Task force seeks stricter limits on Taser use in Md. 

Posted: 8:00 pm Thu, December 17, 2009
By Steve Lash
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

Calling Tasers and other electronic control weapons potentially deadly, a state task force on Thursday urged Maryland police officers to use them only on individuals who pose an imminent threat of serious physical injury to themselves or others.

That’s a much stricter standard than the policies used by 24 police departments across the state, half of which allow for electronic weapons when a suspect is resisting arrest, and half of which include vague statements that leave the matter largely up to the individual officer.

In addition to urging a uniform policy for law enforcement, the 15-member task force also recommended mandatory training and certification of private citizens who seek to buy such weapons, and called for enhanced penalties for using them in committing a crime.

The recommendations follow the November 2007 death of a young man in Frederick who had been subdued by an officer using a Taser.

While the task force stopped short of definitively linking the device to Jarrel Gray’s death, it said officers and the general public should disabuse themselves of the belief that electronic control weapons are “less than lethal.”

F. Michael Higginbotham, the panel’s chair, said the report provides “a strong dose of reality to those misconceptions — a very strong dose.”

The report’s recommendations “may save lives,” said Higginbotham, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “That is a reality I think all Maryland residents should welcome.”

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, who called for the task force, said the recommendations set appropriate limits on an officer’s use of electronic control weapons in protecting public safety.

“Law enforcement agencies use Tasers and not look at this report at their own risk,” Gansler said.

Individual ownership

Taser International spokesman Peter T. Holran said the company agrees with the report’s “general principles” — namely, that the weapons’ use should be governed by “good policies, good training, good oversight and responsibility and accountability.”

But Holran said the company will “look closely” at any legislation that would sharply limit the ability of law-abiding individuals to own ECWs. Mandatory certification is not “a showstopper,” Holran said, but the company would be concerned about stringent licensing requirements that would serve as a de facto ban on ownership.

Holran, Taser’s vice president of government affairs, presented testimony to the task force last spring and attended the release of the panel’s report Thursday morning at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Gansler called for the Task Force on Electronic Weapons in October 2008 amid concerns raised by the NAACP in Frederick County and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland that police officers were resorting to electronic control weapons too soon and too often.

Those concerns were sparked when Gray, 20, died two hours after Frederick County sheriff’s deputy Rudy Torres subdued him with an electronic weapon. Gray allegedly did not comply with Torres’ request to yield after the officer had broken up a fight among several young men in Frederick on Nov. 18, 2007.

Gray’s family filed a $145 million civil rights suit against Frederick County, Torres and the county’s sheriff, Chuck Jenkins. The case is pending in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

In preparing its report, the task force got responses from 24 police departments. Twelve had policies permitting use of electronic weapons to subdue suspects who actively resist an officer, such as by tensing their arms to avoid being placed in handcuffs, the panel said.

The other 12 have vague standards that permit officers to use ECWs when a suspect is not offering active resistance. These jurisdictions permit ECW use to “bring an unlawful situation under control” or to “safely effect an arrest,” the task force noted in calling for a statewide policy limiting the weapon’s use.

Baltimore County Police Chief James Johnson, who served on the task force, supported the call for a unified policy. ECWs are a “very valuable tool of law enforcement” and their proper use reduces injuries to officers and suspects, he said.