St. Louis police officer speaks against Taser use

Posted to Police Beat by Mike Ziegler at 8:35 p.m., Nov. 24, 2009

People for a Taser-Free Columbia sponsored an open forum discussion Friday on removing Tasers from the police and banning use completely within Columbia.

The discussion was held at the Boone County Government Center with about 70 people in attendance.

Guest speakers for the evening were Athena Bachtel and Redditt Hudson. Batchel is the mother of Stanley Harlan of Moberly, on whom Moberly police used a Taser after a traffic stop in August 2008.

Redditt Hudson was a St. Louis police officer for five years and spoke from St. Louis via speakerphone. Hudson's focus throughout his speech to the group was the "unnecessary risk" and the "increased liability" Tasers put on good officers.

Hudson cited a recent revision to the guidelines set out by TASER International on the preferred target zones of Taser deployment. TASER International now recommends aiming away from the chest and head regions, an October TASER International training bulletin stated.

"You're at risk of losing everything, and it's such an unnecessary risk when you already have tools available to you,” Hudson said.

Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Jessie Haden said the new guidelines given by TASER International were changed to tell police departments they are more likely to be sued if a subject dies after being hit in the check, head or somewhere else on the body, rather than because of safety concerns.

"We're not telling our officers to not deploy in the chest if that keeps them safe," Haden said.

Also in attendance in the discussion was Third Ward City Councilman Karl Skala. Skala said last year he went through the complete Taser training at CPD and voluntarily subjected himself to multi-second Taser exposure.

Skala was a vocal proponent of proper Taser use by CPD throughout the discussion but still had concerns of the use of Tasers by police.

"I think we still need to talk about some of the psychological aspects and some of the force continuum aspects more than we did before," Skala said. "I think we are making great strides, we're not there yet."

Haden said she has seen Taser deployment go down over time this year.

"One of the things I’ve seen in 2009 is when you compare first, second and third quarters, we've had an increase in laser light display warnings and a decrease in actual deployment," she said.

Sid Sullivan, a candidate running for Mayor next year, also spoke in the discussion. He said younger officers who are on their own might not have the confidence talking down a subject and working with people and offenders.

"You've got a gun, a Taser, your pepper spray, your handcuffs, you probably have a collapsible club and you've got an assist for additional officers," Sullivan said. "You've got all of that and you need to have the confidence that will work."

Haden said Tasers are a valuable addition to the arsenal of tools an officer has available to them in the field.

"I started many years ago and we didn't have a Taser available to us then," Haden said. "The Taser adds to that and is a very important component and is still a step down from the use a firearm."

Skala said his main role for being at the meeting was to correct any misinformation.

"If the folks out here want to ban Tasers, and they don't want them in their community, I'm an elected official, and I represent them," Skala said. "If that's what they want I will support them, but I want to make sure that discussion happens in the context of correct information and not misinformation.”