Electro Clash

In 1998, the New York Police Department was handed a new technology that would soon revolutionize police work across the country.

Manufactured by Scottsdale, AZ-based Taser International Inc., the Advanced Taser M26 was a new generation of projectile stun gun able to drop a human target from 21 feet away using a 50,000-volt burst. The department purchased 102 units in December 1999, putting it at the forefront of law enforcement agencies adopting "less-than-lethal technology" in the United States.

Since then, more than 4000 law enforcement agencies in the United States have purchased the weapon, which is now standard issue for patrol officers in approximately 500 agencies. Tasers are currently used by the U.S. Army in Iraq and on Air Force flights between Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay; major cities like Phoenix, Austin, Miami and Seattle now deploy Tasers in first-responder units.

Despite its early start, Taser use in the NYPD is today on the periphery of what cop academics call "the use of force spectrum." Tasers are deployed solely with the city's Emergency Services Unit, an elite group that one police union official describes as "the cops the cops call." Despite being first shipped to the NYPD in 1999, these weapons have yet to make it to the patrol officer's holster. "We were ahead on the technology. We were ground-breaking with the company," says one officer. "But red tape and money issues with the city slowed down processes. The usual stuff. The bigger you are, the slower you go."

Though police shootings are overall down over the past decade, since the NYPD ordered its first batch of Tasers, police gunfire has killed 63 offenders, wounded 118 more and injured six bystanders. Considering these numbers, Taser Inc.'s product seems a perfect fit for the NYPD. Tasers, the company claims, have been proven to reduce injuries to officers by 80 percent, cut down suspect injuries by 67 percent and drop incidents where lethal force is used by 78 percent. This means fewer lawsuits and reduced liability. Mayor Bloomberg even touted Tasers during an August 2001 campaign stop, saying, "Police officers are often faced with life-or-death decisions," he was quoted as saying in the Post, "but nobody wants to use excessive force."

In a city with a history of police-on-civilian violence, a growing portfolio of wrongful death lawsuits and support from the Bloomberg administration, one imagines the police department would embrace the Taser and deploy it immediately. But that hasn't happened.

Amadou Diallo, Timothy Stansbury Jr. and Patrick Dorismond are names the public has come to associate with police violence. They're also the names that have been invoked as reasons enough to adopt new non-lethal weapons.

According to Phil Smith, the chairman of Taser, Inc., Stansbury?the Brooklyn teen shot to death by a housing police officer in January?would still be alive had a Taser been present on patrol.

"That might never had happened," he says. "They'd have pulled the Tasers right out and shot the kid. If they had any doubts, they could sort it out later if he had a gun, instead of shooting and killing him. That's the beauty of the Taser."

Tasers and stun guns have been around for decades, as have controversies surrounding their reputation for being both unreliable and ripe for abuse. But Taser Inc. officials say the M26?along with its successor, the X26?is a different breed of weapon. It can "completely override the central nervous system," sending a signal telling the target's muscles to "contract until the target is in the fetal position on the ground," according to the company's website.

Still, the Taser remains controversial. Human rights groups cite its potential for abuse during interrogations, while some law enforcement officials question its effectiveness. Lt. Eric Adams, a spokesperson for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement said, "The Taser is a very technical weapon to use. It can cause death and fail to detain a suspect."

Yet, statistics show that cities where the Taser is deployed enjoy a significant drop in lethal police shootings. According to the New York Times, Miami and Seattle?two cities whose police departments have adopted the Taser?enjoyed a year without any officers fatally shooting suspects in 2003.

"I don't understand departments that aren't using this at full implementation," said former NYPD commissioner Bernard B. Kerik in a phone interview last week. "It only takes one negative event and your losses are astronomical. They're absurd almost. When you look at the track record of agencies that are using the Taser at full or substantial implementation, their injuries or liabilities, the money they save, the injuries that they reduce, it's staggering to me."

During the summer of 2002, Phil Smith flew the former commissioner to Scottsdale for a demonstration. In June 2002, Kerik joined Taser Inc.'s board of directors.

Kerik claims the move wasn't about money. "Compared to other boards, I get nothing out of it. But I did it more because it's a good thing," the former commissioner said.

Business or not, Kerik's timing couldn't have been better: Taser Inc.'s stock has shot up 2300 percent since he joined. According to Smith, Kerik's potential compensation from Taser amounts to "60,000 options that are probably worth $50 [each]?that's $3 million." SEC documents show that Kerik planned a sale of 12,500 shares in late November 2003 for $913,475.

(Taser Inc. hasn't been Kerik's only project since leaving the department. He has enjoyed several high-level positions since entering the private sector, serving as a senior advisor to L. Paul Bremer in Iraq for four months?where more than 300 Tasers have been deployed?and as a consultant for Giuliani Partners, the former mayor's consulting firm. The latter is particularly appropriate: According to a company press release, Giuliani Partners formed a partnership with Bear Stearns Merchant Bank for a $300 million fund to invest in businesses involved in "preparing for, preventing, protecting against, responding to and recovering from a wide array of threats affecting businesses or individuals and their property.")

The most common-sense obstacle in the way of adopting Tasers may be the cost of outfitting 23,000 patrol officers with the $799 weapon. While most cities at full implementation don't purchase one for each officer, the NYPD would still require several thousand units to match their proportion of deployment.

"People will tell you it will cost a huge amount of money to outfit New York," says Smith. "Well, let me tell you if they lose a $50 million lawsuit, you can outfit the whole department for 40 million bucks."

Nine thousand NYPD sergeants are planning to be trained with Tasers, a strategy that one insider dismissed as archaic: "That's absolutely the wrong approach with this weapon. The supervisors are the last people you want to give it, to because by the time they arrive on the scene all the trouble has erupted, the problem has occurred, and usually the situation is over."

The weapons also have the support of the police union that, according to a spokesperson, backs "any improved technology and training, particularly in the area of non-lethal weapons. And certainly Tasers fit the bill."

With such widespread support for the Taser, why does it remain in the shadows of the NYPD's arsenal?

At press time, NYPD did not have comment on plans for the acquisition or further implementation of Tasers, and a spokesperson with the mayor's office said despite Bloomberg's past support for non-lethal weapons, implementation is up to the NYPD.

Kerik says he does not involve himself in selling to the NYPD. "I will talk to other agencies and other administrators about Taser, but I stay away from doing anything in New York City, talking to anyone in New York City, because I don't even want a perception [of conflict of interest] to appear, so I don't do it."

Taser's troubled history of pitching the weapon to the NYPD may be another reason the weapon is in such limited use. Thomas Hennigan, a sales representative for Taser, made an introduction to the Firearms & Tactics Unit. According to court papers, Hennigan, who has since died, filed a $400 million lawsuit against Taser Inc., claiming that in March of 1999, a month after Amadou Diallo's death, the NYPD was "in a position to buy significant quantities of the Air Tasers."

Hennigan claims he established an agreement with the NYPD to be the "sole source" of Tasers. In February 2000, Taser terminated their relationship with Hennigan and, according to court papers, notified the NYPD that they did not need to purchase through Hennigan. The lawsuit was dismissed in New York and is still pending in an Arizona court. An officer familiar with Hennigan dismissed the idea that the sales representative had a deal. Smith called Hennigan's suit as "ridiculous" saying Taser Inc. never had a contract with Hennigan, whom he referred to as a "thorn in NYPD's side."

Leslie Trager, an attorney representing the Hennigan estate, believes otherwise. "We thought we had the New York Police Department sold," she said. "Then they walked away from my client. Should the police department have it? I don't know. Look at that poor guy who was shot on the rooftop by that police officer a couple of weeks ago. He'd still be alive if [the cop had] a Taser."

From a cost-benefit standpoint, Tasers are sexy weapons. But the weapon's safety remains controversial. Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser, Inc., who's been zapped with the weapon, described the sensation as being "very similar to having a funny bone lit up, except all over the body. And you feel it about 18 times per second."

But Hector Castro, a reporter with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, allowed himself to be zapped by the weapon and wrote that the zap left him with "lingering pain and?blisters."

There have been 40 cases of individuals dying after being shot with a Taser. In the last two months, suspects have died in Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Southampton, New York and Silverdale, WA; in Belleville, IL, a suicidal man shot himself after being hit with a Taser.

The company maintains that there's no residual damage from a Taser hit.

"We have been cleared in each and every case in which a medical examiner has issued the cause of death," said Tuttle. "Most of those cases, these people were in the death throes of what's called 'excited delirium' or 'cocaine psychosis.' So most of them have been ruled overdoses."

Human rights groups fear that there is not enough known about the weapon.

"There has been no thorough, independent and impartial evaluation of the medical effects of electro-shock weapons," an Amnesty International filing read. "Medical experts have expressed concern about the health risks associated with electro-shock weapons, as well as their potential for abuse."

Amnesty International filed the report about the abuse of Tasers after cops in Miramar, FL, zapped a 15-year-old high school student while responding to a school bus driver who couldn't calm unruly kids.

The NYPD may also have to overcome the historical stigma associated with shock weapons. In 1985, four officers from the 106th Precinct in Queens were arrested for allegedly torturing suspects with an electric stun gun.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board, a civilian agency that investigates accusations of police misconduct, has received less than five complaints about the use of "non-lethal restraints" in the past year. According to a spokesperson with the CCRB, the potential for widespread deployment of the Taser is not currently under review by the board, which in the past has examined the use of pepper spray and the deployment of hollow-point bullets to the NYPD.

Taser, Inc. can survive without the NYPD's business. In the past year, the company has seen 43 percent growth in revenues and is busy expanding into the European and foreign military markets. Yet their frustration of dealing with the NYPD is clear.

"We're just too small a company to deal with that huge bureaucracy," said Smith. "There are so many layers. I know the police that have them love them. Frankly we don't know how to dock with the Battleship Galactica, so to speak."

If and when Tasers hit the patrol level remains an open question. As the police union official put it, "In New York City, just changing the patch on a uniform is a big deal."