Tased and confused
Lifesaver, lethal weapon, aid for crowd control, tool of torture?
To some, the Brookline Police Department's affection for Taser stun guns just didn't add up.
After all, this is a liberal hamlet that is home to 639 members of Amnesty International. The group recently made national news with its contention that the rampant use of Tasers has resulted in widespread human-rights abuses, including more than 90 deaths.
Indeed, the town is no Wild West: Its officers have fired a gun 0 times in service since '99.
And it sits in the shadows of a recent techno-tragedy -- just .8 miles from the spot where college student Victoria Snelgrove was caught in a post-Red-Sox-pennant-victory rampage and killed by Boston police with another so-called ''less than lethal" device (albeit a different variety, an FN303 projectile).
So why was the Brookline PD in the market for the latest in electro-charge weaponry -- 15 Tasers?
Several weeks ago, Brookline Police Chief Daniel O'Leary gave this answer: ''I think it's incumbent upon us to see if we can do our job in a less-than-lethal fashion. The Taser is an option that allows us to do our work without hurting people -- and hurting officers. We'd be remiss if we didn't look into it."
At the time, he added, pointedly: ''Should we have our guns taken away because they haven't been fired since 1999?"
Nobody's seeking that. But in a letter sent earlier this month to O'Leary, Joshua Rubenstein, Amnesty Inernational's Northeast regional director and a Brookline resident, asked the department to put away the Tasers before they've even been added to the arsenal.
''We understand how dangerous a gun can be. The degree to which Tasers are dangerous is uncertain," Rubenstein said in an interview, explaining why he has called on Brookline and state officials to declare a moratorium on Tasers until ''comprehensive, independent" testing is done -- reflecting Amnesty International's stance worldwide. ''The public should not be a guinea pig to test this new technology."
Taser officials in Arizona did not respond to several interview requests, nor to a list of written questions. However, they've said time and again that Tasers are among the ''safest, most effective use-of-force options" and not the cause of fatalities. Brookline was not the only police department of late enthusiastically entering Taser territory. Just last week, Raynham Town Meeting gave police approval to buy Tasers.
By the time the Massachusetts Legislature unanimously OK'd law enforcement's use of Tasers last summer, over 4,400 police and correctional agencies in the United States and Canada were already using or testing the devices, according to the company.
Even the origin of the Taser name was downright charming -- and disarming. TASER -- short for Thomas A. Swift and his Electric Rifle -- derives from a 1911 volume about a fictional boy adventurer.
In the modern-day version of Tom Swift, supporters say, an officer wielding a $799 Taser X26 can temporarily immoblize a suspect from up to 25 feet away. By pulling the trigger, the officer launches two tiny metal probes from a cartridge that travel over 160 feet per second and, with mini hooks, can penetrate clothing and stick to the skin. Through thin wires attached to the probes, the officer transmits five-second jolts of 50,000 volts that shortcircuit the subject's neuromuscular control system and quickly allow the officer to subdue him or her.
Like hitting a funny bone
Leverett Police Officer Ralph Mroz has been Tased several times in the course of becoming a master instructor of the weapon. He said he did not feel any pain from the probe going in. If there is any, he said, the electrical charge overrides it. Afterward, he said, the Taser left a mark like a bee sting.
He describes the shot this way: ''It feels like your body's one big funny bone that gets hit. Your muscles tighten up. Go stiff. After five seconds, it's gone. You are completely normal."
The Taser's supporters say the gun gives police the option of choosing to become law-enforcement lite: Without bullets, backers say, officers can more safely -- for them and the targets -- take into custody out-of-control people threatening to hurt themselves or others who are too close to a crowd to be pepper-sprayed, for example, but too far away from a cop to be wrestled down.
The way Taser International told it to state officials as they mulled legalizing the weapon -- and the way they, in turn, promoted it to the public -- the guns could effectively turn pistol-packing police into veritable Mahatmas and MLKs. ''No deaths have occurred as a direct result of the use of its [Taser] technology products," the company said in written materials submitted to the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Safety. ''In fact, there are over 4,000 documented cases where the [Taser] has saved the life of a suspect."
Spreading across the state
Since the summer, representatives from more than 30 police departments across the state have been trained to use the weapon by Taser, including Brookline and Boston. Though the Boston police pushed for the state to allow the use of Tasers, a spokesman says the department has now placed its plans to obtain the weapons on hold pending the outcome of a commission that at press time was still investigating Snelgrove's death. Meanwhile, in the other City Weekly communities, Cambridge says it is still assessing the weapon, and Somerville says it has no interest in Tasers.
In Brookline, the chief weeks ago declared himself ready to seek approval for Tasers -- or perhaps an electro-charge competitor entering the market -- from the Board of Selectmen come spring or summer. But he vowed to keep an open mind.
Elsewhere in the state, others are already planning on jamming the Tasers into their holsters. While, at press time, no police in Massachusetts are yet deploying Tasers as they continue to develop training protocols that need the state's approval, at least four departments have already purchased the weapons: Peabody, Methuen, Amesbury, and Lawrence.
''It's an invaluable tool," said Lawrence Police Chief John Romero, who became familiar with the weapon during his time with the New York Police Department. ''It's nonlethal."
Criticisms coming in
Yet, as much of Massachusetts remains caught up in Taser mania, others across the country have begun to recoil from its aftershocks:
''I'm concerned about innocent people dying. . . . They're shocked and killed before they can even be charged," Brooks said in a phone interview. ''It really is electrocution before prosecution."
''It concerns me that we could introduce a Taser electrical current to somebody who wears a pacemaker," Paxton -- whose 80-year-old father wears a pacemaker -- said in a phone interview. ''There's too many questions. Hey, I think we can do quite well without them."
In court papers, Taser International denies responsibility.
Concerns over misuse
Powers, in his 40s, was permanently injured, said his lawyer, John Dillingham. He had to retire from the force and was unable to do everyday things like hike and wrestle with his childen, Dillingham said.
''Law enforcement officers are using these weapons more frequently than they should," Dillingham said in a phone interview, echoing critics' concerns that police have directed Tasers at a 6-year-old boy in Florida, a 9-year-old girl in Arizona, a pregnant woman in Illinois, and a 71-year-old woman in Oregon who is blind in one eye. ''They are brainwashed into thinking they can use this weapon any time they want, and it can't possibly hurt anybody."
Glowczenski's family is also seeking $550 million from Taser, saying the gun caused his death. In court papers, Taser International denies the charge.
''He was Tasered at least nine times," Glowczenski's lawyer, Jennifer Miller, said in a phone interview. ''That's 450,000 volts of electricity into a human being. How can they claim that's not dangerous?"
Amnesty International and other critics say it is the very targets that police say need to be Tased -- including the mentally disturbed and the drug-addled -- who may be the most susceptible to dangerous repercussions. The critics believe the Taser's electrical current could turn the weapon into a silent assassin when used on people already in agitated states, with heightened heart rates, compromised neurological systems, and perhaps illegal or prescription drugs blending in their bodies. ''It's not as benign as you think," said Rubenstein.
Taser International stands by its product -- ''saving lives every day" remains its motto -- and says it is now being used or tested by over 6,000 law enforcement and correctional agencies worldwide. It has consistently blamed Taser-related deaths on other factors, such as toxic drug abuse, in answering Amnesty International's November white paper that said since 2001, 74 people had died in the United States and Canada after being struck by a Taser. That number is now 93, the group says.
''Amnesty has repeatedly called for independent testing while ignoring the mounting independent comprehensive reports showing [Taser] technology is safe and effective," Taser said in a news release.
As for the local Amnesty's letter calling for a halt to Taser use in Massachusetts until further study, the state -- which already has what it feels are adequate safeguards against abuse, such as a system to track every instance a Taser is fired -- asks: Why?
''It's premature to cast any kind of suggestion of wrongful use of these before they've even been put into practice," said Katie Ford, a spokeswoman for the state's Executive Office of Public Safety.
Revenues, controversies up
Meanwhile, Taser International continues to roll out the weapon, and roll in the money. This month, it reported that revenues for '04 were a record $67.7 million. One milestone, said the company, was its single largest order ever: $3.5 million worth of Tasers for Houston. ''I believe we can make our streets, and the fine officers who protect them, safer because the Council approved our plan to equip officers with 3,700 Tasers," Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said in November.
Still, controversy about the weapon continues to fly around the country with the speed of a Taser probe. In the last two weeks, Chicago police suspended plans to expand their stun gun stockpile, though they continue to use the ones already in the field, until they investigate the death of a 54-year-old man Tased by police, three days after an officer's Taser sent a 14-year-old boy into temporary cardiac arrest.
The latest news, combined with earlier questions about Tasers, bubbled inside the brain of Brookline Chief O'Leary. Then, a fortnight ago, it turned his head around: Maybe, he said, he had jumped the gun.
Now, he said, he was placing his desire to acquire Tasers in limbo -- until the Snelgrove commission issues its findings and safety issues raised by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are settled.
''There is a time to sit back, and there's a time to move forward," O'Leary said. ''Before we move forward with making this part of our force matrix, we need to make sure we're doing the right thing."
In the world of weapons, after all, things are not always as they appear. In Taser's ancestral tome, Tom Swift's made-up gun was not nonlethal. It was built to kill. 