New bill works to limit Taser: Critics want to ban weapon at schools

Tallahassee.com
Oct. 16, 2005

Tallahassee Police Chief Walt McNeil and the powerful chairmen of two legislative committees have worked out a proposed law limiting law-enforcement use of electronic darts that stun suspects into submission.

The new bill by Sen. Stephen Wise and Rep. Dick Kravitz would allow cops to zap a suspect when a confrontation escalates from angry shouting or "passive" resistance to physical fighting or running away. And before firing the Taser, an officer would have to determine that the suspect had the strength or the weaponry to inflict real damage.

The plan doesn't go far enough to satisfy Sens. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, and Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, who would like to ban Tasers from school grounds. They also want to mandate weeks of training for law-enforcement officers in the use of electronic devices and other disabling techniques, as well as recognition of drug or alcohol impairment and mental derangement.

Competing plans

Siplin said he and Hill will pursue their bills in the 2006 session, despite the long odds against competing with the Taser plan sponsored by the chairmen of the House and Senate criminal-justice committees - both Jacksonville Republicans whose party dominates the Legislature.

Wise said Tasers might have prevented the recent televised beating of a New Orleans man, a case that got three police officers suspended and charged with battery. The 64-year-old man, who police said was drunk in the French Quarter, was repeatedly punched by two officers. A TV news producer was grabbed and shoved by a third officer.

"When you look at weapons and you look at the nightstick and the pepper spray, I think the Taser is going to protect the person being apprehended from being shot or beaten to a pulp," Wise said. "Look what happened in Louisiana. If they had a Taser and had a problem with him, and he was a threat, then you Taser him and handcuff him - rather than beat the tar out of the guy."

The bill (SB 214) would require four hours of training in electronic weaponry for all police officers, with one-hour updates each year.

On the eve of this year's legislative session, a rookie Leon County sheriff's deputy used his Taser on a Marine reservist - an innocent bystander in a domestic dispute who just days earlier had returned from a military deployment in Africa. The deputy also charged the Marine with resisting arrest without violence .

Once the incident was made public, the deputy resigned, the charges were dropped and Sheriff Larry Campbell publicly apologized.

The city was sued last summer in federal court by a man who said he suffered irreversible impotence and loss of bladder control after a policewoman shot him in the groin with a Taser. There have been public protests at school boards and city or county commission meetings over Taser policy in several cities in Florida and across the nation, with critics claiming the electric jolt is potentially deadly - and law-enforcement leaders saying it's better than a blow from a nightstick, or a bullet.

"What's being proposed in the Legislature is our departmental policy," McNeil said. "The goal is for those of us in law enforcement to have the tools to protect the lives of our officers, and at the same time give some structure and uniformity to the use of these stun guns."

McNeil said 60 of his 357 officers - mostly those in jobs likely to involve face-to-face confrontation with suspects - now carry Tasers. He said more will be issued as every officer undergoes training.

Sheriff Larry Campbell said about 350 of his 650 employees carry Tasers. He said injuries to officers have declined 40 percent since agencies began using the stun weapons.

"I've known some cases where a deputy would have been justified in pulling his gun but had confidence in the Taser and used that," said Campbell, who has had himself zapped with the device as a test. "It's not something you want to do for fun, but it's better than a gun."

More than 7,200 police, prison and military agencies nationwide use Tasers, which fire two small darts with electric wires carrying up to 26 watts of electricity. The recipient of a shock normally loses muscle control long enough to be subdued and handcuffed.

But Hill said many deaths have been attributed to electric darts. He also said young black men are hit with a jolt much more often than other suspects - sometimes, while a confrontation is still at the verbal stage.

"Praise the Lord that we're going to have some people trained, but it's not going to take the place of a humane policy," Hill said. "Where is the sensitivity training? A lot of people getting Tazed have mental problems, or drug and alcohol addictions. We need to get some kind of a health study of the effects of the Taser on the heart and lungs."

The pending bill provides that police training "must include the effect a dart-firing stun gun has on persons under the influence of alcohol or drugs."