from firing high voltages of electricity for more than five seconds at a pop makes sense.

But this move does not end concerns over the use of Tasers, associated with the deaths of two suspects in Charlotte in the past three years. These are not truly the "non-lethal" weapons that they are so frequently advertised to be.

Amnesty International says Tasers contributed to about 351 U.S. deaths between 2002 and 2008. The group also says 90 percent of those tasered were unarmed at the time.

Taser International, which provides most such weapons (and the company supplying the guns to the CMPD), points to a different view in a May study by the National Institute of Justice. In a look at Taser use by six police departments nationwide over a two-year period, the institute's researchers found 99.7 percent of those tasered suffered no serious injuries. Their conclusion: "The risk of human death due directly or primarily to the electrical effects of [Tasers] has not been conclusively demonstrated."

It's hard to reconcile those views. Yet even the study provides fodder for concerns. "Risk of human death ... not conclusively demonstrated" is not the same as no risk. And the study says data have shown significant health risks when Tasers are used against small children, people with diseased hearts, the elderly, those who are pregnant and some others. Researchers also acknowledged that many of the deaths after Taser exposure "are associated with continuous or repeated discharge of the CED..., especially when the individual may be under drug intoxication."

These are crucial caveats. In the March 2008 death of 17-year-old Darryl Turner, a CMPD officer tasered the teen for 37 seconds, a violation of police policy. The city paid the family $625,000 as a result, but admitted no wrongdoing. A federal jury ordered Taser International this summer to pay $10 million to the family. The company said it will appeal but in 2009 it released an advisory urging police not to shoot suspects in the chest, where Turner was shot. It also began pushing a version of its gun that allows only five seconds of current before officers can fire again.

The model the council agreed to has that feature and other safety measures including an audible "pre-warning" that the device is about to be used, said CMPD chief Rodney Monroe. Taser officials tout other benefits including the ability to fire a second time quickly without reloading.

Such features are welcome but they remain no substitute for officers having and following good guidelines about the use of these devices. In the past, that has been a problem for CMPD - and a costly one. If the officer in the Turner case had followed policy, the teen might be alive, the city wouldn't have had to shell out $625,000 to a grieving family, and the council might not be approving $1.83 million for new Tasers. That last cost is acknowledgment that officers could not be depended upon to abide by a policy of not tasering suspects past five seconds, the limit on a Taser blast unless the trigger is held down.

This move won't force officers to show good judgment and abide by strong guidelines. The new Taser allows more blasts in the Taser's battery life, and two blasts in quick succession. Studies show multiple Taser shots pose health risks even in healthy adults.

Tasers have been welcome tools to police officers in protecting the public, suspects and themselves. They have helped reduce the numbers of lethal incidents in which an officer is forced to discharge a gun. But Tasers carry dangers that should not be ignored. Training, officers following sound guidelines and vigilance about health risks are crucial to helping ensure tragedy does not result from Taser use.

Fayetteville (NC) police recalling Tasers to examine their safety

"The Fayetteville Police Department is the second in North Carolina in the past six weeks to pull the Tasers from use. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department did so in July after a 21-year-old man died after a Taser was used on him. The day before that man's death, a federal jury awarded $10 million to the family of a 17-year-old Charlotte teen who died in 2008 after he was stunned with a Taser. The suit was filed against Taser International, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of the stun guns."

August 29, 2011
Nancy McCleary, Fay Observer

The Fayetteville Police Department is taking its Taser weapons off the streets so officials can determine whether it's safe to use them, authorities said Monday.

The decision comes almost a week after a Fayetteville man died after police used a Taser as they tried to take him into custody.

"I feel it was the responsible and prudent response to issues with the use of Tasers in the law enforcement profession in general," Police Chief Tom Bergamine said Monday in an email.

All officers have been ordered to turn in their Tasers at the department's training facility where the weapons will be inspected to make sure they are functioning properly, Bergamine said in a news release earlier Monday.

Bergamine said he has no reason to believe that the Taser used in last week's incident malfunctioned.

"The Fayetteville Police Department believes that it is imperative that we immediately verify that all of our Tasers are in proper working order to protect both the citizens and officers," the statement said.

The department also plans to review its policies and procedures regarding the use of Tasers, the statement said.

The department's use-of-force policy addresses the use of Tasers and cites conditions in which the weapons should be used.

Among them are controlling violent subjects when deadly force is not necessary, when conventional tactics and/or self-defense techniques are ineffective, when there is a reasonable expectation that it will be unsafe for officers to get close to a subject and to keep a person from committing suicide or a self-inflicted injury.

Michael Wade Evans, 56, of the 1100 block of Simpson Street, died Wednesday after a Fayetteville police officer used a Taser on him.

Police were trying to arrest Evans about 2:30 p.m. in front of Fuller's Old Fashion Barbecue at 113 N. Eastern Blvd. Evans was reported to have been acting erratically and trying to jump on vehicles as they passed him on the road.

When Evans resisted arrest, an officer used a stun gun. Evans became unresponsive and was pronounced dead at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

Fayetteville police have used Tasers since 1996, according to spokesman Gavin MacRoberts.

Evans is the second person to die in Fayetteville since 2008 after city police used a stun gun during an arrest.

In January 2008, Otis C. Anderson, 36, stopped breathing after a Taser was used to subdue him. The incident happened on Murchison Road. An autopsy later revealed that Anderson had a lethal amount of cocaine in his system and that the cause of death was an overdose of the drug.

Second to pull Tasers

The Fayetteville Police Department is the second in North Carolina in the past six weeks to pull the Tasers from use.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department did so in July after a 21-year-old man died after a Taser was used on him.

The day before that man's death, a federal jury awarded $10 million to the family of a 17-year-old Charlotte teen who died in 2008 after he was stunned with a Taser.

The suit was filed against Taser International, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of the stun guns.

The city of Charlotte denied any wrongdoing but settled with the victim's family and paid them $625,000 in 2009, according to reports.

Taser International makes the stun guns used by Fayetteville police.

A company spokesman said there have been no reports of malfunctioning Taser weapons in the company's 17-year history.

"The vast number of these cases (deaths) tend to be caused by a drug overdose or delirium or some are simply unexplained," Steve Tuttle said.

It's not unusual, he said, for a law enforcement agency to review its policies and procedures for use of Tasers.

"We'll have lots of situations in which departments want to get to the bottom of what happened in an event like this," Tuttle said. "You want to make sure the weapons are in normal operating order."

Tuttle also cited a Department of Justice study published in May that showed no increased risk of an irregular heartbeat caused by a Taser gun.

Sheriff's response

Sheriff Moose Butler said he had no plans to pull the Tasers his deputies carry.

"We have, as the usual course and practice, reviewed all of our policies regarding use of force, and we have found them to be appropriate," said Debbie Tanna, a Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.

"We have also inquired as to whether there have been any product warning, recalls or notices of defects in the Taser devices, or any reports of them, which would tend to impact the use of the devices," Tanna said. "We have found none."

Cumberland County Commissioner Charles Evans has been critical of the Police Department's use of Tasers. He commended Bergamine's decision but said it should have been done earlier.

"Actually," Evans said, "I don't think Tasers should be used at all. I think our leadership under the current administration should have looked at this a long time ago."

The three officers involved in the incident that resulted in Michael Evans' death have been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, which is routine in uses of police force resulting in death.

Police have identified the officers as Alexander Leviner, 35; Christopher Crews, 25; and Travis Smith, 22, all assigned to the Campbellton Bureau.

The SBI is continuing to investigate, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Death raises Taser safety questions - High school grad died after being stunned by police officer

August 8, 2011
Cincinnati.com

University of Cincinnati officials said Monday the university has asked the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to review the circumstances surrounding Everette Howard's death during a campus incident over the weekend.

Howard, 18, died about 2:30 a.m. Saturday after an officer Tased him.

The university's assistant police chief, Jeff Corcoran, said the student approached officers in a dorm hallway, and appeared agitated and angry. Officers ordered Howard to back off, but he refused, Corcoran said. Howard was then hit once by an officer's stun gun.

Afterward, Howard appeared incoherent, according to UC police. He went into cardiac arrest after paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead at University Hospital.

UC has not yet released an incident report.

Hamilton County Coroner Anant Bhati, who is investigating the death, said the teen was shocked with a stun gun once before, and rushed to a hospital.

North College Hill police said Monday that Howard was Tased in January 2009 by an officer at North College Hill High School after he fell ill and became combative.

Once medics got him into an ambulance, they realized he had low blood sugar. A relative said Monday Howard did not suffer from diabetes.

Howard had thrown up the night before and hadn't eaten because he was trying to lose weight to wrestle in a lower weight class, according to the police report.

UC police have temporarily stopped their use of electroshock Taser stun guns.

"Initial review by UC Police suggests that all departmental policies and procedures were followed appropriately," UC's Senior Vice President of Finance & Administration Robert Ambach said in a statement. "The tragic outcome, however, resulting in the death of a young man, calls for extraordinary and objective measures to ensure that the collected facts are independently arrived at and beyond reproach" he said in explaining the decision to involve the Ohio BCI. Howard's parents said they have retained a lawyer but declined to name their attorney. They declined to speak further, saying their focus must now be on burying their son.

Howard was an honor roll student and football player nearing graduation from UC's Upward Bound program, which helps prepare high school students from low-income families for college. He had enrolled this fall in sports and exercise science at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., where he earned a scholarship and planned to join the wrestling and football team.

Family members want more information about what happened and insist the police version of the story conflicts with Howard's character and upbringing.

"My cousin was not in a fight. He was trying to break up a fight," said Stephanie Brown, 40, of Montgomery. "It's devastating. He had a promising future. He had a full scholarship. Why would he put that in jeopardy?"

At least two local suburban police agencies - Colerain Township and Fairfax - stopped using Tasers in the past year over safety and liability concerns in favor of a new tool.

Larger departments such as Cincinnati police and sheriff's offices in Hamilton and Butler counties continue using Tasers. Officials have credited them with helping to reduce fatal police incidents. Cincinnati police began using Tasers after the Nov. 30, 2003, death of Nathaniel Jones in police custody. The 41-year-old man's violent struggle with officers ended when his heart stopped. Jones had cocaine, PCP and methanol in his system.

Cincinnati defense attorney Mike Allen predicts the UC case cause more police agencies to drop the use of Tasers.

The device administers 50,000 volts that usually temporarily immobilize a person's muscles so officers can gain control of the subject. They have a range of 35 feet.

Critics argue that Tasers, while considered non-lethal weapons, too often have a deadly outcome. Since 2001, Amnesty International has recorded more than 340 deaths in North America following police use of Tasers.

Since 2009, Taser's manufacturer, Arizona-based Taser International, has warned law enforcement agencies to avoid stunning suspects in the upper chest, a way of alleviating concerns the weapon's volt shock could affect the heart.

"I see the tide turning," said Allen, a former UC police officer and board of trustee. Allen was also a Cincinnati police officer, Hamilton County Municipal Court judge and Hamilton County Prosecutor before starting his law firm downtown.

Colerain Township and Fairfax officers use the new "Mark 63 Trident" device. Manufactured by Virginia-based Aegis, the device essentially is several weapons rolled into one with high intensity light, pepper spray and a stun gun, although the electrical prongs on the front do not shoot out and enter the body, said Colerain Township Police Chief Dan Meloy.

Colerain officers are completing training on the device this week.

Fairfax Chief Rick Patterson suspended use of Tasers in September over safety concerns.

"I do not know the facts of the UC case so I will not comment on the UC case,'' Patterson said. "I just feel that I didn't want that liability out there for myself, my department and my officers."

Last month a jury handed down a $10-million judgment against Taser International, finding the company and its device partially responsible for the death of 17-year-old Darryl Turner after police in Charlotte, N.C., used a Taser device on him during an altercation at a grocery store in 2008.

Taser officials expressed their condolences to the Turner family, but insist their device was not responsible for his death. Taser plans to appeal the court decision.

A spokesman for Taser did not return a call Monday for comment on the UC case.

Taser Gets Zapped

Another jury rules that the weapons are lethal and the makers are liable.

August 3, 2011
Peter Gorman, Fort Worth Weekly

The Arizona company that makes Tasers, the allegedly “less-lethal” weapons that have killed hundreds of people around the world, has lost another lawsuit. This time a North Carolina jury found Taser International responsible for the death of a 17-year-old store clerk who was hit with the weapon’s 50,000 volts of electricity because he pushed groceries off a counter and threw an umbrella.

In the July 19 verdict, Taser International was ordered to pay $10 million in damages to the family of Darryl Turner. A company spokesman said the verdict will be appealed.

News of the jury decision drew cheers from locals who have fought for years to stop the overuse of the stun guns by police in Fort Worth, where at least five people died after been tasered since 2005.

“It’s not a question of whether or not Tasers will finally be banned, but how much Taser International is going to have to pay for the funerals those weapons cost,” said Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“In truth, it was a tremendous victory, a nail in the coffin of the use of Tasers,” he said. “And eventually, as those awards mount up against the company, against police departments, and against cities, they’ll be forced out of business.”

Marcus Hardin, whose grandson survived a 40-second tasering three years ago, agreed with Tatum’s assessment. “I give them [Taser International] five years,” he said. “Then they’re done.”

Hardin, with Tatum and Pastor Tom Franklin, founded the Taser Memorial at the New Mount Cavalry Baptist Church in Highland Hills. He said the North Carolina verdict “was a long time coming. Unfortunately, the number of people who have died after being shot with a Taser keeps going up. We’re up to 674 crosses at the memorial — and each represents someone who was tortured to death by a Taser.”

Mark Haney, a Fort Worth civil rights attorney who has worked on Taser cases for years, also praised the Turner verdict. “This adverse judgment is simply further evidence that Taser rushed these products to market without fully appreciating the risks associated with them,” he said.

The victory marked only the second loss Taser International has sustained in a courtroom — but most of the cases filed against the company don’t make it to court. Of the almost 130 lawsuits known to have been filed against the company, all but four were settled out of court. In the four that were decided by juries, Taser International has won two and lost two.

Company spokesmen regularly refer to the out-of-court settlements as though they were all wins for Taser.

John Burton, the California attorney who represented plaintiffs in both of the cases in which Taser went to court and lost, scoffed at that idea.

“One of the cases they put in their win column was a case I handled where they settled for $2.8 million before it came to trial,” he said. “So when they say they’ve won 127 cases, that just means they’ve settled out of court most of the time.”

In the North Carolina case, Turner, known generally as a good worker and excellent student, was working at the Food Lion grocery store in North Charlotte on March 20, 2008, when he was approached by an assistant manager who accused him of eating a microwaved sandwich he hadn’t paid for. Turner admitted the petty theft and was sent home for the day. But he returned after his shift was up, demanding to see the assistant manager, who refused to speak with him.

According to Burton, the young man “then pushed some product” from a counter and “threw an umbrella,” at which point a policeman, who had been called to remove Turner from the store, appeared in the doorway and fired his Taser into Turner’s chest at close range twice, the first time for 37 seconds.

The officer, Jerry Dawson, later said that he held the trigger down so long because Turner did not fall when hit. Dawson, a veteran of 15 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department, then fired at Turner a second time for five seconds. That time, Turner went into shock and died without recovering consciousness.

An autopsy by the Charlotte medical examiner found that Turner died from “acute ventricular dysrhythmia, agitated state, stress, and use of conducted energy weapon device (Taser).” In 2010 the city of Charlotte settled with the Turner family for $625,000, while admitting no culpability.

The $10 million judgment against Taser International came in a separate product-liability suit filed by the family.

Burton said he doesn’t think the company will be able to get off without paying damages the way it did in an earlier case that he and co-counsel Peter Williamson won against the weapon maker in 2008.

After the North Carolina verdict, Taser International released information meant to calm fears of investors in the publicly traded company and of law enforcement agencies that use the electronic weapons. Steve Tuttle, the company’s vice president of communications, said Turner had a condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which is responsible for 39 percent of sudden cardiac arrest deaths in people under 21.

“That was a fully fabricated lie,” said Burton. “The Charlotte medical examiner, Thomas Owens, did the autopsy, and he said Turner had a great heart, free from all pathologies, in top shape. But Taser brought in someone from Harvard, Dr. James Stone, who examined some tissue and declared that Turner had HCM. We sent his findings to one of the world’s leading specialists on HCM, and he agreed with Owens, the ME: The kid simply didn’t have it. No enlarged heart, no thickening of ventrical walls, nothing.”

Tuttle’s release also noted that the jury was not told about three baggies of marijuana that were alleged to have been found on Turner. “Under North Carolina law, if someone has acted in a negligent manner that contributed to their damages, even a one percent contribution, they are barred from recovering damages. … The company’s legal council believe that Mr. Turner’s crimes, including theft, trespassing, drug possession, assault on fellow employees, resisting arrest, and initiation of an apparent assault on a law enforcement officer constitute negligent behavior that necessitated the use of force by police.”

“I read that press release and almost threw up,” said Burton. “This was a great kid. Never arrested, first in his class in high school, had applied for college, had a job at 17, didn’t smoke or drink … . Heck, I talked with the manager of the store, and he told me that Turner was a great worker, always on time, and that he had great potential with the company.

“And when I talked with other employees, they said the assistant manager was always unpleasant and routinely unfair. I mean, he [Turner] had eaten some food he hadn’t paid for — right, a 17-year-old in a supermarket job. And look what Taser makes him out to be.”

Both of the cases that Taser International lost in court were based on the premise that the company knew the weapons could be lethal in certain circumstances but did not warn the police departments and public of that.

Shortly after the first of those two cases was decided, the company added a number of warnings in its product package. After Turner’s death, the company added more language, warning that the weapons should not be fired into the chest near the heart.

Hardin sees the change as Taser International’s attempt to throw all responsibility onto law enforcement personnel. “Now when someone dies, Taser is going to say, ‘You were warned not to use the weapon in the chest area,’ or whatever, and that might get them off the hook.”

Burton agreed. The new warnings, he said, could mean that, when more people die after being hit with Tasers, their families “will be going directly after the police departments … for liability.

“The products, Tasers, are simply a lot more dangerous than the company says they are,” Burton said. “They talk about excited delirium killing all these people, as if everyone who dies after being tasered would have dropped dead in minutes anyway, and that’s just not the case.”

EDITORIAL: Zap happy?

July 2, 2011
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

The Taser stun gun has proven to be an effective police alternative to the use of deadly force. Studies document its ability to reduce injuries to both officers and suspects in dozens of cities and counties where it has been deployed. But its safe use requires extensive training and adherence to guidelines to protect both user and target.

As the Chronicle's James Pinkerton reported last week, the use of stun guns by the Harris County Sheriff's Department has frequently diverged from national safety guidelines formulated by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice. Among 621 incidents where Tasers were used by deputies to subdue people from 2009 through early June, Pinkerton documented numerous cases where the application of the 50,000-volt shocks countered the best practices recommendations.

According to the 2011 guidelines, officers should use a Taser for only one cycle, or five seconds, before evaluating whether more shots are needed. According to the DOJ-PERF document, use of one weapon for more than 15 seconds or multiple Taser stuns "may increase the risk of death or serious injury. Any subsequent applications should be independently justifiable, and the risk should be weighed."

In Harris County, deputies stunned 43 suspects three or more times. In 10 incidents, two or more officers used Tasers on a person at the same time. A DWI suspect was Tasered 24 times. In 2006 deputies stunned a mentally ill African-American man, 31-year-old Herman Barnes, 32 times. He subsequently died, and his survivors are suing the county. The Taser manufacturer was dropped from the suit because its training manual for officers included a warning against multiple stuns.

A 17-year-old auto-theft suspect was shocked six times, including a final jolt applied to his groin. That gets us to federal guideline 28: Personnel should not intentionally target sensitive areas (e.g., head, neck, genitalia).

Although the Taser manufacturer warns agencies to avoid applying shocks to the chest because of widespread, and unproven, claims that they can trigger heart attacks, deputies zapped at least 30 people in that area.

Whereas the guidelines advise the use of Tasers only when suspects are actively aggressive or resisting arrest, deputies stunned 79 suspects who were passive or verbally aggressive, including some who were fleeing. According to the guidelines, fleeing should not be the sole justification for stunning suspects, because of the risk of serious injury.

In spite of all these incidents where the use of Tasers seems questionable, only one county deputy has been disciplined, and in that 2005 case it was because the officer hadn't informed superiors that he had stunned a suspect.

Sheriff Adrian Garcia responded to Pinkerton's story by claiming that the department "gives grave consideration and attention" to the federal guidelines. He cited the acknowledgment in the federal report that guidelines are flexible and subject to modification in particular circumstances. There's a huge difference between Sheriff's Department deputies being flexible in specific circumstances and blatantly ignoring safety rules for Taser use outlined by both the federal government and equipment vendors.

Multiple stuns applied in numerous cases, including shocking a teenager's genital area, don't strike us as flexible law enforcement. Words like "inhumane" and "irresponsible" come to mind. The fact that no officer has even been reprimanded in these incidents is an indication that much tighter supervision of county Taser use is needed.

Report Shreds Argument Tasers Result in Less Use of Lethal Force by Arizona Police

June 29, 2011
Kevin Gosztola, Fire Dog Lake

ACLU of Arizona Report Finds Arizona Law Enforcement Lacks Guidelines for Taser Use on Children & Pregnant Women

Law enforcement and correctional agencies in Arizona, the state where TASER International has its corporate headquarters, often use Tasers “preemptively” against citizens, according to a recent ACLU of Arizona report. Even if citizens do not present an imminent safety threat to officers, officers will use the Taser. They’ll also use it “offensively as a pain compliance tool,” a use TASER International anticipates in its training material and agency policies.

The report, which the ACLU of Arizona claims is the “most comprehensive survey of Taser use by law enforcement agencies in Arizona to date,” illuminates the following key findings: Tasers are widespread among law enforcement, providing officers with Tasers does not guarantee lower levels of use of lethal force, officers often receive inconsistent guidance on when it’s appropriate to use a Taser, agencies lack clear guidance on Taser safety including the use of Tasers against vulnerable populations, law enforcement is too reliant on TASER International for training and agencies lack data collection and other mechanisms for monitoring Taser use.

The ACLU of Arizona recommends the implementation of a “strong accountability mechanism” for Taser use that would include data collection. It suggests law enforcement re-assess where the use of a Taser should be on the “use-of-force continuum.” Furthermore, it calls for more regular training on Taser use and the establishment of a statewide body to review Taser use and develop policies and training resources for law enforcement.

The finding that Taser proponents are completely off when they argue in favor of Tasers because deployment of lethal force will decline is perhaps the most significant finding of the report. The report calls attentions to the fact that “TASER’s marketing campaign has always been that Tasers are a safe alternative to the use of lethal force. Indeed, the company’s slogan, ‘Saving Lives Every Day,’ is emblazoned on its corporate headquarters in Scottsdale.”

Taser shocks have most often been used in the place of “less-lethal uses of force, such as baton strikes, chemical sprays, and the like” and situations when “situations where lethal force would not be justified (i.e., in the absence of an immediate threat to officer or public safety).”

After completing an analysis of Phoenix Police Department use-of-force reports, The Arizona Republic found 377 incidents involving the use of a Taser. In nearly nine out of ten of the incidents, the subjects had posed no imminent threat to officers with any weapons. For example: “A shoplifter who stole four cans of soup from a Food City, and fled on a bike who was shocked as officers dragged him to the ground; a 15-year-old boy at Alhambra High School who was shocked in the back as officers attempted to arrest him on a marijuana charge; and an intoxicated man who ignored commands to leave a bar and was shocked in the back as he walked away.”

ACLU of Arizona notes TASER International has insisted its weapons are “non-lethal.” A file released by LulzSecurity, a computer hacker group that recently released data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, shows since the release of an October 12 training bulletin from TASER International, law enforcement has been aware they should not be aiming Tasers at any person’s chest.

In the bulletin, TASER International suggests the 50,000-volt weapon could possibly lead to someone going into cardiac arrest. Officers in Phoenix adopted the new guidelines immediately, although Mark Spencer of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association did not initially instruct line officers on the development. Instead, Spencer only had praise for Tasers as he said, “It really minimizes harm, not only to officers but to suspects.”

TASER International, after issuing the bulletin, worked to spin the findings saying, “We have not stated that the Taser causes (cardiac) events in this bulletin, only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this topic.”

To the question of whether law enforcement could still deploy a TASER into a subject’s chest, TASER’s position was that officers should not “intentionally” target “when possible.” The recommendation, according to TASER, would go a long way toward “reducing risk management issues and avoiding litigation.” (What, in emails released by LulzSec, could be characterized as a policy of CYA.)

The TASER weapon’s propellant was changed from gunpowder to nitrogen in 1994, according to the ACLU report. This allowed TASER International to escape regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and made it possible to “aggressively market the weapon as an alternative to lethal force” and escape testing of the product by the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

Vulnerable people, such as children, elderly, pregnant women and those with heart problems, are widely understood to be at risk of death or injury if they are subjected to the voltage of a Taser. The ACLU report shows the alarming reality that much of Arizona law enforcement lacks guidelines on what to do if faced with a “vulnerable” person.

Ten agencies were found to be silent whether to Tase pregnant women. Only four agencies explicitly ban tasing pregnant women. Twelve agencies were found to be silent on the tasing of children or the elderly. Only one agency explicitly prohibited tasing young or elderly people. And, eleven out of ten agencies had no policy on using a Taser on a subject multiple times, an action that has been seen as a key factor behind ECW-induced deaths.

Of particular interest to those who have followed the story of the SB1070 law and the issue of immigration in Arizona is the fact that Maricopa County, where the anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in charge, has developed no policies or guidelines on when and when not to deploy a Taser in high-risk situations. Maricopa County is the only police department with over 500 sworn officers that did not offer its own training in addition to TASER International’s training. This is especially troubling given the fact that an Amnesty International 127-page report found Maricopa County had the highest number of reported deaths from Taser use in the United States.

Taser use has been posing increased liability for law enforcement. As of September 2010, five deaths from Taser use were occurring on average each month.

Courts have found Tasers constitute the use of “excessive force” and thus violate the Fourth Amendment, provided the Taser was used in an instance when its deployment was unjustified. Victims of Taser use can seek compensation but only if an agency’s use guidelines are deficient and if training is so poor that it could be considered “deliberately indifferent.

Memphis, Tennessee, San Francisco, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, have all opted to ban the use of Tasers.

To date, ACLU’s work on Taser use has been mostly on a state-by-state basis without a federal campaign. The report clearly demonstrates the risks posed by Tasers. More importantly, it shows the growing private influence of TASER International and how law enforcement has become dependent on using Tasers to make police work much easier, even if that means putting a person at risk of death or injury and violating the rights of an individual.

[A side note: A Los Angeles City Council voted in May 2010 to bar official travel to Arizona and consider the termination of contracts with businesses as part of a boycott in response to the SB1070 law. The Council made one exception: it would not cut off business with TASER International because, according to a councilman, “various local public safety agencies need its stun guns and no other company can provide the service satisfactorily.]