The Wisconsin Department of Justice will appoint an advisory committee to recommend statewide guidelines for Taser use to the Law Enforcement Standards Board, which is the organization that sets police training rules.
The committee will be composed of 15 members, most of which will represent state law enforcement trainers and emeritus members.
Madison civil-rights attorney Carousel Andrea Bayrd said Tasers need control because they are being used beyond their intended nonviolent role. She referred to an incident in which a Madison Police Department officer fired a Taser at a 14-year-old Wisconsin boy.
“When he was Tasered, that high school student was running away, so he was not posing any threat,” Bayrd said. “There should not be issues of officers saying, ‘I could use my gun but thank God I’ve got my Taser.'”
Bayrd said the committee should suggest that officers only use Tasers under certain situations, and not as an alternative to brutality in a nonviolent environment.
The group’s first meeting is scheduled for late March. Members will recommend universal Taser training and curriculum strategies to statewide police. Current Wisconsin police standards make no mention of Tasers, so each department creates its own policies for using the electrical weapon.
The justice department has thought about setting Taser guidelines since August. Scot Ross from the Attorney General’s Department of Justice said discussion over weapons training is nothing new.
“The state always has to address training when a new police weapon comes into use,” Ross said. “This happened when pepper spray came out too.”
A Madison police report issued last week stated that its officers used Tasers on 83 occasions with only six injured suspects between 2003 and the beginning of 2005.
The MPD has said its policies consider the electrical device less dangerous than hand-to-hand fighting. Tasers — which typically fire metal barbs that send 50,000 volts through a person’s body for five seconds — are non-lethal means of incapacitating a suspect, according to police.
Even so, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray wrote a memo Feb. 3 to the Justice Department asking for the creation of statewide standards.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation and a coalition of civil-rights organizations also wrote a letter to Wray and Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager Feb. 14. In the petition, the ACLU asked that police use Tasers only when firearms are sanctioned.
The ACLU stated concerns that individuals with underlying medical conditions or under the influence of drugs and alcohol can die if Tasered.
Madison Ald. Andy Heidt, District 13, called for a suspension on Taser use until a more comprehensive look at their long-term effects can be made.
But Bayrd said there might not be enough scientific evidence to label Tasers as unsafe. She said this might influence the committee’s decision regarding the device.
“The problem becomes what understanding they will go off of — that Tasers are safe and can be used all the time, or that they qualify as safe but [at least] are better than guns,” Bayrd said.
