October 22, 2009 in City

Taser warns of risk to heart

Police advised to avoid hitting chest

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Stun gun maker Taser International is advising police agencies across the nation to avoid aiming the devices at a suspect’s chest. The Arizona-based company says such action poses an “extremely low” risk of an “adverse cardiac event.”

The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, marks the first time that Taser has suggested any risk of ill effects on the heart from the use of its 50,000-volt stun guns.

Critics of police use of Tasers on suspects called the bulletin a surprising reversal for the company.

Company officials said Wednesday that the bulletin does not state that Tasers can cause cardiac arrest and that the advisory means only that law enforcement agencies can avoid controversy if their officers aim at areas other than the chest.

Local authorities have used Tasers for years, including in situations in which the suspect later died.

In one of the most controversial cases, Otto Zehm was shocked three times by Spokane police officers who confronted him after receiving a call about unusual activity at an ATM. Zehm was shocked at least twice in his chest during the 2006 incident, according to court documents. He was also struck with a baton and restrained in a manner police referred to in the incident report as being hogtied. His heart stopped at the scene, and he died two days later.

Officer Karl Thompson, the first officer on the scene, faces federal felony charges in the incident, and the city faces a civil lawsuit over alleged violations of Zehm’s civil rights.

In a separate case, Spokane County recently settled a lawsuit for $137,000 involving a deputy’s use of a Taser on Spirit Creager during a 2004 traffic stop. Creager was jolted twice by barbs stuck in his back.

After the Creager settlement was announced earlier this month, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Taser training is regularly upgraded and use of the stun guns has been greatly reduced in the past six months.

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies will receive copies of the most recent bulletin from Taser, and the recommendations will be part of annual training that all officers will undergo at the beginning of 2010, said Deputy Eric Johnson, the department’s master Taser instructor.

He said the advisory from Taser suggests that aiming for the abdomen below the navel, so that one probe goes above the belt and one below, is the most effective use of the device.

It also says damage could come from the projectile hitting the sternum rather than the electric shock, if a projectile hits the chest.

“It doesn’t say ‘never.’ It recognizes it’s more efficient above and below the belt,” said Johnson, who added training has changed greatly since he began as an instructor in 2002.

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  lewis8457 on October 22 at 6:38 a.m.

  Taser company says don’t shoot right in the chest SPD training manuals have been updated as to read, hit victim directly in chest in order to win officer of the month award.

• 

  Rifleman__Dodd on October 22 at 6:55 a.m.

  Now they tell us. Sounds like ripe evidence for a product liability suite. The manufacture admiting the use of their product CAN produce death.

  Might as well just carry a portable electric chair in each squad car and we can avoid the jury/sentencing phases.

• 

  garfnagn on October 22 at 7:28 a.m.

  Taser Instructor Johnson for the Sheriff’s Office:

  “It doesn’t say ‘never.”

  That, folks, is all you gotta know about the mindset of how local LEO’s are going to interpret this astonishing confession from the Taser company who up until now has steadfastly denied their product was lethal despite the mounting bodycount.

  Lewis is correct. I wonder if the SPD has a little lightning bolt patch they give out to those with the most Taser takedowns each month.

• 

  Bob_Knows on October 22 at 7:38 a.m.

  Tasers, at best, are torture. At worst are murder.

  The blue gun thug gangs has replaced competence with these high-tech torture devices.

  Their bloated budgets need to be cut so they won’t be wasting OUR money on high-tech devices to use in their war on the people.