Stoneham Police Looking to Add Tasers to Arsenal

The is looking to add a new weapon to its arsenal: the Taser.

In recent months, the Capital Committee asked department heads to put together a "wish list" and police have requested $10,000 for the purchase of Tasers, according to Selectman Richard Gregorio during an April 10 session. He added that the committee plans to recommend the purchase and have it appear as a warrant article on the May 7 Town Meeting Ballot.

Of the 351 communities in Massachusetts, 123 currently have Tasers, according to Gregorio.

The Need for Tasers

Stoneham Police Chief Richard Bongiorno discussed the growing need for Tasers to be made available to his officers.

"We're a consortium of (Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council) NEMLEC communities which are 51 cities and towns," Bongiorno said, "and NEMLEC and their special operations team research the use of Tasers. They have a lot of data through the Police Executive Research Forum and they found that it's an extremely effective less than lethal weapon. It allows an officer to maintain distance; distance is our friend.

"So, our special operations officer Sergeant (Tom) Heller is also a part of the NEMLEC SWAT team. He gave myself and the command lieutenants a demonstration on the Taser, including some video and research, and I became very interested in moving us forward to using Tasers as a less than lethal means of subduing a prisoner."

Troublesome Events

In 2011, several difficult situations cropped up that put officers and suspects at risk of injury that could have been resolved more efficiently and safely had the department had Tasers, according to the police chief.

"We researched our records and in the last year we had six very serious incidents that had we had use of the Taser we would have reduced officer injuries as well as an injury to at least one suspect," Bongiorno said. "There was another suspect who actually wanted to commit suicide by cop. We had to manually subdue him and he had a large butcher knife and clearly it places our officers and the suspect himself in danger, so had we had the Tasers we could have distanced ourselves 10 to 15 feet away and gave him a shot on the Taser.

"It completely debilitates and subdues an individual—it's quite painful—but it's not lethal and the effects of the Taser wear off in approximately a minute and a half and that gives us ample time to neutralize a suspect with no injury, and after that minute and a half it's like nothing ever happened."

Who Would Get a Taser?

While he would have loved to have outfitted his 36 officers with Tasers, the overall cost would have been about $44,000, which includes training and overtime, so the department arrived at a second plan, according to Bongiorno.

"As an alternative to that, we did present an option to the Capital Committee to purchase about eight Tasers instead of the 36, and we would assign the Taser weapon to each officer as they come on duty," Bongiorno said. "We'll keep a Taser here at the booking desk. One of our serious incidents that resulted in an injury of an officer was a very combative prisoner who refused to go into a cell. It took four officers to place that man in a cell and an officer was slightly injured.

"Had we had the Taser we would have used it in that circumstance, and that's why the training is so critical because it lets officers know when to use it but equally important when not to use it."

Whether voters approve the Tasers or not, Bongiorno said he has already had the department's two armorers—Sergeants Tom Heller and Bob Kennedy—trained not only in the use of the weapon but also certified as instructors. The sergeants would then be able to train officers in-house on how to use the weapon properly, he added.

Are There Drawbacks to Tasers?

In May 2011, the National Institute of Justice issued a report entitled "Police Use of Force, Tasers and Other Less-Lethal Weapons" and discussed its findings. 

"Conducted energy devices, such as Tasers, pro­duce 50,000 volts of electric­ity. The electricity stuns and temporarily disables people by causing involuntary mus­cle contractions. This makes people easier to arrest or subdue," reads the report. "When CEDs cause involuntary muscle contrac­tions, the contractions cause people to fall. Some people have experienced serious head injuries or bone breaks from the falls, and at least six deaths have occurred because of head injuries suf­fered during falls following CED exposure.

"More than 200 Americans have died af­ter being shocked by Tasers. Some were normal, healthy adults; others were chemi­cally dependent or had heart disease or mental illness."

Landmark Ruling

In December 2009, a federal appeals court in California ruled that police can be held liable for using Tasers against an unarmed person during a traffic stop, according to a report by the New York Times. The decision stemmed from an incident involving Carl Bryan, a then 21-year-old Californian who drove over large stretches of Southern California to retrieve car keys mistakenly taken by a friend and ended up being Tasered by Brian McPherson, a Coronado, Calif., policeman and breaking four teeth when he fell to the ground, according to the Times.

Weighing the Options

While there are positives and negatives related to the device, Bongiorno sees the Taser as being a useful weapon for officers to carry.

"I think the major positive is it is one more tool in the ladder of escalation in the use of force less than lethal. That is our goal," Bongiorno said. "None of us want to use lethal force, but if we're not able to constrain with the use of a baton or pepper spray because some people it doesn't impact, we certainly can constrain given certain circumstances through the use of a Taser.

"That will neutralize a suspect within a minute and a half to two minutes, then once the suspect complies and is neutralized then they have no effects of the Taser."

Bongiorno said using Tasers has proven to decrease the number of injuries sustained by both suspects and officers.

"We here in the northeast are generally last to try new technology and Tasers have been around for a number of years," said the police chief. "We found through the Police Executive Research Forum that there were two to three-year studies from major police departments from California, midwest, southeast and southwest of the country that the study in the use of Tasers I believe reduced the number of officer injuries by 57 percent from prior statistics and it reduced the number of suspect injuries by almost an equal amount percentage wise."

Using the Device

Bongiorno does understand the issues some people have related to Tasers.

"People are concerned about the use of Tasers because there is an electrical shock, which is not a lethal shock, and there are two little prongs that will actually penetrate the skin and if an officer pulls the trigger that reduces the electrical impulse but it's such a low-grade (shock) that it's not going to electrocute anyone and certainly neutralizes the suspect," Bongiorno said.

Bongiorno described the Taser x26, the weapon the department is considering purchasing if voters approve the article at Town Meeting.

"The device itself is very similar in size to the handguns—the sidearms we carry—and it has a light attached to it, a laser beam attached to it and if you press one button a red laser will happen upon the suspect and generally when a suspect sees the red light on them they will comply with our demands," he said. "The Taser has a built-in battery pack and anytime an officer pulls the trigger on the Taser there is a mini-computer inside the weapon that administrators can determine when a trigger was pulled, how many times it was pulled and how long it was activated for and that has already been used in court to defend the actions of police officers who may have been sued for excessive force complaints."