By PHIL DAVIDSON
Idaho Falls Post Register (Idaho)
Top brass with the Idaho Falls Police Department will review an officer’s use of a Taser on an 18-year-old.
The May incident marked at least the sixth time an Idaho Falls officer had fired his Taser, the electronic restraining devices that patrol officers have been armed with since April. The mother of the 18-year-old said officers are too quick to turn to the devices, which send 50,000 volts through a person’s body.
“They’re all gung-ho to use it,"" said Cheryl Morgan, who saw her son get Tased. While the city’s police officers have deployed their Tasers several times, their counterparts at the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office have used Tasers once since they got them a year and a half ago.
Sgt. Doug Metcalf, the sheriff’s spokesman, said it’s difficult to draw a comparison between the two law-enforcement agencies because the sheriff’s use-of-force policy is more strict than the police department’s.
The sheriff’s office allows deputies to discharge their Tasers only when either they or others present are in imminent danger of great bodily harm, serious injury or death, Metcalf said. Idaho Falls officers, on the other hand, can justifiably use Tasers on suspects who actively resist arrest or who do not comply with verbal orders.
The police department investigates every time a Taser is used. Its policy calls for officers who use their Tasers to submit reports to their supervisor, who forwards them to Lt. Steve Roos and Capt. Mark McBride. Roos and McBride then look into the circumstances of each case and decide whether an officer’s actions were justified.
They’ve found nothing wrong, but they didn’t know about the incident that occurred in mid-May until this week, when the Post Register asked about it. That’s because Officer David Barker failed to file a report on his use of the Taser on Ben Lewis, who’s serving 425 days in the Bonneville County Jail for resisting arrest and probation violations from alcohol and driving offenses.
Roos said Barker did not break any rules by failing to submit a report because the department’s policy compelling officers to notify supervisors about discharging Tasers did not go into effect until two weeks after the incident.
He and McBride plan to investigate it, however.
Here’s how Barker’s police report sums up the May 16 incident with Lewis, which occurred at about 1 a.m. at Lewis’ parents’ house in Idaho Falls, after Lewis had gotten into an argument with his parents and began cutting himself with a knife:
When he arrived, Barker attempted to restrain Lewis in the garage, but Lewis ran. Shortly thereafter, Lewis started running back into the garage. Barker then discharged his Taser on Lewis because there were scissors in the garage and the officer was concerned that Lewis was intent on attacking him.
“Lewis appeared to raise his fists in an aggressive manner,” Barker wrote. But Morgan, who said she observed the entire confrontation, disputes Barker’s version of events. She said her son was standing still when Barker fired the Taser.
“I was thinking, ‘Why did he have to do that?’” said Morgan, who called the police that night. “Ben hit the ground in an instant. He was convulsing.” She said she plans on filing a complaint against Barker because, from her perspective, her son was dropping to the ground to surrender when he was shocked.
Morgan is not alone in thinking that Tasers should be used judiciously. Human-rights group Amnesty International has called for a ban on Tasers until more extensive research can be done on their effects.
The group says more than 70 people in the United States and Canada have died after being struck with Tasers, but coroners have attributed most of those deaths to other factors, such as drug intoxication.
Idaho Falls Police Chief J. Kent Livsey said the Tasers, which cost $1,000 apiece, are a valuable tool for his force. “It has served both the safety of the officer and the offender,” he said.
There has been one “questionable” case involving their use, Livsey said, but he refused to elaborate, saying it was a personnel matter. In Lewis’ case, Roos said after glancing at the report that Barker’s use of the Taser appeared to be justified because the victim was suicidal.
“At face value, nothing stands out,” he said, but added a much more thorough examination will be conducted once a review is ordered.