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City’s Taser policy getting further review from Council

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By Ryan Gauthier, Staff Writer 9:27 AM Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Oxford police will have to continue waiting for their Tasers, following a Tuesday, Oct. 6, City Council work session that saw little progress made on the contentious issue.

City Manager Doug Elliott said he and Police Chief Steve Schwein will revise the department’s Taser policy once again, attempting to include some of the comments received from council members and concerned citizens.

“Our plan right now is to take many of the comments and make some further improvements to our policy,” Elliott said. “Then we’ll have to see if Council is simply okay with us approving it or if it’s something that they’d want us to bring forward in an ordinance.”

Several members with Oxford Citizens for Peace and Justice spoke out against the use of conducted energy devices, citing numerous studies which acknowledge the potential lethality of the devices.

Oxford resident Janis Dutton said it’s absurd for the police department to utilize a tool with failure rates reportedly as high as 10 percent. She placed the bulk of the blame on Taser International, who she said has used marketing to convince people the devices are not lethal.

“When I was young I would ask my mother to buy me Keds tennis shoes, because Keds said the shoes would make me run faster and jump higher,” Dutton said. “Police have been brainwashed by the manufacturer to justify inappropriate use of the electronic weapon and its safety.”

Chief Schwein said returning the devices to his department is especially crucial for officers working when during bar-time on the weekends, as inebriated subjects can present a substantial threat to police.

“We have officers ranging from 110 pounds to 240 pounds and in many cases they’re fighting someone half their age and several times their strength,” Schwein said. “It’s not a wrestling match between college-aged kids and the police — it’s a fight for your life. It’s just that simple.”

Departmental use of the devices appears to have peaked just prior to the Taser-related death of 24-year-old Miami graduate Kevin Piskura in April 2008. Compared to a combined zero deployments and six displays of force in 2006 and 2007, Oxford police report four deployments and three displays of force between January and April of 2008.

Council members called for several slight alterations to the policy, barring the use of the devices on mentally and physically disabled subjects and borrowing a passage from Miami University’s Taser guidelines.

Peter Holran, vice president of public relations with Taser International, said the electronic discharge from a Taser has been shown as incapable of causing death.

Holran cited a study by Dr. William Bozeman at Wake Forest University, who studied 1,201 randomly selected incidents of Taser use by police. Of those incidents, Bozeman reportedly found only three cases — less than one percent — involved a major injury to the subject.

Bozeman’s verdict? Holran said he concluded Tasers are generally safe and effective when used alongside good policies, with good training.

“We believe it’s the most studied and researched tool ever used by law enforcement in the history of mankind,” Holran said. “It’s changed the way law enforcement does its job.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 523-4139, ext. 86102, or at rgauthier@coxohio.com.

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