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Police should pause
on use of stun guns

THE ISSUE Maui County is expanding the use of stun guns by police to disable criminal suspects.

WHILE police departments across the country are growing more hesitant about the use of electric stun guns, Maui police have gone forward with a plan to increase their use by patrol officers in all districts. Police should put a safety lock on use of the controversial disablers until studies are completed.

Maui police bought 24 of the guns, called Tasers, in a pilot program last year and recently bought 35 more. Deputy Police Chief Kekuhaupio Akana says he will ask the county to buy 165 more Tasers, and Police Commissioner Ron Vaught says he thinks every officer should carry both a service revolver and a Taser. Honolulu police are still at the pilot program stage.

Nationally, police departments' purchases of the Tasers have slowed since last fall, with some police chiefs saying they want more research into their safety. The International Association of Chiefs of Police plans to issue recommendations for their use next week and is asking police departments to review their own safety guidelines.

The county sheriff in Toledo, Ohio, suspended his office's use of the Tasers last week while it develops a policy that would require any suspect shocked by Tasers to pass a medical examination before being jailed. A Toledo man died after he was shocked five times by city police and four times by guards at the county jail.

In Chicago, a 14-year-old boy suffered cardiac arrest and a 54-year-old man died in separate incidents this month. Both had been shot with Tasers by Chicago police officers.

Nearly 100 people around the country have died since 2000 after being shocked by Tasers, although medical examiners rarely have cited Tasers as the cause of death. Arizona-based Taser International attributes most of the deaths to drug overdoses. The company's products look like pistols and shoot out two wires with darts carrying up to 50,000 volts of electricity.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference last week called for a moratorium on their use. Amnesty International said police should use them only as an alternative to lethal force, not as a way of simply forcing a person to comply with an officer's order.

Maui police last week issued a Certificate of Merit to an officer for stunning a man reported to be intoxicated and suicidal and suspecting he had a gun in a knapsack; a gun was later found in the bag. In January, Maui police used a Taser gun on a man who started a fire in a house and would not let firefighters inside.

In those cases, use of the Tasers seems to have been warranted. However, at the very least, rigid guidelines are needed to assure that they be used only as an alternative to lethal force.