Why is the Taser controversial?

Give police ‘verbal judo’ instead: expert

How does a Taser work?

According to Steve Tuttle, spokesman for Taser International, the company that produces and sells the conducted energy weapon and recorded $114 million in revenue last year, the flagship product in use in Canada is the Taser X26, a product he said isn’t the “latest and greatest” the company has to offer.

The hand-held device is drawn from its holster. The operator will turn the safety off, activating the system and prompting an LED light and laser to turn on.

A police officer, if aiming the Taser, must issue a verbal command. If the person doesn’t comply, the operator may press the trigger, igniting an electrical spark inside the weapon that opens a capsule of compressed nitrogen that then quickly forces out two probes attached by wires to the device. The top probe will fix itself to the precise location the laser was pointed; the bottom probe will attach itself a distance away to create spread between the positive and negative charges attached to each probe. The charges, attempting to connect, will create a circuit using the human body, just below the skin.

What does a Taser do to the body?

The device will deliver 50,000 volts that end up being closer to 1,800 volts by the time the probes make contact with the body, and delivering 19 pulses per second, each pulse causing a five-second incapacitating effect. Tuttle said he’s been Tasered “many times.”

According to the Taser website, which houses a lives-saved ticker that was at 112,401 as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, more than 625,000 Taser CEWs are used by nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies in 107 countries.

Company estimates are that Taser CEWs are used 904 times a day, “saving a life from potential death or serious injury every 30 minutes.”

What happened in instances where people who were Tasered then died?

The Taser, when deployed, has the ability to “capture” the heart and induce a bad rhythm, namely ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation, the precursor to and cause of heart attacks. The likelihood of that happening is less than the likelihood of dying during appendix surgery — anywhere from one in 10,000 to one in 100,000.

Should Tasers be used by front-line officers in Ottawa?

Darryl Davies, a criminology professor at Carleton University, wonders why police forces would choose to equip officers with Tasers and why the province is giving permission to increase police arsenals. In the absence of empirical evidence that assaults on officers are on the increase or that there is an increase in violent crime, Davies thinks the province’s decision to expand Taser use had more to do with the lobbying of police unions and chiefs of police than it does the changing needs of law enforcement.

“Instead of giving police officers Tasers, why doesn’t the Ontario government announce a program that will properly train police officers in the areas of race relations, communications, mediation, alternative dispute, mental health issues and alternative dispute resolution? We don’t need to equip the police with Tasers. We need to equip them with verbal judo.”

Staff Sgt. Dana Reynolds who heads the Ottawa police mental health unit, says the unit, which isn’t a primary response unit, has never had to use a Taser to subdue someone. The plainclothes officers are dispatched after a scene has been declared safe. Reynolds said that, in mental health situations such as barricaded persons, hostage situations or suicidal people, Dr. Peter Boyles, a psychiatrist at The Ottawa Hospital who is part of the unit, may provide guidance or advice for frontline officers on how to de-escalate a situation. Boyles may have access to the person’s medical history, which could prove helpful, especially since statistics suggest Tasers are more often used on persons with mental health issues.

Reynolds, a former patrol officer who is Taser-trained, said she’s not worried about Taser use. “It’s another option before you look at lethal force. The whole point is not to have to shoot people or permanently injure people.

“Everybody is quick to say, ‘Talk people down’, but when people are non-responsive and sometimes delusional, it’s impossible to talk them down because they don’t even hear you. You have to look at other options.”