“This is all about reducing injury and the number of times we have to go hand-to-hand with people,”

Lordy, this is troubling news. Now don't get me wrong here; I'm not completely against the use of Tasers because they do offer an alternative to the almost always lethal force that a gun brings, and I suspect that if you tallied up all the folks who'd been tasered versus the same number of folks who've been shot by police , I think you'd probably find you'd prefer to be in the tasered group rather than in the gunshot group, since chances are, you'd still be alive, even with the number of deaths attributed to tasering. But here's the rub - and just about any police administrator who considers supplying Tasers to their department is acutely aware of this: the increased sense of non-lethality during its use may cause an officer to use the Taser a little (many would say a lot) more indiscriminately than he/she would a gun. There is also plenty of research available that strongly buttresses the argument that Tasers are used much more on minorities and low income neighborhoods than on whites (the argument here of course is that more crime occurs in "low income neighborhoods"), and disturbing news continues to surface about Tasers being used to break up political and other nonviolent forms of protests. Of course, police issue firearms are also often used much more indiscriminately in poor neighborhoods and against minorities now; as twisted as the logic is here, it stands to reason that less people will be killed outright by our "protectors and servers" in blue than if they were shooting at us with live ammo... If you're interested in hearing what the talking heads are saying about the whole enchilada, CNN's Paula Zahn show has an interesting discussion that addresses many of the issues; you'll get the conservative, liberal and moderate takes here, so pick your poison. Many argue that "proper training" reduces this and they may be right, but what I think may play the largest role in really reducing abusive use of the Taser is holding the Taser user and their agency financially and criminally responsible for his/her use in the event of a death as a result of being tasered for a reason that an objective, neutral and independent panel of unbiased experts finds unjustified. I realize finding a panel like that would be harder to accomplish than flapping your arms and lifting off into space, but I suspect Tasers are here to stay; it's a sign of our technological advancement and a move toward less lethal methods of forcing compliance and avoiding hand to hand combat between authority figures and the rest of us. As such, we'd all better start demanding increased accountability when Tasers are used or I suspect we'll all be wondering how the use of Tasers got so out of control so quickly.... If Metro wants Tasers, I'm personally not averse to giving them to them, but before they hit the streets again, along with the threat of financial and criminal liability by the user the Tasers themselves should be the kind that record every zap and training in their use should be done regularly, not just once. Also, frequent, regular reviews of who, where, and why folks are being tasered should also be done in order to ensure that Tasers aren't being used disproportionately on one segment of the population or for reasons that do not demand such severe submission efforts. An honest and conscientious police force should have no problem agreeing to these kinds of parameters in order to use Tasers, and making the officer and the department fully culpable for their misuse may help keep us all safe from unwarranted Tasering....

Metro police to return Tasers to any trained officer

By KATE HOWARD • Staff Writer • May 29, 2008

Metro Police announced today plans to return Taser stun guns to its regular arsenal, almost three years after removing them from all but high-ranking officers in the wake of a controversial death.

Police Chief Ronal Serpas said he’s carefully considered the medical research on the weapons, and he’s confident that the benefits — fewer fistfights with suspects who resist arrest — outweigh the perceived risks. Serpas said there is no credible research to suggest the Taser causes significant injury.

He said the department currently has no plans to make the $799 Taser X26 a tool on the belt of every Metro officer. Instead, the department will have a total of about 200 Tasers, enough for each on-duty officer who wants one to check it out for a shift. Only officers who take an eight-hour certification class will be allowed to use the Taser, Serpas said.

While Serpas said he thinks the Taser is a safe and useful tool that can prevent stronger use of force during an arrest, he said he won’t insist that any officer uncomfortable with the tool must use it.

“This is all about reducing injury and the number of times we have to go hand-to-hand with people,” Serpas said.

The 2005 death of 21-year-old Patrick Lee raised questions about the safety of Taser use. Lee was shot with a Taser 19 times outside a Nashville nightclub and died two days later. The autopsy cited his cause of death as excited delirium, a medical condition often associated with in-custody deaths of suspects using illegal drugs.

Contact Kate Howard at 726-8968 or kahoward@tennessean.com.

9/27/05: Protest decries death after Taser hits

Friends, family lead questions over use of stun guns to subdue young man at club

Family and friends of a Nashville man who died Saturday after being repeatedly shocked by police Taser stun guns gathered at the base of the state Capitol yesterday to protest his death and the continued use of the controversial devices by Metro officers.

About 50 supporters held signs, passed out leaflets and reminisced about Patrick Lee, 21, who was pronounced dead Saturday afternoon, two days after a bizarre confrontation with Metro officers outside of Mercy Lounge, a nightclub on Cannery Row near Eighth Avenue South.

Police said they tried to restrain Lee after he was removed from the club and began running through the streets naked. At one point, officers shocked him multiple times with Taser stun guns and beat his lower body with batons. Paramedics arrived to find Lee in cardiac and respiratory distress and took him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he later died. The exact cause of death is unknown, and investigations remain under way by police and the medical examiner's office. "This was unneeded," said friend Mia Barker, 19, a sophomore at Middle Tennessee State University. "Obviously, now it needs to be fought. It never needs to happen to anyone in his situation ever again. I just wish he were here." Lee, whom relatives said had planned to study audio engineering in October, is the second person to die in Nashville after being shot with a Taser since Metro police distributed 45 of the devices to their patrol officers in November. In May, Walter Lamont Seats died after swallowing crack cocaine wrapped in plastic. In that case, police defended their use of the Taser, saying it was the obstruction to his airway and not the stun gun that caused his death. The department said it is still trying to determine what caused Lee's death. "The Police Department is taking these investigations very, very seriously," Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said. "We have not made judgments at this point regarding whether our policies and training were fully complied with." Police said Lee told them that he had ingested either LSD or PCP. But his father, songwriter Earl Bud Lee, who co-wrote Garth Brooks' hit Friends in Low Places, said hospital workers told him they had found only Valium and marijuana in his son's blood. Medical examiners have sent his blood for more detailed tests that would detect a wider range of drugs than would the tests conducted at the hospital. Metro Councilman Jamie Isabel, who earlier this year had asked for a moratorium on the use of Tasers by Metro police, asked for an independent study of Taser safety yesterday after the latest death. Isabel said he could call for Police Chief Ronal Serpas to appear before Metro's Public Safety Committee to answer questions about the death. "With an independent study, Nashville will then know whether these devices are safe and are being used as they should be. I would prefer to err on the side of caution. Lives are at stake," Isabel said in a statement yesterday. Alan Horsnell, a friend of Lee's since high school, marched with a sign on his back that bore Lee's birthday, April 1, and the words "Killed by the MNPD." "This is not something that just liberals in the corner need to be shocked by," he said. "The fact that police departments are using (Tasers) as a legitimate law enforcement tool is really shocking."