After deadly encounters, sheriff might limit Taser use
Proposed policy changes: limit of 3 activations, ‘risk of death’ warning
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office is considering changing its use-of-force policies to limit when deputies can shock suspects with Tasers and how many times they can use the weapons.
Three people died in the county after being shocked with Tasers during encounters with police and sheriff’s deputies last year. Amid scrutiny of the use of the weapon, the Sheriff’s Office may also add a warning to its policies that Tasers can be deadly.
Police reform advocates and some residents have criticized the Sheriff’s Office over the death of Chinedu Okobi, a 36-year-old who died in October after a deputy repeatedly shocked him with a Taser during an arrest in Millbrae. Okobi’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in May against San Mateo
County and the five sheriff’s deputies involved in Okobi’s arrest.
Proposed changes to the Sheriff’s Office use of force and Taser policies would direct deputies to stop using their Tasers after a suspect has been shocked three times.
The policy tells deputies that the Taser “shall be deemed ineffective and another use of force option will be considered” if a subject continues to resist arrest after three “activations” of five seconds each.
Such a limit would put the Sheriff’s Office policy in line with recommendations from the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington think tank that advises law enforcement on best practices and wrote in 2011 that Tasers shouldn’t be used for more than 15 seconds.
“Their steps are in line with what many departments have recognized,” the forum’s executive director, Chuck Wexler, said of San
Mateo County’s proposed new policy. “There have to be limitations.”
Taser policies vary across the Bay Area. The San Jose Police Department recommends the same limit of three five-second activations; the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office does not cap the number of times a Taser can be used, a spokesman said, though it has limited the circumstances when it can be used. San Francisco police officers and Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies do not carry Tasers, though there have been long-running debates at each department over whether and how to use the weapons.
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office shared a copy of its draft policy changes with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and this news organization.
The proposed policy also would only allow deputies to use a Taser on a person who is “violently resisting” arrest or physically harming someone else. That language, requested by the ACLU, is a higher bar than the current policy, which allows deputies to deploy their Tasers in response to “active resistance.”
New language in the policy would also warn that repeated or continuous shock from a Taser “has been observed to be associated with the risk of death or serious injury and should be avoided whenever possible.”
And the proposed revisions state that the Sheriff’s Office’s highest priority is “safeguarding the life, dignity and liberty of all persons.”
Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, who will ultimately decide whether to adopt the revisions, told the county’s board of supervisors Tuesday that the changes have not been finalized. But Bolanos said his office is planning to hold new training for deputies once the revised policy is in place.
“I want to acknowledge the community’s concern, and I remain committed to providing my staff with the best training possible and best equipment available to safely serve the public,” Bolanos told the board.
The supervisors on Tuesday signaled their support for the policy, but did not take a formal vote, according to Bill Silverfarb, a spokesman for District 5 Supervisor David Canepa.
“It’s a move that may potentially save lives with an emphasis put on de-escalation,” Canepa said in a statement.
Tasers have long been touted as a way for police to get control of suspects who are resisting arrest or who pose a threat to officers, without resorting to lethal force.
But San Mateo County officials have directed a more critical eye toward officers’ use of the weapon following three fatal arrests last year. Before Okobi’s death, 34-year-old Warren Ragudo died after being shocked by Daly City police during an arrest in January 2018. Ramzi Saad, 55, died after an August 2018 arrest during which Redwood City police used a Taser on him. In all three cases, San Mateo County District Attorney Steven Wagstaffe cleared the officers involved of any criminal wrongdoing.
Zian Tseng, a UC San Francisco cardiologist who has studied deaths involving Tasers, said changing the guidelines to limit the use of a Taser to three activations seemed like a matter of “rearranging small details,” because fewer shocks can still be deadly under certain circumstances.
More significant, Tseng said, was the warning about long or repeated shocks. Officers are aware that their guns can be deadly weapons, he said, but they should have the same mindset about using their Taser.
“The first and the most important message in any policy is that can cause cardiac arrest, and to always have that awareness in your mind,” Tseng said.
The proposed changes the Sheriff’s Office is considering would appear to prohibit how the deputy involved in Okobi’s Oct. 3 arrest used his Taser.
Okobi was shocked four times during the arrest, which began when Deputy Joshua Wang saw Okobi jaywalking on El Camino Real. Okobi kept walking away when Wang asked to stop and talk with him, then resisted deputies as they tried to arrest him in a struggle that lasted several minutes.
Wang tried to activate his Taser a total of seven times during the arrest, according to Wagstaffe. Taser records show Okobi received three shocks of five seconds each, and then a fourth shock lasting one second before the weapon stopped delivering a charge.
Deputies eventually got Okobi into handcuffs but later noticed he had stopped breathing. A coroner’s report found Okobi died from cardiac arrest and cited the Taser shocks among the factors in his death.
The Sheriff’s Office recently began outfitting its squad cars with automated external defibrillators.
In a June letter to Chief Deputy County Counsel David Silberman, ACLU of Northern California Criminal Justice Project Director Lizzie Buchen applauded the proposed limit of three activations and the language about protecting lives. Local ACLU officials declined an interview request about the proposed changes.
In addition to raising the standard for resistance that can justify a Taser, the Sheriff’s Office also adopted an ACLU recommendation that deputies be told to aim the weapon at suspects’ back and lower torso when possible. Tseng, the cardiologist, and the ACLU said deputies should be warned against aiming at suspects’ chest, since that can increase the risk of a fatal shock.
Buchen wrote that the policy should also warn deputies about the danger of shocking people who are mentally ill. Each of the three men who died in San Mateo County last year after being subjected to the use of force by Tasers had struggled with mental health issues.