Police receive shipment of tasers
Authorities are often accused of abusing the use of taser guns to torture prisoners or detainees by applying it to sensitive body parts. And today the Belize Police Department announced that it has acquired a number of tasers but that their use will be closely monitored. What’s more, there will be strict accountability. And to help officers better understand the use of the device, the Department offered a two-day course to police officers. The taser is not a deadly device and as we learnt from the instructor, Mario Knapp of the Miami Dade Police Department, it can be used in two ways; with two needle-like projectiles that can be deployed from as far away as twenty-one feet, or with electricity applied straight to the body in a face to face confrontation. But why does the Department need tasers in the first place and how will it ensure that officers do not abuse its use? Assistant Commissioner of Police, Crispin Jeffries, answered our questions.
Crispin Jeffries, Assistant Commissioner of Police
“The Police Department has encountered a number of incidences where police officers use lethal force resulting in the death of certain persons over the last two to three years. A decision was taken in 2007 and by mid 2008 we purchased a shipment of tasers and that is presently in the country to be used and deployed nationally.”
Marion Ali
“As far as the issue of abuse comes in, how are you going to ensure that that doesn’t happen?”
A.S.P. Crispin Jeffries
“The people you saw in the training room just now are persons who are either trainers or will be trained as handlers. It is these persons that will be given specific tasks as to account to how they deploy the taser. Each cartridge has a serial number and they will have to account for that every time it is issued or when it is used.”
Mario Knapp, Senior Master Instructor
“There’s no way you can really abuse this without the Department knowing that it’s being used. This is the only device—and anyone can correct me if I’m wrong—in any type of police tool that’s ever been invented that has the accountability that this has. And when I say that I mean that every single time I pull this trigger there is a stamp on there when I handle this device and it can tell me exactly what day, what time, what minute to the second of when I pull the trigger and not only that but how long the duration lasts. An example is this will show that I held it on this day, at this time, at this minute, at this second, and I held it for one second. Now if I did this … that’s what you call the five second cycle. The download will show that I held it at that time, at that minute, at that second for five seconds. So there’s really no way to abuse it. Another accountability measure that it has is that, unlike every other weapon that police has, every single cartridge has a serial number. So what I’m trying to tell you is if there is a cartridge attached to it and an officer uses it or misuses it and it blows the cartridge, there is twenty, thirty what we call anti-felony identification tags that basically look like little pieces of confetti. And those little pieces of confetti fly out, they’re all different colours designed to mix in with the environment and each one of those has the serial number repeatedly on each of those confetti tags. So there’s really no way that an officer can abuse it without the department knowing that it was used that day and that it was deployed without there being something left on the scene showing that the taser device was deployed.”
A.S.P. Crispin Jeffries
“The misuse of the taser, when it is not justified, we will know when it is deployed and we will look at the circumstances when it is used. A person can misuse the taser if he repeats the five seconds discharge on a person once the projectors are embedded in the person. So it is maybe sufficient for the officer to use one or two or three five seconds burst but if we see an officer using eight, nine ten, then that again will indicate to us that there’s an abuse. As you were earlier shown, the taser has built in information system that we can download and know when it was deployed, how it was deployed and whether it was abused or multiple discharges.”
Marion Ali
“Is it for confessions, information and things like that?”
A.S.P. Crispin Jeffries
“I don’t think the taser will be used for those purposes; that is not the intention. We’ve had a number of mental cases where the police had to fire live ammunition at them and we don’t want to go that way. But we will have to build up on the supply of tasers before we can say that the department can use this level of non-lethal as compared to what we’re using right now.”
Mario Knapp
“If I have a robbery subject and I know I have to take him into custody and the robbery subject goes like this and pulls out a broom stick and is offering resistance to the officer, he can get hit with the device and knocked down and it will last five seconds. The officer will have to determine after those five seconds, he will sit there and assess whether he needs to hit him again. That will obviously, depend on the subjects reaction. If the subject, the moment he recovers, grabs the broom stick again and starts to stand up, the officer still has the control to be able to hit a second time. But if the subject decides to stay on the ground and says okay I’ll put my hands behind my back then obviously we recommend that you kick the stick and handcuff him and that’s all you needed to use.”
But how safe is the taser gun? Knapp says everyone, even heart patients, can be subjected to a taser shock.
Mario Knapp
“Most of the medical studies that have been conducted have show that the biggest risk in a taser use is really the fall. So as far as the electrical impulses, it’s not gonna really affect you, it doesn’t affect the heart, it doesn’t affect anything. All it really does is it causes in voluntary muscle contraction to the point where you’re most likely gonna fall. So what ends up happening is the injuries that we see are not really directly related to the electrical impulse, but they are directly related to the fall due to the electrical impulse. So it’s not the electricity that’s hurting the person, it’s that the person can no longer move, they can’t hold their balance and they fall. So you may see an injury like the person may land their wrist, land on their elbows, land on their knee. Sometimes in some cases, land on their face and those are generally the injuries that are associated with taser devices.”
[Demonstrations of taser with and without projectors]
“There’s nowhere on the body even in medical studies that has been placed to purposely tend to affect the heart, there is no indication that it can. And the reason why is because the impulse is so small. The amperage associated with the taser is 0.0021 and you gotta remember that a cardiac defibrillator is made to withstand anywhere between one hundred and fifty to four hundred volts and that is with a pacemaker inside. So the 0.0021 amps is not even enough to affect someone that is wearing a pacemaker. It’s not enough to do it. There are no long-lasting effects. So basically what it looks like is you go like this and when it turns off you come right back and relaxed again.”
Jeffries says ideal situations when tasers will be used are in cases of riots, violent domestic abuse, hostage situations, and where the perpetrator is a violent mental patient. Thirty-five officers have taken part in the training sessions.
