Supes panel puts roadblock in front of Tasers
San Francisco police officers will likely have to wait at least another year to be equipped with Tasers, following a divided vote by city lawmakers Monday to cut funding for the devices.
Despite November’s decision by the city’s Police Commission authorizing the Police Department to use the electronic stun guns, the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee voted 3-2 to scrap Mayor Mark Farrell’s budget proposal to spend $2 million in the coming fiscal year to buy the devices.
A city budget analyst’s report suggested that Tasers would cost far more than what the mayor’s office had budgeted.
Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer moved to cut the funds, citing the need for a more comprehensive understanding of their costs. She was supported by Supervisors Malia Cohen, who chairs the budget committee, and Norman Yee. Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Jeff Sheehy voted against the cuts.
An additional $1 million that Farrell had earmarked for purchasing Tasers in the 2019-2020 fiscal year was also put on reserve, meaning the committee could reconsider what to do with that money at a later date. It’s possible, but unlikely, that the budget committee would revisit its vote at its next meeting on Wednesday. The full board is expected to take its first of two votes on the city’s full budget on July 24, at which time the issue could arise again.
Farrell could not be immediately reached for comment.
Tasers have been a divisive issue in San Francisco for more than a decade, and the committee’s vote Monday could sweep away the apparent resolution of a longfought battle over their use in the city. After much debate, the Police Commission adopted a plan regulating their use in March, and officers were expected to be equipped with the devices by the end of the year.
Proponents, including Police Chief Bill Scott, Farrell and Mayor-elect London Breed, believe it’s important to equip officers with nonlethal weapons. The U.S. Department of Justice also said the Police Department “should strongly consider deploying” Tasers as part of the recommendations it handed down after officers fatally shot Mario Woods in 2015. San Francisco’s is one of the last major police departments in the country without electronic stun guns.
But critics say that law enforcement agencies tend to exaggerate their effectiveness. The shocks emitted by the weapons are meant to incapacitate a suspect, but they can lead to death in some instances. And when they miss their mark or if a suspect can’t be subdued with a Taser, critics say officers tend to reach for their firearms anyway.
Tasers were also the subject of a failed ballot measure sponsored and backed financially by the San Francisco Police Officers Association, the police union, which sought more control over how the weapons would be used.
Fewer said a deeper dive into the “true costs” of equipping police with Tasers was needed before she’d be comfortable allocating money to buy them. Fewer had commissioned a report from the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s office months ago that factored in potential expenses well beyond the costs of buying the devices themselves.
The report, which used projections modeled after the San Francisco Sheriff ’s Department’s implementation of Taser use more than a decade ago, suggested that even without factoring in the expense of training officers to use the devices, Tasers would cost the city far more than what the mayor’s office had budgeted.
Things like crisis intervention training, reeducating officers on the city’s updated use-offorce policies and an oversight board to investigate incidents when Tasers are deployed could run closer to $7 million in up-front costs and $2.5 million in ongoing expenses, according to the report, which Fewer provided the committee for the first time Monday.
“With all of those different costs, the supervisor didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with Tasers, given that this didn’t feel like a totally transparent conversation about what Tasers would really cost the city,” said Chelsea Boilard, a legislative aide to Fewer. Fewer, she said, is also concerned about the potential costs of lawsuits that could arise if someone is killed by a Taser.
“If we’re saying that the cost of Tasers is just this $3 million, we’re not discussing what the overall budget impact would be to the City and County of San Francisco,” Boilard said. “What was voted on was removing the expense from the budget in the current fiscal year to allow for that conversation to happen.”
The Police Department is working to provide “more clarity on the estimated costs for training and deployment of these devices,” a spokesman said.
Setting aside $3 million over two fiscal years, “was a ridiculously lowballed figure,” said John Crew, a former ACLU attorney who’s been active in police reform efforts in San Francisco, particularly around the use of Tasers. “But in fairness to the mayor and the budget staff, the liability exposure (from lawsuits) can be difficult to budget for.”
Not all of Fewer’s colleagues agreed with her rationale. “I have always supported less lethal alternatives for our police officers,” Stefani said in a statement provided by an aide. “Tasers have been recommended by the Department of Justice as part of our ongoing police reforms and have been approved by our police commission.”