Tasers can be deadly, and so should not be used by police officers in any situation other than one that calls for a response just short of using a gun: This is the view of the New York Civil Liberties Union, as expressed by Melanie Trimble, director of the group’s Capital Region Chapter. The NYCLU is a watchdog organization that, among other things, tries to hold police departments around the state to higher standards of transparency and responsibility.

The stances taken by local law enforcement toward Taser use place the Taser on the same level as pepper spray within the “use-of-force continuum.” Both Guilderland and Altamont police spokesmen gave The Enterprise copies of their policies on the use of Tasers, and discussed the policies, emphasizing that Tasers are used only when subjects are committing or about to commit some kind of physical aggression toward officers, other civilians, or themselves.

The written policy of the Guilderland Police Department on the use of Tasers states, “The Taser will never be used punitively or for the purposes of coercion. It is to be used as a way of averting a potentially injurious or dangerous situation.”

Trimble said that, if an officer’s “life is threatened, or if the person is threatening to kill somebody else, or kill themselves, that’s an appropriate use of a Taser. A Taser ought not be used at a traditional traffic stop, unless things have escalated to that situation. We find that a lot of police officers who are not well trained are tasering people just for becoming belligerent, and that’s not an appropriate use of a Taser.”

Amnesty International also argues that the use of Tasers can result in injury and death. On the group’s website, a report called “Deadly Force: Police Use of Lethal Force in the United States” calls for greater restrictions on and independent oversight of various types of use of force including Tasers.

The document states: “There are a wide range of ‘less lethal’ weapons and other tools available for use in law enforcement which carry less risk of death and injury than that inherent in police use of firearms. However, it should also be recognized that these so-called ‘less lethal’ weapons can also result in serious injury and sometimes death.

“For example, at least 540 people in the United States died after being shocked with Tasers from 2001 through 2012. Also, even without the use of weapons, as recent cases have demonstrated, chokeholds or other forms of physical force can also be deadly. As such, any other type of force that implies likelihood or high risk of death must also be subject to the same strict restrictions and only be allowed for the purpose of preventing death or serious injury.”

In recent years, three men in the Capital District have died soon after being tased. One was Chad Brothers, who pushed over several pieces of heavy equipment and assaulted another gym user in Gold’s Gym in Latham before being tased by Colonie Police in 2011. Another was Donald Ivy, who, according to an incident report from the Albany Police Department, became aggressive toward police during a chance encounter on Lark Street in the early morning hours of April 2, 2015, was tased, led officers on a brief pursuit, was taken into custody, and then fell unconscious and was transported to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The third was Donald Satre of Ballston Spa, who was tased after fighting with State Police officers and local police who had responded to his home for a disorderly conduct complaint on Sept, 20, 2014.  

Guilderland Police used tasers “probably a few dozen times” since the department first introduced Tasers in 2003, according to Captain Curtis Cox, who was not able to get The Enterprise more precise figures before publication.

The Guilderland Police Department’s written policy specifies that that department has two approved types of Tasers, the M26 Advanced Taser and the X26 Taser. Both fire two probes up to a distance of 21 feet from a replaceable air cartridge. The probes are connected to the weapon by high-voltage insulated wire.

When both probes successfully make contact with the target, the Taser transmits a 26-watt electrical charge through up to two inches of clothing that immediately incapacitates the target on a neuromuscular level. In other words, all of the muscle tissue contracts involuntarily, and the target is physically debilitated “regardless of pain tolerance or mental focus,” the Guilderland policy states.

Experts agree that the initial charge delivered is 50,000 volts, which is needed to establish the arcing current.

According to the Guilderland policy, the Taser is programmed to give a five-second current, but the operator can shorten or extend this time. It also says that only emergency room staff, and not police, can remove the Taser probes from the person who was hit by them.      

Tasers used in Guilderland are colored bright yellow, and no alteration is allowed to the color. They are placed on the opposite side of the duty belt from the firearm, to avoid mistakes.

Chief Todd Pucci of the Altamont Police Department provided The Enterprise with a copy of Altamont’s policy, and also discussed it at length, saying that officers must be trained before they are allowed to use Tasers and that they must also undergo additional training every year.

He specified that he did not want to “play Monday morning quarterback” to another officer’s actions in a situation in which he was not present, so he spoke only in general terms, and only about Altamont policy.

Altamont Police have used Tasers just twice in the force’s history, Pucci said. About a year and a half ago, he said, a man was kicking and punching one of Altamont’s female officers; that officer needed to tase him, in order to subdue him, Pucci said. Pucci would not release that man’s name because, he said, the case arose from the subject’s “mental issues.” The other, he said, was a domestic incident involving Jonathan Francis of Berne, who, after throwing a chair, brandished a three-pronged garden tool as if to strike a Guilderland officer, at which point he was tased by Altamont officer Christopher Laurenzo, who is also the force’s Taser instructor.

Pucci told The Enterprise that, in Altamont, the standard for use of the Taser is that a noncompliant subject has to be physically aggressive in some way before a Taser would be used. He said, “Words alone are not justification for using the Taser. Somebody saying ‘F you,’ unless they make an aggressive move towards you — again now physical force — now the level of force escalates.”

The role of the police officer, Pucci said, is to de-escalate any situation. “When we arrive at a scene, most people are at a higher level, and you’ve got to calm them down.”

He talked about the use-of-force continuum as a constantly changing thing. It can escalate and de-escalate on the same call, he said.

“You can start off where the person’s got a knife in their hand, and you’re at deadly force, and you have a gun pointed at them, and they eventually drop the knife; now you have to put your gun away, because it’s de-escalated. The force level’s not consistent throughout a whole call. It can change, as the call proceeds. You can go from [being prepared to use] deadly force to verbal commands back to pepper spray; it can move.”

Guilderland’s Cox said the same thing. “You don’t just use arbitrarily use a Taser on somebody. You have to consider the other options first, and then go to the Taser.” Sometimes, he noted, “You have to start out at the Taser level. Just like sometimes in the continuum of force you have to start out with deadly physical force.”

Asked when police would start with a Taser, Cox said, “If somebody was extremely violent towards themselves or another person, or aggressive towards you, then you might have to go right to the Taser. It depends on the circumstances.”

Cox too then mentioned the role of the officer in trying to de-escalate. “Oftentimes, just speaking to people can calm them down and you can take them into custody effectively, but sometimes you’re way beyond that.”

Cox said that there are as many as four Tasers in use among the entire Guilderland force during any given shift. There are a total of 34 officers on the force, “including investigators and command staff and everything,” so not all officers carry Tasers.

Pucci and Cox both said that the Taser is meant to be safer and more effective than pepper spray. Pucci said, “If I pepper spray you, and you have a knife and you’re coming at me, you can still fight me and still come at me with the knife. You just now can’t see. You know what I mean? Where, if I hit you with a Taser, it shuts you down. You fall to the ground for that five seconds, and I can safely remove the knife. That’s the benefit of the Taser. It immobilizes you for that five seconds, and, if we hit the button again, you know, for another five seconds.”

The Guilderland policy states, “If more than three consecutive cycles are require, officers should reassess the situation and consider transitioning to another applicable force option.”

The Altamont policy calls for an incident report and a use-of-force report to be filed each time a Taser is deployed; in any case of deployment, the chief of police must be notified and will come to the scene if possible. Even when a Taser is only activated (turned on and pointed at subject but not deployed), a use-of-force report must still be filed.

The medical ramifications of Tasing are studied mainly after the fact, because of obvious ethical problems with testing on humans. Steve Tuttle, vice president of Strategic Communications with Taser International referenced a 2011 study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice that looked at 300 cases in which a Taser was used and the individual later died.

This study found the risk of death from the cardiac or metabolic effects of tasing to be less than 0.25 percent. It found the risk of significant secondary injuries, such as unconsciousness or seizures, related to the falls resulting from incapacitation, to be 0.5 to 0.7 percent.

In order to reduce risk of injury or death, the study recommended avoiding prolonged or multiple shocks.

Dr. Douglas F. Zipes, distinguished professor at Indiana University School of Medicine’s Krannert Institute of Cardiology, has studied cases of cardiac arrest following tasing, and has argued in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation that the electric current of the Taser, particularly when shot in the chest area, can sometimes take over the control of the heart’s rhythms, leading in some cases to ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrest, and death.    

Zipes has called for the establishment of a mandated national database of the physiological effects of Taser use; this is crucial, he has said, because of ethical limitations on scientific study of the subject.

He wrote in an email to The Enterprise, “Because under certain circumstances Tasers can kill, law enforcement should use the weapon judiciously, with the same respect as a firearm, and if possible avoid shooting the chest and repeated, or long, trigger pulls. If the victim becomes unresponsive and unconscious, call EMS, begin CPR, and apply an automated external defibrillator if available.”   

Zipes has also said that he has served as a paid expert witness for the plaintiffs in numerous legal cases against Taser International.

Cox said that the Guilderland policy follows the recommendations of the device’s manufacturer, Taser International, in specifying that the ideal spot on the body to aim for is the center of mass, but in the back. The reason, Cox said, is “to avoid the area around the cardiac, just because of the potential, I suppose.”

Corrected on July 24, 2015: The original version of this article stated that Guilderland Police had fired Tasers "probably a few dozen" times in 2014; that has been corrected to Tasers being fired a few dozen times since the department first introduced Tasers in 2003; in the past year, no Tasers have been fired by Guilderland Police, according to Captain Curtis Cox.