Taser News

Taser training offers precautions

Officers shocked with Tasers during their training to use the weapon call the experience the worst five seconds they've endured.

Still it's not quite the same as a Taser shock on the street.

Pain from a Taser shock is "injurious to some people" the weapon's manufacturer, Taser International, notes in its training manual, adding: "Because of parental/guardian consent issues, no minor shall be exposed to a Taser device as part of a training course."

On the street, however, officers don't need consent to shock minors. While critics have voiced concern that Taser shocks can cause post-traumatic stress, learning disabilities in young people and growth problems, at least 50 people younger than 18 have been shocked in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

This is one way that real world Taser use is not reflected in the ideal world of training.

The company requires officers who are shocked during training to read and sign "Instructor or User warnings, Risks, Liability Release and Covenant Not to Sue."

Because a shock causes involuntary muscle contractions, as well as loss of all motor control, an effective firing will almost inevitably cause a person to fall. According to the lesson plan, the fall alone can cause "a wide variety of injuries" including concussions, broken bones and dislocated joints."

The safety precautions for these planned, voluntary shocks during training are painstaking.

They include two spotters to hold the officers upper arm under the armpit "so that the person can be safely supported and lowered to the ground after being hit without twisting or putting undue stress on the arm or shoulder."

In some training exercises, clips are used rather than barbed probes fired from the stun gun. If probes are used, the officer is required to wear goggles.

In addition, police sometimes reduce the duration of the shock to just a few seconds compared with the standard five-second shock that is routine on the street.

The manual advises that people with low blood sugar have a snack before getting shocked.

In addition, Taser guidelines caution instructors to allow a bathroom break before the training shocks to help prevent an "unnecessary embarrassment." That precaution might explain why the manual says shocks from the weapon "generally don't cause urination or defecation" and that "to date there have been two urination cases (out of 100,000) from volunteers during a 5-second M26 exposure."

Yet in the slightly more than 1,000 cases reviewed by The Post where suspects were involuntarily shocked, four were reported to lose bowel or bladder control, a rate nearly 200 times that reported by the manufacturer.

Read full story at
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/05/30/a8a_tasertrainside_0530.html