Taser approaches in Nassau, Suffolk sharply split
November 16, 2009 By bart.jones@newsday.com
Photo credit: AP | Tasers are non-lethal force weapons that use electro-muscular disruption to override the central nervous system.
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view large mapReflecting a national split, Nassau and Suffolk counties take sharply different approaches to the use of Taser guns.
Nassau County police have 10 Tasers that can be used only by 30 members of the emergency services unit. Suffolk police have 669 Tasers, and supervisors hope to arm most patrol cops with one.
The contrasting approaches underscore a national debate about Tasers - a debate being fueled by cases such as the death Saturday night of a cocaine-impaired Coram man after Suffolk police shot him with a Taser. Officers said they fired at the man, Darryl Bain, when he became highly agitated and started shaking his mother.
Bain, 43, was the fourth person to die in Suffolk since 2005 after being shot with a Taser.
>>VIDEO: Click here to watch someone getting tasered and how it affects the body
Authorities have not determined what caused his death, and officials say there is no scientific evidence linking Tasers to the deaths of people shot with them. But Amnesty International, saying the jury is still out, is calling for a comprehensive medical study to find out why people shot by the 50,000-volt weapons are dying.
"We're sending people into the field with a device we are telling them is safe," said Jared Feuer, southern director for Amnesty International USA. The group says more than 350 people shot by Tasers have died in the United States and Canada since June 2001.
Dennis Kenney, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor, said Tasers are "generally a good tool" for police to control dangerously aggressive people and avoid firing bullets at them.
"It's not perfectly successful, but it's highly successful," he said. Law enforcement agencies "are pretty supportive of it," although police departments nationally differ about how extensively the Tasers should be used.
About 12,000 police departments across the country are using Tasers, according to Amnesty International.
The Nassau County Police Department thinks the role of Tasers "deserves a little more evaluation" before putting them into widespread use, said spokesman Lt. Kevin Smith.
"It's not something we are taking lightly," he said. Nassau officers used Tasers six times in 2006, seven times in 2007, eight times in 2008 and five times so far this year, he said. No deaths involving Tasers have occurred.
>>VIDEO: Click here to see the story which first sparked the taser debate
In Suffolk, Tasers were used 44 times in 2006, 53 times in 2007, 65 times in 2008 and 146 times so far this year. Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said the growth in use reflected the increasing number of Tasers the department uses.
He said officers shoot Tasers only at "violent, combative individuals who fail to comply with an officer's direction to be handcuffed." He said Suffolk has more than 650 more Tasers than Nassau because it is geographically twice the size and officers often cannot wait for Emergency Service officers to arrive.
He noted that Tasers "are used many times without adverse effects."
