Taser changes name, will give body cams to all cops in the U.S. for a year

Taser International, the company behind ubiquitous shock devices carried by law enforcement officers nationwide, announced last week that it was changing its name as part of a shift toward focusing on body cameras worn by police.

To underscore that change, Taser said it was taking on a new corporate name - Axon Enterprise - drawn from the Axon cameras the company produces, rather than the controversial electric devices, which can deliver a painful shock to a small area or temporarily incapacitate someone.

As part of last week’s announcement, the company said it planned to try to equip every police officer in the United States with a body camera.

“We believe these cameras are more than just tools to protect communities and the officers who serve them,” Rick Smith, the company’s chief executive and founder, said in a statement. “They also hold the potential to change police work as we know it, by seamlessly collecting an impartial record and reducing the need for endless paperwork.”

In a trial offer, Taser says it would give every sworn officer a free camera along with online data storage, training and support for a year. After that trial period, the police departments would either send back the cameras or buy them.

The company still plans to RIGHT: A Taser X26 sits on a table in Knightstown, Ind. sell Tasers, though, which Smith called “one of our flagship products.” According to the company, these devices are used by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in more than 100 countries - the vast majority of them departments in the United States - and have saved more than 180,000 people from death or serious injury.

The devices have also long been controversial. Smith, the company’s chief executive, told the Huffington Post that the Taser name “can be a little polarizing.”

In a 2015 investigation, The Washington Post found that about one person per week died that year in incidents where Tasers were used. While a link between the Tasers and those deaths was not clear, Tasers were mentioned in at least a dozen cases as one factor on the autopsy

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MICHAEL CONROY — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO