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HICI Special Report: Tasers center of public safety debate Sunday, October 21, 2007 Tasers are tools that can save lives
By BEN F. JOHNSON The editorial “Taser Happy?” (Oct. 14) unfairly portrays law-enforcement officers as a bunch of trigger-happy brutes who routinely overreact to their circumstances and are quick to deploy Tasers without provocation or justification.
Speaking for the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, I can categorically state that nothing could be further from the truth. To be sure, there have been some abuses around the country in the use of the Taser. However, they have been relatively few and certainly not reflective of any pervasive mind-set of brutality in the law- enforcement community. The facts simply don’t support such a sweeping and unjust characterization of the men and women of law enforcement. Let’s take a look at the facts. As we were tragically reminded last month in Miami-Dade County, any law-enforcement call can turn deadly. That’s why it’s so imperative that officers be given the training and tools they need to protect the public and themselves from danger. The Taser is one of those tools that saves lives. In Volusia County, deputies have responded to more than 1.2 million calls for service in the six years since the Taser was first introduced into the department. Yet Tasers were deployed by deputies in less than 350 of those calls, or about 0.03 percent of the time. These numbers are hardly indicative of overreaction or overuse of the Taser. In fact, just the opposite is true. They show that our deputies are well-trained and extremely restrained in their use of the Taser, deploying it only as necessary. To support its position against Tasers, Sunday’s editorial told the story of a possibly suicidal Deltona man who was Tasered by deputies who were dispatched to his home to check on his well-being. Unfortunately, the account published in the paper omitted some pertinent facts that are crucial to fully understanding the actions of the deputies. First, the man did not ask the deputies to leave him alone, as was stated in the editorial. Rather, he stated: “I don’t want to (expletive) talk to you” and then tried to slam the door shut. The editorial also made no mention of just how aggressive and belligerent the man had become. Most egregiously, the editorial failed to point out that the man continuously put his hands in his pocket, even after being told repeatedly to keep them out in plain sight. This created a clear concern that the man might have a gun or was about to retrieve a weapon from his pocket or inside the house. This caused the deputies to make the split-second decision that the man’s safety and well-being depended on him being restrained. That was the reason for the deputies going through the door and, ultimately, deploying their Taser, and it’s a decision I whole-heartedly support. Fortunately, the man did not have a weapon. However, the deputies had no way of knowing that and had to assume the possibility that the man either was in possession of or had access to a weapon. If this were the case, the deputies’ actions in these circumstances might well have saved a life. They most certainly have in dozens of similar instances where weapons were present. I appreciate The News-Journal highlighting this case in its editorial. Rather than portraying the deputies’ actions as unwarranted or overzealous, this incident illustrates the difficult, split-second, life-and-death decisions that deputies make every day on the job. Oftentimes, these split-second decisions unfairly thrust officers into the proverbial damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t dilemma. If deputies deploy their Tasers to restrain someone who is aggressively resisting and may pose a danger to themselves and officers, they’re criticized by The News-Journal for over-reacting. All I can say is, thank God the man didn’t have a weapon. Had deputies not reacted as they did and the man was armed, we might well have been faced with the heartrending task of burying a deputy or answering critics’ questions about the deputies’ failure to barge into the house and use their training and tools to prevent a suicide. Given such a quandary, I would much rather be criticized for acting exactly as our deputies did than having to answer to the public and a grieving family as a result of inaction. In spite of what was reported in The News-Journal, the fact is that no one has been electrocuted to death by a Taser. The public also can be reassured that every Taser deployment receives close analysis by a use of force review board and is personally scrutinized by myself and our legal adviser to ensure that our deputies comply with departmental policies and procedures and their actions are necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. It’s also important to note that Tasers are an effective tool for deterrence, and in many instances just the mere threat of deployment causes individuals to become compliant without the need to employ actual force. It’s indisputable that countless homicides, suicides and other serious injuries to both civilians and law-enforcement officers have been prevented through the use of a Taser. Certainly in many, many instances involving noncompliant, physically combative individuals — and yes, even suicidal or emotionally deranged persons — a Taser is safer and preferable to a gun, hands or an impact weapon and results in far fewer injuries. While The News-Journal’s editorial page performs a service by promoting public discourse on issues related to police brutality, thoughtful debate is best served by facts and full disclosure, not clever catch-phrases and sweeping generalizations. As with any police misconduct, Taser abuses should be investigated fully and dealt with swiftly and appropriately. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Taser is an effective tool that helps protect the public and prevents needless injuries and deaths. Johnson is sheriff of Volusia County. |
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