Guest Column:

Police officers' behavior have proved Tasers unsafe

By Catherine Parke, MU professor

Published Nov. 3, 2009

We are here today to announce a significant redirection of the work first begun by the Coalition to Control TASERs, founded in Columbia in 2008. This redirection now aims to make Columbia completely TASER-free by presenting to the voting public the issue of eliminating TASER-use by the Police Department and the public.

We could not have foreseen this critical need to work committedly toward eliminating TASERS either when the Coalition was originally formed, or even as recently as May 2009, when the national Police Executive Research Forum standards were implemented to guide, control and assert protocols of use and accountability; and in so doing fully inform and protect the public. But it has become self-evident to us that making Columbia TASER-free is now absolutely necessary for public safety.

Compelling reasons have brought us to this position we are announcing today. We are responding to a call on our consciences that does not allow us to remain silent. We must speak. Here are the reasons.

First, even after instituting PERF standards, TASERs continue to be used in ambiguous, uncertain and seemingly mistaken ways that appear not to conform consistently to "imminent danger" standards. There have been multiple incidents that appear to involve excessive use of TASER force or use in situations explicitly identified as inappropriate for TASERS.

Second, in this climate of ambiguous, uncertain and sometimes seemingly mistaken use of TASERS, even after PERF standards have been adopted, accountability and transparency, which are always essential, become emphatically vital. Citizens and citizen groups making Sunshine Law requests have encountered chronic difficulty in obtaining police documents for examination, a problem that also characterized the period before PERF.

Third, many people thus see and feel a widening gap of uncertainty and fear between themselves and the police — a gap that lessens cooperation, intercepts good communication, erodes trust and damages the model of service to the public that is essential for a city police force always to support and maintain.

This climate of uncertainty, ambiguity and mistrust leads to an instability that can, in turn, deteriorate into irreparable harm, as in the death of young Stanley Harlan, killed by a TASER in Moberly in August 2008. This tragic death in our region, the ever-growing number of deaths nationwide, approximately one each week, TASER International's recent emphatic warning about the dangers of shooting into the chest and recent decisions against Tasters (the Memphis, MI City Council, for instance, turned down the police department's request for TASERs; and the Sheriff's Department of Tarrant County, TX has discontinued use) map the mounting evidence of a worsening situation.

Let it not require the death of a citizen of Columbia to move us to eliminate all TASERS in our city. Chief of Police Ken Burton was quoted in the January 12, 2009 Columbia Missourian as follows: "Citizens should make the ultimate decision about whether the Police Department uses TASERs." We invoke his admirable and accurate statement as our call to announce the TASER-free Columbia campaign to take this issue to the voting public.