N.J. stands alone in banning use of Tasers
Sunday, December 4, 2005
By CAROLYN SALAZAR
STAFF WRITER
After flying into a rage on a rain-soaked evening, a father of two staggers toward four Wayne police officers waving a large kitchen knife.
They tell him to drop the weapon, but he keeps coming.
The officers fire rounds from their 45-caliber handguns. Struck in the chest, the man dies instantly.
After a car chase in Santa Fe, N.M., a robbery suspect walks up to officers who had cornered him and pulls out a gun.
They subdue him with a Taser and take him into custody.
Two lives, two confrontations - two entirely different outcomes.
Each illustrates the different ways law enforcement agencies are allowed to respond to dangerous situations.
New Jersey is the only state in the country that bans Tasers, handheld weapons that deliver 50,000 volts of electricity, temporarily paralyzing the target. In addition, restrictions by the state Attorney General's Office on the use of other less-lethal methods - such as firing bean bags or rubber pellets - are so stringent that law enforcement agencies across New Jersey have opted not to use them.
Politically conservative states such as North Dakota and Wyoming have been using alternatives to deadly force the past few years. A few cities in California, New York and Florida are outfitting every police officer on the street with them.
Meanwhile, officers in New Jersey who face sticky situations have few alternatives to their handguns besides a baton or, sometimes, a canister of pepper spray.
"New Jersey isn't doing anything that other departments have not done before - at some point in the past, all departments weren't using them," said Charles "Sid" Heal, a national less-than-lethal weapons expert and a commander at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. "But I guess the state is a little slower to react to it."
N.J. takes hard line
In 1999, police departments in Paterson, Passaic and Atlantic City made headlines by announcing that they were exploring the efficiency of less-lethal weapons. One expert predicted it would be a matter of time before the technology became standard-issue for police departments everywhere.
It hasn't happened in New Jersey, however.
In 2000, the Attorney General's Office revised its policy on use of force: Any projectile from a firearm is considered deadly force, it says, "including less lethal means such as bean bag ammunition or rubber pellets" - meaning an officer needs to be in the same danger that would justify firing bullets.
Immediately, police departments that had been considering using the devices abandoned the idea.
"We'd like to use the technology, but the laws that govern them are so restrictive that they fall into the same level as using lethal force," said Lt. Brian Higgins, commander of the Bergen County Police SWAT team. "At that point, when the officers life is in grave danger, it's not worth it."
Although some state troopers have trained with less-lethal ammunition, they don't use it in the field, said Sgt. Stephen Jones, a state police spokesman. If a situation becomes unsafe, officers have tear gas canisters - and, as a last resort, their handguns, Jones said.
He wouldn't say if that approach would change if guidelines were more relaxed.
"If deadly force is justified, then we are going to use it," Jones said.
Passaic County Prosecutor James F. Avigliano took it even further: Even if police in his county were allowed to use the technology, they likely wouldn't.
Weapons such as Tasers "have not satisfactorily proven to be non-lethal. They can cause serious injuries," Avigliano said.
"Certainly we don't like police going around shooting people," the prosecutor said, "but these types of weapons can be lethal, too. We don't want to have it as a crutch where officers say, 'Hey, we can use it, so we will.'Ÿ"
Saddle Brook Chief Robert J. Kugler, president of the Bergen County Police Chiefs Association, said he believes state authorities "someday may give us the opportunity to use Tasers." If that happens, he said, chiefs will have a lot to consider.
"It would be another item at our disposal, and it does have a lot of good benefits," Kugler said. "But there are drawbacks with Tasers, as well. And we all have to think about the consequences."
Ubaldo Del Toro, a program manager and defensive tactics and firearm training manager at Miami-Dade College, said the chance of injury from less-lethal technologies shouldn't inhibit police from using them.
"We are utilizing technology that saves lives," he said. "If once in a while we occasionally hurt someone, how do we balance that against the numerous, numerous times we've saved someone's life?"
Detective Lt. Charles Delo, of the Clarkstown police in Rockland County, said his department has used Tasers nine times in the past year. All sergeants are equipped with them, as well as some trained officers, he said.
"We consider its use very successful, and very useful," Delo said. "We haven't had any problems at all with them."
8,000 agencies use Tasers
Steve Tuttle, spokesman for Taser International, the maker of stun guns, said a few police chiefs in New Jersey have contacted his company. But there has been no organized movement in the state to try to relax the Taser law, he said.
There are 8,000 law enforcement agencies in the country using Tasers, and it has been deployed 100,000 times during police confrontations, he said.
Massachusetts, the only state besides New Jersey that had banned Tasers, passed a law last year allowing them after Boston police shot and killed a mentally ill man who family members said could have been subdued with a stun gun.
There have been 18 use-of-force incidents involving 21 people in New Jersey through November, records show. Of those, 14 received serious bodily injuries and seven died.
Last year, law enforcement agencies in the state reported 35 use-of-force incidents involving 36 people. Of those, 14 people died. In 2003, there were 43 incidents and 15 deaths, records show.
"" (Attorney General Peter Harvey, who became New Jersey's top law enforcement official in 2003, was at a conference in California the past week and unavailable for comment. Governor-elect Jon Corzine is expected to replace Harvey, among other Cabinet members, before he takes office Jan. 17. )""
John Hagerty, a spokesman for Harvey, said on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday that Vaughn L. McKoy, director of the Division of Criminal Justice, would respond to The Record's questions about less-lethal force. McKoy didn't return the calls, however, and on Friday, Hagerty said he was unavailable.
Danger of abuse
Less-lethal technology began entering the law enforcement market in the 1970s after a series of police shootings. As it grew more popular, however, the number of detractors grew.
Critics say such weapons create a greater opportunity for police abuse, and have led to scores of deaths by officers who either didn't get the proper training, or used them excessively.
The debate was re-ignited last year when a Boston police officer fired pepper-spray into a crowd of rowdy Boston Red Sox fans, killing a 21-year-old college student who was struck in the eye. Also last year, civil libertarians protested after Miami police officers shocked a 6-year-old boy with a Taser while the boy was waving a shard of glass in school.
Officers are supposed to aim the devices at someone's stomach or lower body. In some instances, however, those in distress have aimed for a person's head - making the impact potentially deadly.
A study by Amnesty International last year said Tasers - which it called torture gun devices - have been responsible for 103 deaths in the United States and Canada during the past four years.
According to Amnesty International, some medical experts believe Taser shocks may exacerbate a risk of heart failure in cases where people are agitated or under the influence of drugs.
The use of stun guns also "raises a number of concerns for the protection of human rights," the group wrote. "Portable and easy to use, with the capacity to inflict severe pain at the push of a button ... electro-shock weapons are particularly open to abuse by unscrupulous officials."
Yet the human rights group also suggested that some forms of less-lethal technology might be useful "to decrease the risk of death or injury inherent in the use of firearms or other impact weapons such as batons."
Earlier this year, the Potomac Institute, a not-for-profit public policy research institute, reported that, at worst, one in 1,000 stun guns contribute to deaths. But the report called for more regulation of the device, pointing out that there is no federal oversight or industry standard.
"We believe that the establishment of industry-driven, government-endorsed standards will contribute significantly to better understanding of this technology domain," the report said.
In the Wayne incident on Nov. 16th, Frank Sanabria, a 43-year-old with a history of psychological problems, approached officers after a scuffle with his 15-year-old daughter. Authorities said the officers had seconds to act as Sanabria, wielding a 15-inch kitchen knife, rushed at them.
Whether a less-than-lethal alternative would have made a difference remains uncertain.
"It probably would have," said Avigliano, the Passaic County prosecutor. "But no one knows for sure."
Staff Writers Margaret K. Collins and Douglass Crouse contributed to this report. E-mail:
salazar@northjersey.com
One of the few hopes we have here is the replacement of our attorney general "Peter Harvey" by our new governor Jon Corzine. ......Yak
