New & Noteworthy...

Sorrell: Use of Tasers was excessive

Published: Tuesday, April 8, 2008
By Dave Gram, The Associated Press

MONTPELIER -- Attorney General William Sorrell said Monday that Brattleboro police used excessive force in two incidents in July in which they used Tasers to shock people they were dealing with, but that officers would not face criminal charges.

"I'm sorry to report that the Brattleboro police blew it in both cases," Sorrell said. The comment came as he released copies of a 43-page report by his office on the use of Tasers and other weapons designed to be nonlethal by police in Vermont.

Sorrell said the 28 police agencies in the state equipped with the weapons, which are used to subdue unruly suspects by delivering a 50,000-volt electric shock, generally have found them to be a valuable tool. He said Tasers result in fewer injuries than nightstick blows and the pain they cause is over much quicker than with pepper spray.

Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Tremblay and Burlington Deputy Police Chief Walter Decker joined Sorrell at a news conference to support those conclusions. Tremblay said that as communities consider having their police use Tasers, there needs to be a good dialogue between police and the public.

The attorney general's review was triggered by the two incidents in Brattleboro.

On July 3, police used a Taser to subdue a male teenager who had barricaded himself in a room and was destroying furniture and other property at the Brattleboro Retreat psychiatric hospital. Gov. Jim Douglas requested Sorrell's review because the youth was in state custody at the time.

On July 24, officers used Tasers to urge two protesters to leave a vacant lot where they had attached themselves to a barrel and were refusing to leave. Jonathan Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray, both 32 and from West Dummerston, were part of a group protesting the planned construction of a truck stop.

In the Brattleboro Retreat incident, Sorrell found that the use of a Taser was appropriate, but he said it went on for too long. The normal "Taser cycle" delivers the electric shock for five seconds; Sorrell said data that can be downloaded after the weapons are used showed that the teenager had been hit with the Taser for 10 seconds.

"We reviewed no evidence to support the need for or the appropriateness of a 10-second firing," Sorrell's report said. "We believe that the duration of the tasing was excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary."

As for the protesters, Sorrell said many police departments' use-of-force policies direct officers that they are not to use Tasers against people who are exhibiting passive resistance.

Crowell and Kilmurray refused to detach themselves from the barrel and leave after each was shocked once. Kilmurray detached herself after a second time being shocked; Crowell was shocked three or four times, the attorney general said.

"In our view, based on the evidence that we had to review, they should not have tased the two protesters even one time, let alone multiple times for each of them," Sorrell told reporters.

He also faulted the Brattleboro department for not maintaining its Tasers to show properly the time they were used.

Calls to Brattleboro's Acting Police Chief Eugene Wrinn and Acting Town Manager Barbara Sondag were not immediately returned Monday.

Sorrell said the Brattleboro incidents prompted him to direct his office to conduct a broader inquiry into the use of less than lethal force by police agencies. The report covers batons or nightsticks, pepper spray and pepper balls and beanbags full of lead BBs that can be fired from a shotgun.

It cited several incidents of Taser use by police in Burlington, Rutland, Springfield and elsewhere that Sorrell concluded were reasonable and may have prevented worse injuries to suspects or officers when police faced violent situations.

In addition to the interviews with police in Vermont and a review of national literature, Sorrell included a trip to Burlington police headquarters where he was shocked with a Taser at his request. He said it was "probably the most unpleasant five seconds of my life."

He said police departments nationwide have begun using Tasers this decade, often to good effect.

"Phoenix police, the first major city police department in the country to fully deploy tasers to patrol officers, reported employing tasers 354 times during 2003, an increase of 139 percent over its 2002 usage numbers," the report said. "At the same time, its officer-involved shootings fell 54 percent and its fatal shootings fell 31 percent."

But he said police need to use caution in using Tasers, avoiding doing so with the elderly, the very young or with pregnant women, for example.

The attorney general quoted an emergency room doctor who studied Tasers and concluded, "These are not 100 percent safe. These are weapons and must be treated as such." To that, Sorrell added, "Law enforcement in Vermont should continue to be mindful of these realities."