Tasers not always the ‘safe’ go-to
WHEN THE NYPD arrived to find a naked, babbling man on a Brooklyn fire escape in September 2008, a decision was made: Take him down with a Taser.
Iman Morales, 35, fell about 10 feet to his death. And the officer who ordered the fatal jolt, Lt. Michael Pigott, committed suicide eight days later.
The case illustrates how the use of supposed nonlethal force is sometimes not enough to prevent tragedy as the national debate continues on when and how to use the stun guns.
“Some (deaths) have occurred as a a result of the use of Tasers, highlighting it is not a ‘safer’ weapon of force,” the NYC Police Reform Campaign said in a statement on Wednesday.
Yet a Taser was used successfully to defuse a tense confrontation last month during the New York Caribbean Carnival parade.
And the failure of cops to use a stun gun in Tuesday night’s fatal confrontation between police and a 66-year-old mentally ill Bronx woman led to waves of criticism.
Ex-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton started the department down the road to increased reliance on Tasers. In 2006, the department’s electronic arsenal stood at a mere 160 stun guns — but the number climbed to more than 1,100 by the end of 2014.
Since last summer, more than 4,000 officers received department training to use the devices, hiking the total number of Taser-trained officers up to almost 10,000 in a force of roughly 36,000.
National figures from the Bureau of Justice show the total number of police departments using Tasers has skyrocketed since the turn of the millennium — from 7% in 2000 to 81% in 2013.