After shooting, Axon defends Tasers’ design

Axon Enterprise, the Scottsdalebased maker of Taser weapons, was thrust into the headlines again following the shooting death of a Black motorist this week, but the company insists the stun-gun devices have several notable features that make them hard to confuse with firearms.

Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center released bodycam footage of officer Kim Potter shouting, “I’ll Tase you,” and repeating, “Taser!” several times during the confrontation with Daunte Wright.

Potter instead fatally shot him with her handgun.

The city’s police chief, Tim Gannon, called the shooting an “accidental discharge.”

Both he and Potter resigned, and Potter,

a 26-year white police veteran and training officer, was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Not the first such incident

In a response to questions from The Arizona Republic, Axon acknowledged that similar situations have happened before among the thousands of police agencies that use Taser stun guns and body cameras on a daily basis.

“Although very rare, there have been isolated incidents of an officer accidentally using their firearm instead of their Taser energy weapon,” the company said in a prepared statement. “However, like all use-of-force weapons, (Tasers) are not risk-free.”

Axon said it has built in numerous features and made many training recommendations over the years to reduce the possibility of such mistakes.

“This includes building Taser energy weapons to look and feel different than a firearm,” the company said. “A Taser device has a different grip and feel, and is lighter than a firearm.”

In addition, the stun guns are a different color, yellow, while firearms are black, the company added, and an LED control panel lights up when the safety latch is taken off.

Also, Tasers are kept in holsters that are separate from an officer’s gun holster.

Corporate focus on safety

Axon’s corporate aims include saving lives, improving police practices and making bullets “obsolete.”

Still, accidental firings of handguns mistaken for Tasers have happened before. The New York Times this week said it reviewed 15 other cases over the past 20 years of officers apparently confusing their stun guns for firearms, two of them fatal.

The article noted the difficulty in prosecuting police when claiming accidental shootings, with only three officers convicted in those cases.

Axon, one of Arizona’s most visible and valuable corporations, has sold stun guns and body cameras to more than 18,000 law-enforcement agencies.

Increasingly, it has broadened its reach to many other products and services, including sensors, record-management and evidence-collection systems, dispatch services and drones.

It also has expanded to consumer, military, medical response, criminal justice, border patrol and other markets.