By Rocco Parascandola
Newsday
NEW YORK — New York City police officers have used Tasers far less often since September, when an emotionally disturbed man fell to his death after he was stunned with 5,000 volts of electricity during a dramatic confrontation in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
According to police statistics, Tasers have been used in New York City 269 times through Dec. 7. At that pace, the controversial device will have been used about 288 times this year, down from 315 for all of last year.
Long Island has also seen its share of Taser-related incidents. In Suffolk, police used the device on a 62-year-old Brentwood man Friday when he defied orders to stay out of a fatal accident scene; his family blamed his behavior on a brain bleeding condition undiagnosed until police brought him to the hospital.
And previously in Suffolk, a Southampton man died in June after ingesting cocaine and being stunned with a Taser. Tony Curtis Bradway was one of four people who have died on Long Island since 2004 after being stunned. Suffolk police used the Taser 61 times in 2008.
Nassau County police used Tasers eight times this year, compared to seven in 2007.
Tasers, informally known as stun guns, have been employed 44 times in New York City since the Sept. 24 death of psychiatric patient Iman Morales - a rate of 0.6 times a day. Before Morales’ death, Tasers were used 225 times, about 0.9 times a day.
Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman, said it is difficult to assess why a measure is not being taken, particularly over a short time period.
But several police sources said Morales’ death - followed days later by the suicide of Lt. Michael Pigott of Sayville, the supervisor at the scene who ordered Officer Nicholas Marchesano to fire the Taser - had a chilling effect, with those armed with Tasers determined not to use them.
Morales, 35, was naked and waving a fluorescent light at officers when he was hit with the stun gun. The jolt stiffened his body, and he fell 10 feet from a security gate container to the sidewalk.
The NYPD the next day said use of the Taser on Morales violated departmental guidelines. Two months before Morales was killed, patrol sergeants were authorized to carry a smaller stun gun. The Rand Corp. suggested in a report to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly that street cops use Tasers in a pilot program. Kelly hasn’t acted on the recommendation.
Copyright 2008 Newsday