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Listen to the recording on KUOW:- Taser safety 2

Steve Share talking to Deputy Seattle Police Chief Clark Kimmerer

Seattle, Deputy Seattle Police Chief Clark Kimmerer joins us now.  Chief Kimmerer, I know you're not going to talk about an ongoing investigation, but let me step back and ask you about the use of these devices. When - when should they be used?

We have pretty precise guidelines and policies that govern the use of the Taser, they are ultimately governed by state law, which specifies that a peace officer, a police officer, can use necessary force in the discharge of his or her duties, provided the force is reasonable to effect a lawful purpose and where there are no reasonable alternatives to the use of that force.   So, that's kind of the governing principle upon which we established our policy, and and train our officers.

So, can you break that down for me in terms of when reasonable force is necessary?

Well to effect an arrest for example, and the person that is the subject of that enforcement action is non-cooperative is ....

So that, so that's the key right non-cooperative?

That that's one of them, of course the Taser for Seattle came into being as the result of a very tragic incident involving a mentally ill man, who was assaultive, non compliant, had fired a weapon and we were unable to gain control of him, and ... short of using lethal force, so at that point in time I was asked to evaluate the options that we might have in terms of, of force to to effect these lawful purposes, and we came up with a three prong approach that included the Taser, one of the first agencies in the country that implemented the Taser on patrol, as well as crisis intervention training, we have over two hundred officers that are certified crisis interventionists, in [on] the street ... on ... in the field, and then another device that gave us a few more force options.  But, in the main I think the Taser is used when circumstances are present to officers, and they have to take action and this is a good and effective alternative to a greater use of force.

Now we're hearing a phrase "pain compliance", that Tasers are being used sometimes to pain compliance, so somebody's not necessarily at the point of resisting, but resisting enough that officers wanna [want to] get them to comply.  Is that the Seattle police - is that part of the policy - in Seattle?

Well compliance to ... in terms of obeying the directive, the lawful directive of an officer, can involve a variety of things, of course what we prefer is that people comply based on our verbal requests and demands.  Obviously that is not always the case, and so if it's necessary to use a counter- joint technique or something like that, to obtain control of a person, then that's the objective of what we might call pain compliance.

So when does, so when does the Taser come in?  Do we have somebody saying ...  officer saying stop, officer using a hand gesture, officer using something physical?  Where does the, where does the Taser come in, in relation to a gun, a club, a physical action - jumping on someone?

It's, it's fairly low in the continuum of force, because it is a temporary, transient effect.  That - and I can speak from experience because I've been tasered, on two separate occasions, so I know what the physiological effect of it is, and it - obviously you know, is not a non-lethal device, because any device, any application of force carries the possibility of of injury.

Any review going on in the Seattle Police akin to what Canada's thinking about with their Mounties and their Taser use?

We review our Taser policies continuously.  We - we adopted I think what has been largely reviewed as a model approach to the implementation of of the Taser, back in 2001.   I review every Taser application, in the department.  There have been about 1400 over the last 5 years or so.  And every one of those use of force packets goes up through the chain of command; they're very extensive, they include photographs, statements, a review by a supervisor.   I look at every single one of them with a view to making sure that they're within policy, that there are circumstances that we might you know, correct policy, or or or amplify the meaning of certain policy directives, and to ultimately train and and continuously improve the deployment of this force option.

Chief Kimmerer, 1400 incidents over the year.  How does that compare with other uses of force?

We have as a department a fairly low incidence of use of force.  We've been analyzing our overall force, in addition to the specific of the use of the Taser for many many years. And you know around the country, about - a  little less than 1% of citizen / police contacts involve the use of force, in the city of Seattle about 0.13% involve the use of force, and of the applications of force, the vast majority involve the use of hands; that is the attempt to control people by, just physically, you know getting them into handcuffs, and getting them under control.  The Taser represents perhaps 35% of the total applications of force.  Round about 15 to 20 uses a month, which I think is a fairly low comparative use of of this device - in terms of the force spectrum.


Alright, Chief Kimmerer, I'll leave it there, Deputy Seattle Police Chief Clark Kimmerer, thanks for talking to us. 

Thank you Steve.

More on Tasers after the break.

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Taser Safety - Transcipt 1

Taser Safety - Transcipt 3

Taser Safety - Transcipt 4