Two years ago, a 20-year-old died after a Frederick County sheriff's deputy shocked him with a Taser. Now, a state task force is recommending that Tasers be used in fewer instances and that law enforcement track their use more closely.
Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler created the Task Force on Electronic Weapons after a string of Taser-related problems, including the death of Jarrel Gray on Nov. 18, 2007. The task force report, released Dec. 17, makes 60 recommendations that largely focus on training, use-of-force, reporting and investigating Taser discharges, and monitoring usage data.
The report's first recommendation, which Frederick County NAACP president Guy Djoken called the most important, is that the community should be involved in crafting Taser policies.
Law enforcement agencies "should, and have the responsibility to make sure (community groups) are involved in the process," he said. "As we move forward, we need to make sure the legislative body of the state understands this very well."
Djoken said he investigated the county's first Taser discharge at a public school, involving an 18-year-old senior at Tuscarora High School in 2007. As he talked to parents and teachers, no one seemed aware that Tasers could be used in a public school. He said the community needs to understand the Taser regulations and help shape them if they are to be effective.
The task force also recommended that officers not only be certified and recertified in Taser usage, it specified that training should emphasize that a Taser is "less-lethal weapon, and not a non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapon."
Djoken said the Frederick and Maryland chapters of the NAACP, as well as the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, had stressed this point all along and were pleased to see it incorporated into the report.
Whereas people are careful with guns and regard them as lethal weapons to be used only in dire circumstances, Djoken said officers were much less likely to consider the effects of using Tasers, which can also be fatal under the right conditions.
Barry Kissin, a Frederick lawyer who worked with Djoken in the aftermath of the two Frederick Taser cases, faulted the report for not putting more blame on Taser International.
"The report also states that 'training materials provided by the manufacturer of these devices e tended to significantly understate the risks associated with [Taser] use,'" Kissin said. "The report stops short of referring to this 'understatement' as unscrupulous fraud for the sake of maximizing sales. I believe an appropriate recommendation would be to terminate all business with Taser International and to demand refunds."
The task force report outlines a variety of conditions under which a Taser should not be used, recommends that reports be filed any time a Taser is aimed or discharged and discusses the importance of maintaining comprehensive data that could be used to show patterns in Taser usage.
The emphasis on Taser usage data serves to put personal responsibility on the officers possessing Tasers, as well as comparing entire departments to their peers in other states.
Uniform data is not tracked throughout the state, but the task force did request some figures from the law enforcement agencies. One if its findings was that 16 of 21 agencies that responded were more likely to use Tasers against black residents than white or Hispanic residents. The Frederick County Sheriff's Office reported that 24 percent of people its deputies shocked with a Taser were black, whereas only 9 percent of the residents are black.
The task force also looked at existing Taser policies from around the state. Of 29 Taser-related policies the group thought should be in place, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office only has five currently in place, the lowest in the state. Howard County Police scored the best, with 21 of the policies already in use.
Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said he had not read the report and would comment on it once he had the chance to read through its recommendations.
Frederick Police Chief Kim Dine said he had not personally read the report, but that his staff would review and recommend possible changes to the department's Taser policy. Though he is open to suggestions, Dine said the current Taser policy was based on best practices from top groups around the world, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and was drafted with the help of the Police Executive Research Forum.
"I think we all want the police to have proper tools e and use the tools we have in the proper way," he said.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
