A Taser isn't always the right tool for the job

October 3, 8:31 AMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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The Taser: a life-saver that takes too many lives

I feel sorry for Lieutenant Michael W. Pigott of the NYPD, but I feel sorrier for Iman Morales, the disturbed man who plunged to his death from a ledge after being Tasered at Pigott's orders -- apparently in violation of department policy. Remorseful and fearful of bringing disgrace on his family, Pigott took his own life just hours before Morales's funeral.

Intended to save lives, and with the potential to do just that as a less-lethal weapon that can be deployed in situations that would otherwise require the use of firearms, the Taser too often suffers from mission-creep. Instead of being used as a replacement for a gun, it too often becomes a hammer in a world full of nails, deployed in inappropriate circumstances that suddenly, through the introduction of thousands of volts, become lethal.

A suicidal man perched on a ledge is just such an inappropriate circumstance.

Amnesty International tracks the use and abuse of Tasers, saying:

Since June 2001, more than 320 individuals in the United States have died after being shocked by police TASERs. Most of those individuals were not carrying a weapon. Amnesty International is concerned that TASERs are being used as tools of routine force -- rather than as an alternative to firearms. ...

No study has adequately examined the impact of TASERs on potentially at-risk individuals -- people who have medical conditions, take prescription medications, are mentally ill or are under the influence of narcotics. Rigorous, independent, impartial study of their use and effects is urgently needed to determine what role TASERs may have played in the 320 deaths and to determine appropriate guidelines for future TASER use.

The Taser may well have an important role to play -- if it's used instead of a gun. But, if it continues to be the go-to tool for any confrontation, we're going to see more tragic cases like the one that ended the lives of Iman Morales and Michael Pigott.

And then we'll have to decide if we want police using Tasers at all.