By Mary Beth Pfeiffe
Buffalo News
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — The use of stun guns by police is soaring in the mid-Hudson Valley, with the number of incidents tripling from 2006 to 2010, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer analysis of 467 reports from 19 police departments.
The device shoots a painful electrical jolt through barbed darts — attached to the gun by copper wires — or when held to a person’s skin. The first method incapacitates; the second is for “pain-compliance.”
The five-county study found that many incidents involving violent, unwieldy suspects who bit and hit police and in three cases tried to make off with police patrol cars. But the analysis, using documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Law, also found scores of uses that suggest deviations from government guidelines.
Among them were:
*Two dozen incidents in which suspects were shot with stun guns when they were running away — and in two cases walking away — from police, the vast majority after being suspected of crimes such as shoplifting or disorderly conduct.
*Another dozen or more involving unarmed people who failed to follow orders, such as a woman stunned twice after she “folded her arms and refused to be cuffed.”
*Sixty-five people who were shocked in the chest, half after a manufacturer’s warning to avoid that area, and 50 shocked three or more times, which increases risk of injury or death.
*Stun guns were also used far more often on blacks — at a rate two to five times higher than the proportion of blacks in police agency jurisdictions.
Guidelines from the U.S. Department of Justice says stun guns “should be used only against subjects who are exhibiting active aggression” or resisting in a way that could cause injuries. When used on a fleeing subject, officers should consider “the severity of the offense, [and] threat level to others,” the 2011 guidelines state.
The Journal review also found little outside oversight. Police forces aren’t required to report stun gun policies, use, injuries or even deaths to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, which sets police standards. About a dozen people have died in New York after being shocked with stun guns, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Police reports provided to the newspaper varied widely: Some were handwritten, others vague, and many lacked key information. The Journal did not find a single case in which supervisors challenged an officer’s use of the stun gun.
About 300 of 500 police forces in New York State use the device, with the number accelerating sharply in the last five years.
The stun guns have “reduced our officer injuries. It’s reduced our arrestee injuries. It’s reduced our civilian complaints,” said City of Newburgh Police Chief Michael Ferrara. “Everything has gone down.”
After the use of stun guns was adopted in Orlando, Fla., and Austin, Texas, the number of injuries to suspects and officers dropped by 25 percent to 60 percent, according to a May 2011 publication of the National Institute of Justice.
Copyright 2012 The Buffalo News