Stun guns are not less-than lethal weapons: Australians will die after being shocked by stun guns, CLA’s Bill Rowlings said this week. He was commenting on detailed analysis of 334 deaths after stun gun use in the USA in just over seven years. Amnesty International says that ‘conducted energy devices’ (stun guns) are ‘potentially lethal and open to abuse’.
Tasers ‘will kill Australians’
BY DAVID CURRY
21/12/2008 10:02:00 AM
AUSTRALIANS will die as a result of being shocked by a Taser, Civil Liberties Australia says, as reports from Amnesty International and the NSW Ombudsman raise concerns about the dangers and potential misuse of the weapon by police.
Civil Liberties Australia chief executive Bill Rowlings said Amnesty’s report, USA: Less than lethal?, showed Tasers were not ”less-than-lethal” as they were often described.
”They can be lethal weapons. The problem is you don’t know when they’re going to be lethal. The police have no way of knowing whether the person is being influenced by prescription drugs, by heart arrhythmia, or whatever,” he said.
”Undoubtedly, people will die in Australia as the result of the use of these weapons.”
The Amnesty report says more than 330 people in the United States are reported to have died after being struck by police Tasers. The human rights organisation also says that in at least 50 cases, coroners are reported to have listed the Taser as a cause or contributory factor in the death.
But Minister for ACT Policing Simon Corbell said the Amnesty report used data from the US, where Tasers were widely distributed among front-line police and in prisons. He did not accept the description of Tasers as ”less lethal weapons”.
”A Taser is not designed to kill somebody, in the same way that capsicum spray and batons are not designed to kill somebody. [That’s] in contrast to a handgun, which is clearly designed to potentially kill somebody.”
He said any use of force that ”occurs inappropriately” carried risks and could result in death.
The Taser delivers a 50,000-volt, low-power charge of electricity that immobilises the person struck. The weapons have been in use since 2004 in the ACT, but have been restricted to the Special Response and Security teams.
ACT Policing says Tasers have been used 15 times to shock people in the ACT. Four of those were in ‘stun gun’ mode – when a Taser must be held directly against a person to deliver a painful shock, in what is sometimes described as ‘pain compliance’ because the person may already be restrained.
In a report on Tasers tabled in the NSW Parliament in November, the Ombudsman expressed concern about the use of stun gun mode. When Tasers were rolled out to senior officers in 80 commands across NSW, four out of the first five uses were in stun mode.
”This rings alarm bells for me, as we are already seeing a completely different type of use by general-duties officers,” the Ombudsman said.
Mr Rowlings said stun gun mode tended to be used for compliance because it could only be used close to somebody, ”and normally in those situations the person is restrained in some way”.
But Mr Corbell said pain compliance was not part of the approach adopted by police in the ACT. He said there were very clear orders issued by the AFP Commissioner governing the use of force, which included the use of Tasers.
”I’m confident those orders make it clear that the use of force is viewed as a last resort, where negotiation and conflict de-escalation have proven to be unsuccessful,” he said.
He said there were no plans to extend the use of Tasers beyond the Special Response and Security team.
The Police Federation of Australia has called on all state governments to arm front-line police officers with Tasers, following the shooting death earlier this month of 15-year old Tyler Cassidy in Victoria.
But Australian Federal Police Association chief executive Jim Torr said he did not want the ACT arrangements changed.
”We are satisfied with the AFP’s current utilisation of Tasers,” he said.
Note: CLA’s spokesperson Bill Rowlings said stun guns would kill Australians: he did not mention the name of a particular brand of stun gun.
Taser, the shocking solution
BY DAVID CURRY
21/12/2008 10:37:00 AM
THIS MONTH a 15-year-old Melbourne teenager died in a hail of police bullets. According to the Victoria Police, Tyler Cassidy confronted four police officers with two large knives, telling them, ”Kill me, I’m going to kill you”, in what some commentators have described as ”suicide by cop”. A warning shot was fired, and when Tyler showed no sign of surrendering, three police opened fire, killing him within seconds.
The shooting has again stirred up debate on the use of Tasers as an alternative to firearms. Melissa Kennedy, the widow of a Shepparton man shot dead by police in 2005, joined calls from police weapons experts and the Police Federation of Australia for the distribution of Tasers to frontline police. If the police had used a Taser instead of firearms, the argument goes, Tyler might still be alive.
Taser is the registered trademark of a device that belongs in a class of weapons commonly known as conducted energy devices. The Taser is a small, pistol-shaped weapon that shoots two darts which attach to the target’s skin or clothing and remain connected to the Taser by two thin wires about 10 metres long. Pulling the trigger delivers short pulses of high-voltage (50,000 volts), low-power electricity that cause involuntary muscle spasms, incapacitating the person on the receiving end.
Tasers can also be used as a stun gun, in which they are applied directly to the skin or clothing as a ”pain compliance” tool.
The Taser may well become what the United States Department of Justice calls the ”less-lethal weapon of choice”. They are in use or being tested by more than 11,000 law enforcement and correctional agencies in the US, and in 40 countries around the world.
The Australian Federal Police’s Deputy ACT Police Officer (Response), Commander Leanne Close, says Tasers provide a ”less-than-lethal” option.
”Once the Taser stops [being used], there are no further issues or injuries to the person and no long-lasting effects. The Taser provides another option, rather than having to resort to lethal force where people might have weapons,” she says.
Close says Tasers are more reliable than capsicum spray, which can be ineffective on people who are heavily intoxicated or having a psychotic episode. There are also circumstances in which capsicum spray would not be used, such as when it might affect bystanders or other police.
Australian Federal Police Association chief executive Jim Torr says the main appeal of the Taser is that police can rely on them to have the desired effect.
”Many trials have shown and our own delegates have volunteered to be subject to Tasers the immediate incapacitating capabilities of the Taser. The evidence suggests that even the strongest, most drug-affected, angriest individual intent on doing the most harm finds it impossible to overcome the debilitating effects of the Taser,” he says.
He also says the Taser is far less likely to cause injury than a baton, and that most people ”quickly recover” from its application.
The federal police introduced the X26 Taser for members of the Specialist Response and Security team in November 2004. It was trialled for six months, and then for a further 12 because the device had not been used. Following the trial, six Tasers were made a permanent option but only for the special response team.
Close says since their introduction into the ACT, Tasers have been ”used” drawn, drawn and aimed, used in stun mode, or probes fired a total of 55 times. Probes have been fired on 14 occasions (three times against dogs), and stun mode used four times. She says there have been no injuries or deaths in the ACT as a result of their use.
Tasers have been used in at least one situation in the ACT involving knives. ”It was deployed successfully [to resolve a situation] where a person had a knife to the throat of another person,” Commander Close says.
Tasers are often described as ”less-than-lethal” (the US Justice Department sometimes uses ”less lethal”). Amnesty International added a question mark for the name of a report, Less than lethal?, released last week, in which it expresses grave concerns about the dangers and potential for misuse of Tasers.
The report said that, since 2001, 334 people had died in the US after being struck by police Tasers, and 25 in Canada. The human rights organisation says coroners are reported to have listed the Taser as ”a cause or contributory factor” in death in at least 50 cases. After analysing the data, Amnesty highlighted several high-risk groups and situations for Taser use, including:
People who are highly agitated or disturbed and/or under the influence of stimulant drugs.
People subject to prolonged shocks (the standard Taser pulse is five seconds but this can be extended for the life of the battery 10 minutes or more if the trigger is held).
People struck in the chest (according to Amnesty, some cardiac experts suggest this increases the risk of disturbing the heart rhythm).
The report contains some disturbing case studies. One is about 21-year-old Baron Pikes, an unarmed man who received six Taser shocks while lying handcuffed on the ground in Winnfield, Louisiana. He was shocked again in the squad car on the way the police station, and died of a cardiac arrest shortly after. The police had shocked him a total of nine times.
Amnesty recommends that governments either suspend the use of Tasers pending further tests, or ”set a very high threshold for their use, with rigorous training and accountability systems”.
Earlier this year the US Department of Justice conducted its own study into Taser-related deaths. In its interim report, the department said ”the purported safety margins of CED deployment on normal healthy adults may not be applicable to small children, those with diseased hearts, those who are pregnant and other at-risk individuals. The effects … are not clearly understood and more data are needed”.
Close is aware of the risks associated with Tasers. She says police in the special response team are given ”significant training”, which includes being struck by a Taser, and must re-qualify each year. Police are taught to be ”environmentally aware” so that, if possible, a person struck by the Taser doesn’t fall in a place where they are likely to receive serious injuries, such as on broken glass or near a long drop.
One argument against Tasers is that their use by police may become routine, as some have argued has already occurred with capsicum spray. In its 2007 report to the US Justice Department on Tasers, Amnesty International said ”the vast majority of people who have died after being struck by Tasers have been unarmed men who did not pose a threat of death or serious injury when they were electro-shocked”.
Closer to home, the case of Canberra watch-house sergeant John Birch perhaps serves as a warning of how Tasers might be misused by police. During 2006 Birch used capsicum foam, twice as potent as capsicum spray, on drunken detainees who posed no threat to him or his staff, while being videotaped and watched by other police. In 2007 he pleaded guilty to nine counts of administering injurious substances to cause pain and discomfort.
Associate Professor Colleen Lewis, a criminologist at Monash University, says Tasers ”aren’t the answer” to the kind of situation that led to Tyler’s death, pointing to the need for better police training on how to cordon and contain volatile situations. She too is concerned about what she calls ”mission creep”.
”Rather than being the absolute exception, police would go for the Taser too readily,” she says.
”That’s one of the concerns about Tasers that it can be used in inappropriate conditions. But you’re giving police that tool, so how then are you going to ensure it’s used appropriately?”
Tasers aren’t the ”cure-all” for the Australian Federal Police Association, either, but for different reasons. Torr points out that you only get one shot with a Taser, and if you miss, ”you’ve just made the person angrier”. He says that there will always be situations where police have to use lethal force.
”Our ultimate goal is the preservation of life,” Torr says.
”But preservation of life means certainty in taking action, when action is appropriate.
”We see [the] Taser as having a lot of potential utility, particularly where there are a number of officers involved … [but] we don’t ever want to get into a situation where the Taser replaces the firearm.”