there far more often than a gun would be used. officers are taught that tasers are not to be used in deadly force situations, because tasers are not always effective if lives are in danger. officers are taught to use deadly force. i was in the other room when officers told stories about incidents that had happened, the removing stories, marie scary stories. in most of those scenarios, tasers would not be an appropriate weapon. tasers are not non-lethal weapons. they are less lethal. at least six people have died nearby when tasers were used.

in one of those cases, the man had been hitting a car with a garden hoe. he did not respond to commands, and officers used batons and pepper spray on him. the coroner's report said that tasers had been used 20 times. he died the next day. a comparison can be made a fatal officer-involved shootings in the five years before and after tasers were deployed in san jose. there were seven between 1999 and 2004, and seven in the five years following. however, when the number of deaths after tasers were deployed is added, it becomes 13. the numbers in san jose do not do a strong support for taser

deployment. the other issue is cost. the cost to purchase, the cost of training, which should be ongoing, because tasers should not be used often, and medical support for those shot. each should be used by a -- should be examined by a doctor. san francisco should purchase tasers with cameras to have the best evidence available. there are many issues and costs which must be weighed. i think you all have their work cut out for you. i also want to say there is a really important step in moving ahead with the crisis intervention program. having worked in berkeley, and a crisis intervention can save lives if it is a party of the

department. thank you for the time to address you today. i know you have many speakers. i do not want to talk long. but i am here to answer any questions you might have. >> mr. john burton, do you want to give it another stab after technical difficulties? if you give it a try, i think it will work this time. >> the cure may be using somebody else's lap top. >> mr. burton is an attorney from los angeles. i believe you were the first attorney to successfully sue taser international after a shooting death. i wanted you to share your experiences on that.

>> i have prepared a brief power. . -- a brief powerpoint. >> got it. >> here we go. the risks of this device are not apparent. these officers to go to these training sessions. they are tasered under controlled circumstances. it hurts like hell. they laugh afterward, go out in the field, and tend to use it in situations far below anything that would justify pulling a firearm, much less discharging it. they are trained that it is not a substitute for legal force. we will see why, as we show you

my presentation, that is the case. when it talks about ecd's, electronic control devices, conduct electrical weapons -- tasers do not have a lockout device on model x26, which is the only one being sold at this time. stinger, which was a competitor that lost a patent lawsuit to taser., had a lockout after five seconds, which was more responsible. it could be cycled three times, and then the taser had to be reset. officers get a lot of adrenalin going. the wind of discharging the device far more than they think

they did afterward. we have seen minutes of discharges. there were 35 second this charges recorded on the device -- their work -- there were 30 five-second discharges recorded on this device. there is no conclusive medical evidence that indicates a high level of death from exposure. i am not sure what they mean by high risk. it is a low percentage of people who are catered -- tasered who have serious injury and die. but we are talking about russian roulette. in the next per group on the next page, it says exposure is safe in the vast majority of cases. let us hope that the victim who is getting tasered is not in

that small minority of cases that involves injury or death. i would like to talk about one of these small minority of cases. this man -- he is a boy. he is 17 years old. he lived in charlotte, north carolina. we have heard about the charlotte department. this is a charlotte-mecklenburg incident that was caught on tape. there'll worked in the local supermarket as a backer. he graduated from high school. he was caught by his employer eating some snack food and not paying for it. there were hot dogs. he was upset. he felt he was being singled out and treated unfairly. he had his polo shirt that

belonged to the store. he took it off and was confronting the manager. this is what the -- this is what the store video captured. there he is. he is not on drugs. the structurally normal heart. healthy 17 year-old. he pushed the display over. here is the officer pulling the taser as he walks in the front door. he has not even make contact yet. you heard about painting the.. the see it right on the center of -- painting the dot. you see it right there on the center of his chest. he fired from 6 feet. that is not effective at that

distance. he is now staggering. this was your guy with the night -- knife. it would not have stopped the deadly threat. darrel staggers across the front of the store. the officer is confused that he did not go down. he holds the trigger down for 37 seconds he is so surprised. darrel does go down right here, underneath the surveillance cameras pointing to the door. we do not see him. this is 10 minutes later, when paramedics time i arrive. the officer does not even know his heart has stopped beating. the rush in. they apply emergency medicine. they try to save this young man. but because the officers thought he was playing possum when he was lying there motionless, they did nothing to give him cpr or

expedite the medical attention, and he passed away at the age of 17. this is real. this is what this device is capable of doing. the manufacturer -- but this cost the police department a lot of money when they settled with the family. they have a case now going against taser international corporation for their failure to properly warn. this officer is the victim. he had a son the same age as darrel. he has been decorated by the department for his youth in -- for his work in youth leagues. he had to kill a guy with this device because taser did not warn him not to shoot people in

the chest. let me go back to the slide show. these are the current warnings. there is no way to get them visible for you. but you can go to taser.com. it is in their legal section, not their instructions. taser has done a set of instructions to prevent them from being sued for failure to warn. they have created a situation where police misconduct lawyers like me are going to be able to come up with something that officers were warned not to be -- were warned not to do it every time there is a bad result with a taser in the field. i think commissioner dejesus made this point earlier, which was very astute. they have basically warned against tasering people on drugs, because they are

metabolic a compromise. tasering people who are running away, because they might fall and hurt themselves. people who might have medical conditions the officers would not know about. these are the warnings. i have some training slides. this is the bottom line. ecd is not a substitute for deadly force. you can see from the video why that is not the case. there is a closing disconnect. you have to get too close in. they do not work. if a person is close and assaulting the user of the taser. you aren' -- taser, you are are not going to get a sufficient spread. you were going to get the center of the chest, where there is low muscle mass and not a lot of nerves. and that is where you get the cardiac arrest.

injuries or falls are no joke. it is not just this guy who fell off the fire escape. i got a case reserved -- referred to me yesterday, where a person fell down and fractured three bones in his eye and had a concussion and passed away. i had a guy who hit a curb when he was tasered in los angeles and woke up in the hospital nine days later from hitting his head. these injuries from falls are extremely serious. people explode when they get tasered if there is any flammable substance, which includes pepper spray. they say "avoid targeting sensitive areas." these are being used in a dynamic situation. you have heard the circumstances officers face in

the field. how can you say things like this are not going to happen, where somebody is hit directly in the eye? for cardiac risk, taser finally put up training in 2009 after hundreds of deaths had been documented. in fact, it can defend relate the heart and cause cardiac arrest. they say 100,000 applications. that is the speculation. but they are talking about all applications. when parts are in the chest close together on a fit person, so things are aligned right, that number falls to a much smaller percentage. i think that is unacceptable when one considers that are giving this device as something that is a safe alternative to other uses of force.

this is our distance. imagine the time we are going to have in court with the slides when one of your officers shoot somebody in the chest and they died of cardiac arrest. you knew this was a possibility. officers hate this. they hate this because they are trained -- i do not want to speak to them. the can correct me if i'm wrong. they are trained in the concept of muscle memory. they do not have to think. they know what to do when they get into high stress situations such as shootings. they are taught to target center body mass with their firearms. over and over again, center body mass. stop the threat. now taser is saying you can shoot them anywhere but center body mass. that greatly lowers the effect. you have to get a dart into one of those legs if the person is

facing you. if the person is not facing you, he is much less of a threat. this is psychological metabolic effects. taser international explains their product produces metabolic physiological effects. the market is cycled, the more the effect. these effects can be quite dramatic. so be careful. don't use it on a metabolic the compromised person. that is a person on drugs, acting out, or delirious, somebody who is not responding to verbal commands, somebody who is not responding to officer presents, somebody who perhaps think the officers are there to help them, are there to hurt him or take him away, the mentally ill person. those are the kind of people who

are physiologically or metabolic we compromised. taser is saying, "don't use it on them," although those of the only people the device rationally could be used on. [applause] here is another training slide on that. this is a slide we prepared in the heston case. this man was tearing up his parents' house in a delirious rage, following methamphetamine injection. he was tasered by three different officers who cycled about 25 times. it causes intense muscle contractions. the releases lactic acid that increases the blood acid that stops the heart. that is what this device can do when it is not used properly.

here is the morning. commissioner chan referred to high-risk populations. do not use it on pregnant women. typically, that is obvious, although we have seen footage of a used on 70-year-old women, the infirm, the elderly, small children. i have a case where a police officer tasered an autistic boy who was acting out during recess. and do not use it on thin people. so anytime you get a bad result on your department using one of these things on someone like that, we are going to have these slides in front of the jury. they knew not to do it. the manufacturer has designed

this with two functions. the darts fly out. it cycles electricity. it paralyzes the muscles. the guy tips over so you can move over and handcuff him instead of having to move in and use hands on him. there is also this stun mode where you pop the cartridge out and the electrodes are supposed to be jammed right into the person's skin and the trigger pull. this is what the manufacturer's current training says. they are saying use care when applying the dry studs to the neck or groin. this is a manufacturer who has led to an american torture instructions going out to police officers who are using its product to jam this thing. this is close range. there is no legitimate reason for doing that into people's

groins. >> there are two ways the taser works, the prong and the contact. >> the predominant way is with probes. it looks like a pistol. a cartridge clips on the end. it is cited with a laser sight -- sighted with a laser slight. the safety is slipped and a trigger is pulled. 21 feet is considered the most effective. they spread. the darts in pale into a person's flesh or close. then there is a cycle of electricity program for five seconds. the alternative is to take the cartridge out, pull the trigger,

and jammed the rock electrode's directly into the person's flesh. it causes extreme pain and burns. here is an example of what it does to someone. this is a slide from taser training material, showing what a dry stunn can do to someone. at the end of their presentation, considerations to avoid liability, they say you have to justify every 5 seconds discharge, avoid intentionally targeting sensitive areas, give a warning which would make sure the person is capable of complying, and then prepare reports. they are obviously seeking to shift their liability on to the various departments with this set of training and warning. frankly, it makes john burris's

job a lot easier, and mine too. >> the literature i read was 400 deaths in the united states. i wonder if there were 400 deaths from a particular medication or carport, would that be removed from service or offered to the public? >> i do not agree with that number. i think there are probably more than 1000 deaths that have followed taser applications. that was the amnesty international # from 2006, and there has been a lot of use in the past few years. on twitter, i hear about one every week or two. as a medical device for a car park -- how many people died with toyota? maybe 40 people, and that became

an international scandal. there is a very high level of unintended serious death and bodily injury associated with use of this device that is not appropriately being focused on. i have noticed that police departments get enthusiastic about using this device. certainly, the manufacturer is very enthusiastic. the manufacturer hires people from various police departments, makes the master instructors, and has granted stock options. the person in charge of the armory in charlotte? mecklenburg when -- charlotte- mecklenburg when darrel was killed is now the u.s. representative for taser

international, so it is kind of a revolving door. and try to lay out some of the aspects of what i think is a complex question about the value of creating space, calling in back up rather than trying to handle situations by yourself. these tools are much more effective than this device. commissioner slaughter: thank you for your presentation. can you leave a copy for us? if not right now, e-mail it to the commission office. i think it would be useful, going forward. >> it is in your thumb drive if this is your thumb drive. commissioner slaughter: thank you. the situation to describe our incredibly troubling. it seems to me that there are at

least two or three specific situation to describe, and the anecdotal evidence to relate to us relates mostly to tactical issues, use of force and deployment guidelines, when tasers should be introduced, under what circumstances. is that a fair take away from your comments? >> yes. i think what i am really trying to address is that these devices are much more dangerous than one would think after listening to dr. wexler presentation. when he says these are low probability is, in a sense he is right. most people who are tasered in the field are not killed in do not suffered serious injuries. but when they do happen, they are very serious and they are not intended, so it is different

from a firearm, where you know if 40% mortality rate, or a baton, which should never killed anybody, because you do not hit people on the head, or pepper spray, which is not going to kill anybody unless he is a fix ca did afterward. -- unless he is asphyxiated afterward. but tasers tend to be used -- commissioner slaughter: that is my point. your concerns are twofold. one is situations in the use of force guidelines, were we to continue our study, under which circumstances would have to be very clear and direct about how the taser would be employed. the circumstances you describe certainly are very prevalent.

secondly, the point you raised again, which is tasers, even when used under appropriate guidelines, can cause serious injury. that is something the commission is going to have to consider very closely. the one thing i have not heard from any of the speakers so far -- i am sure we will have some more who are expressing serious reservations -- are those rates. i am just getting into my study of this issue. i am new to it. the maryland attorney general's task force was citing the bozeman study, which said the rate of serious injury was at 0.3%, and that the rates of death associated were a proximate -- the associated

proximate to the use of taster'tasers was 3.5%. i want to see if those are the rates that you are familiar with, if that is the fact. we need to deal not in just anecdotes, but what the actual facts are. >> i think dr. sang can tell you about his peer-reviewed study, which showed a significant increase in custody deaths following the introduction of taser products in california. there is a real dearth of data. there is no good tabulation on when these are used, how they are used, and what the result is. there is too much anecdotal data. the bozeman study, like any study, has strengths and

weaknesses. i think it was too small. it covered only a few departments in one region of the united states. in one of the studies, he arbitrarily excluded two cases where the guy died, and said the medical examiner did not conclude it was a taser, which i find a skewed his results. i wish there was better data on this. there is no question that usually people are not going to die if they are tasered. but there are cases where they are. that makes it different than some of these other devices. commissioner slaughter: thank you. president mazzucco: this was supposed to be a 45-minute presentation. the police department went over by 20 minutes, and we are at that mark now. if we can speed it up a little bit, we want to get everybody's opinions. chief godown: are there some depame