Policy Changed in Wake of Controversial Shooting of Woman By Officer in 2003
By Crystal Carreon and John Woolfolk, The San Jose Mercury News
Less than a year after the San Jose Police Department expressed skepticism about arming every officer with a Taser stun gun, all patrol officers in the city will soon carry the less-lethal option on their gun belts along with their night sticks and handcuffs.
The move comes eight months after police shot to death a disturbed woman waving a vegetable peeler during a confrontation in her kitchen -- an event that sparked community outrage and prompted San Jose to re-examine how its officers respond to potentially deadly situations.
By Monday, the department is expected to receive an order of 629 new battery-powered Taser guns -- the largest such order in the state. The devices are capable of shooting 50,000-volt jolts that temporarily disable assailants and provide officers with another alternative to deadly force.
After training, all patrol officers are expected to carry the devices beginning in May. No other police department in the Bay Area equips all of its officers with Tasers.
In deciding to order the new Tasers, the San Jose department consulted with other police forces in California and elsewhere that equip their officers with them -- departments where use of deadly force and fatal shootings by police have declined measurably.
Chief Rob Davis, who vowed to take advantage of new technology when he was sworn in as San Jose’s top cop earlier this year, affirmed the decision as an example of upgrading the tools available to his officers, though he acknowledged that it will be up to officers to decide in volatile situations whether to reach for the Taser or their handgun.
Another tool
“You have to remember, this is an additional tool; this is not a panacea,” Davis said. “You can never tell when someone will need to rely on deadly force.”
The department has 162 older models of Tasers, roughly one for every 16 officers, and a procedure to get one to any confrontation within 15 minutes.
Rick Callender, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP chapter, said the civil rights group had been asking the police department for years to make broader use of less-lethal weaponry, and he complimented Chief Davis for making the move.
“This is definitely a feather in Rob Davis’ cap,” Callender said. “I think what we are going to see is situations where lives are going to be saved where before the only alternative we had was the death of the person.”
Though the department began studying its use of Tasers in 2000 -- a year after eight people were shot by San Jose police -- the issue resurfaced last year after Bich Cau Tran, a 25-year-old mother of two, was fatally shot in her kitchen by officer Chad Marshall.
Marshall, who was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in a public grand jury hearing last year, testified that he fired the fatal shot on July 13 after he feared Tran was about to throw the peeler he mistook for a cleaver at him. The family has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the police department and the city, alleging Marshall used excessive force on the woman.
Andrew Schwartz, an attorney representing the Tran family, believes that if Marshall had a Taser that night, it might have spared Tran’s life.
“It’s always better to have less-than-deadly force options available,” Schwartz said. “It certainly would have made a difference in my case.”
Davis could not say whether a Taser would have made a difference that night. Shortly after the Tran shooting, San Jose police officers were asked about the possibility of arming every officer with a Taser, as other large cities had done. Officers responded that they needed to further evaluate the devices before making that kind of commitment.
In addition to training all officers on the new Tasers, San Jose is looking to revise its policy on when to use them, said Lt. David Babineau, the department’s training manager, who added that 70 percent of officers have completed their training. Babineau said he has been studying the effectiveness of the force’s current Tasers and felt it “was a good decision” to equip all officers with the upgraded X26 model -- a lighter, smaller device with a bright yellow band across its body.
Since the spate of deadly police shootings in 1999, the San Jose department has taken several steps toward refining its use of force. Those steps include convening a panel of police and prosecutors to review all police shootings, a revised policy for dealing with potentially suicidal assailants, and new training exercises for use of deadly force that involve state-of-the-art computer simulations.
Last month the city council approved the police department’s proposal to purchase Tasers and accessories at $780,000, using federal and state grants.
San Jose joins several other large police departments such as those in Sacramento and Phoenix in giving Tasers to every patrol officer.
Phoenix’s experience
Phoenix officers, who were consulted by San Jose officials when they were crafting their proposal, reported a 54 percent drop in officer-involved shootings and the lowest yearly total in 14 years.
“Those are incredible numbers,” said detective Tony Morales. “We attribute that to the fact that we are at full Taser deployment.”
The Sacramento department, among the first in major cities to give Tasers to every officer in late 1999, has found the Tasers “very effective” in reducing injuries to both officers and combative suspects.
San Jose has had two fatal police shootings this year.
Alfred “Al” Farrar, 59, was shot to death by police on March 6 after he reportedly fired his gun at officers.
In February, 25-year-old Francisco Reyes of San Jose was shot to death by police after he reportedly rammed a stolen car into two patrol cars in East San Jose.
No officer-involved shooting deaths occurred in 2002, and two people were killed by San Jose police last year, including Tran.