By Brianne Dopart
The Herald-Sun
DURHAM, N.C. — Durham police officers will soon carry another sort of weapon on their belts.
Beginning in 2008, Durham will arm police officers with “taser technology,” the department announced Monday.
It was unclear Monday what type of “taser technology” the department will be using next year, how much the technology and corresponding training will cost and to whom in the department the technology will be issued.
Kimberle Walker, a spokeswoman for the department, declined to answer those or other questions Monday, referring The Herald-Sun to a July 14 information session at Durham Police Headquarters, 505 W. Chapel Hill St., where the topic will discussed in “formal presentations.”
Invented in 1969, a taser is a firearm-shaped stun gun that shoots two small “probes” connected to wires which conduct 50,000 volts into the body. The most recent models can fire as far as 35 feet and render the recipient of the high voltage current generated by the “less-lethal” weapon temporarily paralyzed.
There are several kinds of commercially available tasers, but the best known is the original TASER, from TASER International Inc., a worldwide distributor of the weapon described by law enforcement nationwide as the “less-lethal” option for subduing a troublesome suspect. The term TASER is actually an acronym, standing for Thomas A. Swifts Electric Rifle. Swift was not the inventor but a fictional character after which the device’s real inventor, Jack Cover, named the device.
The advantage, the company says, is a dramatic reduction in the risk of injury to both officers (who can use the TASER in lieu of firearms) and those being restrained.
Despite that apparent reduction in risk, TASER Inc. has had to defend itself against more than 50 lawsuits alleging TASERs caused permanent injury or death. The company says it has successfully defended itself against every lawsuit and has never been ordered to pay damages to any of those who brought suits.
The human rights watchdog group, Amnesty International, is ardently against the use of the device, citing 70 deaths in North America between 2001 and 2004 that the group claims were caused by the device.
Nevada-based law enforcement expert John Sullivan, a police officer of 34 years turned consultant, is a strong advocate of TASERs and said there’s always a chance of injuring a suspect who brings a threat to the officer attempting to take the suspect into custody.
In every case Sullivan has heard of involving a death related to the use of electroshock there has been another factor, he said, and that factor usually involves drugs which speed up the user’s heart rate.
The benefit of the TASER, he said, is that officers who have no choice but to draw their weapons (for instance, he said, an officer being approached by a suspect wielding a knife) can draw a weapon with less of a chance of causing permanent injury or death.
According to TASER Inc., 11,000 of the approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the use TASERS. Of those 11,000, 3500 agencies distribute TASERS to all of their officers, just as they do firearms and handcuffs.
Raleigh and Chapel Hill police departments employ taser technology. The Durham County Sheriff’s Office did in the 1980s but no longer does, according to Chief Deputy Wes Crabtree, who said he doesn’t like the technology because it’s cumbersome and difficult to operate.
Crabtree said his office has reevaluated its taser policy each year since ending its use. The technology, he said, while beneficial to some, proved too costly and high maintenance for the Sheriff’s Office, which uses pepper spray as an intermediate force.
Chapel Hill Police Department Capt. Jackie Carden said her department employs tasers and finds them neither cumbersome nor difficult to use. Later model tasers, like the ones used by Chapel Hill’s force, are smaller and more precise than those marketed two decades ago, she said.
Tasers have been in area headlines twice in recent years.
In 2006, a man died in Chatham County shortly after being hit by a taser several times by sheriff’s deputies. The medical examiner later determined his cause of death to be cocaine poisoning.
In 2005, Chapel Hill police claimed a taser saved the life of a troubled man who begged a police lieutenant to end his life. A second officer approached the man — who was armed with a .38 caliber revolver — and stunned with him a taser, ending the threat to the man and to officers on the scene.
Copyright 2007 The Durham Herald Co.
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