Chief Ronal Serpas today announced that the Metropolitan Police Department next month will begin redeploying Taser devices to specially trained and certified patrol and Flex officers in the six precincts.
Every patrol and Flex officer who desires to carry a Taser, and who successfully completes the eight-hour training and certification process, will be able to check one out at his/her precinct at the beginning of each work shift.
“There is no doubt that Tasers, across the country and in Nashville, have time after time assisted in safely bringing combative, resistant suspects into custody without significant injury to arrestees or officers,” Serpas said. “After 32 months of careful study and research, I have made the decision that Taser redeployment to officers in the six precincts is in the best interest of public safety in Nashville.”
Findings from a recent Justice Department-sponsored study on Tasers by Wake Forest University School of Medicine supports the safety of Taser use by law enforcement, although recognizing that such use is not free of risk. A recent article in the magazine Emergency Medicine News notes that “there is no credible proof that the Taser induces cardiac arrest when used by law enforcement officials in a prescribed manner.”
“The bottom line is this: the Taser is an effective tool that helps prevent hand-to-hand combat or steel baton use in dealing with clearly resistant suspects. Every available option we have not to go hands-on with suspects the better for both officers and arrestees,” Serpas said. “In my police career, I have been on the receiving end of an inadvertent baton strike while working with a fellow officer to bring a fighting suspect into custody. I have also been on the receiving end of a Taser activation. I would take the Taser over a baton strike every time.”
“Certainly, the book is not closed on Taser research in the medical and scientific communities. As study findings are published in the coming months and years, the Metropolitan Police Department will stay on top of the latest research and will adjust appropriate policies and procedures as necessary,” Serpas said.
While Metro officers use force in less than 2% of some 70,000 arrest situations annually, statistics for the past two years show 268 suspects and 245 officers received some type of injury. The Taser is seen as a tool to significantly lower suspect and officer injuries.
Dr. Corey Slovis, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Director of Emergency Medicine, has said, “In general, Tasers are going to protect the police, they’re going to protect our community, and they’re going to protect the person who’s been tasered rather than having any other means of force, especially a bullet, shot into them.”
A Taser does not necessarily need to be discharged to deescalate a volatile situation. There have been many instances across the country during which combative suspects cease fighting upon the mere sight of an officer with a Taser.
Metro police department policy on Taser usage provides that the device is considered an “intermediate” level of force between soft empty-hand control techniques and hard empty-hand control techniques. The policy also provides that:
All officers receiving Taser training during the eight-hour certification course or at annual in-service will be taught that every effort should be made to control the suspect as quickly as possible and that a person being tasered can be touched without any shock to backup officers.
The police department has ordered 120 new Tasers so that there will be enough for each trained and certified officer. Of the department’s 75 existing deployed Tasers, 43 are assigned to supervisors at the six precincts, 27 are assigned to SWAT personnel, four are assigned to the Training Academy, and one is assigned to overnight field supervisors.
Forty-five Tasers were carried by both patrol officers and supervisors from November 2004 through September 2005. On September 30, 2005, Chief Serpas restricted Taser use to supervisors pending studies by the scientific and medical communities on the effect of the devices on persons experiencing a condition known as excited delirium.
Since then, the Metropolitan Police Department’s evolving Taser policy, procedures and training were found to be consistent with the 52 recommended guidelines issued by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The department met or exceeded the majority of PERF recommendations prior to their issuance. Moreover, a committee formed by the police department has developed a best practices guide for officers who encounter persons exhibiting signs of excited delirium (the committee consisted of Captain Mike Hagar, MNPD Director of Training; Dr. Corey Slovis, Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Director of Emergency Medicine; Dr. Bruce Levy, the Metro & State Medical Examiner; and Deputy Fire Chief Steve Meador, who oversees the fire department’s emergency medical services).
The best practices response, which has been in place for two years, includes having an ambulance crew on stand by if at all possible when attempting to subdue an individual exhibiting signs of excited delirium. When appropriate, a fire department paramedic will administer an injection containing the sedative Versed to calm the individual and lessen his combativeness once taken into custody. The Nashville policy is based almost entirely on protocol developed by the EAGLES EMS Medical Directors Group, a consortium of almost all of the largest emergency medial services in the U.S. that cover some 50 million lives.
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