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Listen to the recording on KUOW:- Taser safety 4

Steve Share talking to Mona Cadena from Amnesty International

Mona Cadena's Amnesty International's Western Regional Director.  Amnesty International raising questions about Tasers even with the United Nations.  What are your concerns Mona?

Amnesty International has continued to be concerned about the use of Tasers in the US, specifically for routine law enforcement situations.  Honestly, seeing the Taser being used as a weapon of first resort. We are asking for police departments to suspend their use of Tasers, pending important safety studies, or to limit their use to situations involving threat of death or serious injury.  What we're seeing is that police officers aren't using Tasers as an alternative to deadly force, and that they've become another tool on the police belt.  Tasers are easy to misuse, and we see different policies from department to department, so we think that the jury is still out on the effectiveness and, for ... of this tool for police officers.

How come the jury is still out?  You've looked at the science too.  Are you not satisfied with the science?

Correct.  What we are calling for is more independent studies.  There have been a number of studies that have been done, that I'm sure all of you have looked at, even, most recently, a study  by Wake Forest, by emergency medical specialists, and you know we have no reason to dispute the findings of these studies, but what we find is that this study and many others don't do anything to discuss the misuse of Tasers, or even the appropriateness of the use of Tasers, in cases where death has followed use.  These studies don't look at multiple or prolonged shocks, you know we heard earlier in the program with Mr Claxon being - he had three shocks with the Taser, so these studies don't - aren't really, aren't also replicating the situations where we see Tasers being used, and also being used on specific groups.  So, we'd like to see more study, we just - we just think that if you're going to put a weapon on the police belt, it's important for officers to know every - all of the possibilities, and so we're just - we're calling for more study about the actual scenarios in which we see Tasers being used.

What do you mean by Tasers used on specific groups?  What groups are you talking about?

Well individuals who are intoxicated, or agitated, or with some kind of underlying heart disease.  You know, how does the Taser exacerbate the human body when it's under these kind of stressful situations, or under an existing medical condition.

And when you talk about them being used in place of deadly force, what's your understanding about where the Taser falls on the continuum of police action?

Well, it's my understanding that we see Tasers in various places on the force continuum for the police departments. You know we heard Chief Kimerer talk about how in Seattle it's lower on the continuum, the continuum of force.  In other police departments we see it higher up.  One of our concerns is that there aren't consistent uses of the Taser, from police department to police department, and so it also is - it's difficult in some cases to figure out how the Taser is actually being used and applied, it's - because it's so - the scenarios are so different.

Do you see any value in the Taser, in looking at it.

From our perspective police officers are on the front-line and they should have every single tool that's available to them to - to deal with the violent situations that they're coming up on the street, but what we - Amnesty International is a human rights organisation, and so we subscribe to United Nations code of conduct for law enforcement officials, which says that officers should use force only when strictly necessary, and when other measures are ineffective, and they should only apply the minimum amount of force necessary, so you meet force equal with what you're being given, and so what we are seeing is that, you know the Taser, as I mentioned before, is being - not being used as an alternative to deadly force, often it's being used as a weapon of first resort and we are concerned about this application.

!Notes

"The jury is still out" means that no one has decided whether these devices are an effective tool for police officers.

If you are "on the front line" it means you risk being placed in danger.

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About the transcript: (E&OE) This transcript was created by Inhand.de for the Learn English Network. It has been published here with the permission of KUOW who own all copyright.

Taser Safety - Transcipt 1

Taser Safety - Transcipt 2

Taser Safety - Transcipt 3