Legal Commentary

Needed: New Taser Policies

By TChris

TalkLeft has frequently called attention to the dangers that inhere in police officers' reliance on Tasers. This policy on the deployment of Tasers in Gwinnett County, Georgia is typical in its authorization of Taser deployment "to control a non-compliant subject." The video of this tasering, intended to induce a non-compliant driver to get off her cellphone and exit her vehicle after a traffic stop, should be all that is needed to convince policy-makers that tasering is, in most situations, a needlessly cruel way to control the non-compliant.

In addition to inflicting unnecessary pain, Tasers can be deadly. The Gwinnett County policy accurately refers to the Taser as a "less-lethal" weapon rather than a nonlethal weapon. Residents of Jerseyville, Illinois learned just how lethal the Taser can be following the death by tasering of Roger Holyfield. The police confronted Holyfield as he was walking down the sidewalk carrying a Bible and shouting "I want Jesus." They may have given him his wish.

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The officers shot Holyfield at least twice with a Taser, once after he disobeyed their instructions and again when (according to the officers) he struggled with them. Holyfield's mother, who just settled a civil suit against Jerseyville, says her son was tasered while handcuffed and face down.

A special prosecutor decided that the officers may have used bad judgment, but committed no crime.

Chuck Colburn ruled that the officers "acted in a manner that they had been taught was a safe way to use the instrument," and that they did not possess the mental state or recklessness to be held criminally responsible.

"They followed policy" was a sufficient finding to assure city government that its officers had done nothing wrong. The next question, then, is whether there's something wrong with the policy.

This post at the Tales of a Public Defender Investigator blog asks "why we citizens continue to allow [excrement] like this to go on." It also quotes a MySpace post by one of Roger's friends, expressing her understandable anger at his unnecessary death. Sadly, her prediction that the officers who killed Roger "WILL be punished" turned out to be naive.

As TalkLeft reported here, Amnesty International USA has called upon police agencies to suspend their use of Tasers. If they won't take that step, the city councils and county boards and state legislatures that control the police agencies should at least implement restrictions on Taser use that recognize the potential lethality of Tasers. Potentially deadly force should never be used as a compliance tool against unarmed individuals who pose no immediate threat.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 04, 2009 (boomark / email).