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 departments that prohibit the dry stunning? >> i do not know.

some have to have a regulation that it cannot be used on people who are handcuffed. a do nothing dry stunning should exist. i wish i knew the answer. i would suggest no dry stunning, yes. chief godown: my second question is that there is no argument that a high percentage of police departments across this country have tasers. if that is the case and there are some in lawsuits, why is it police departments do not ban the taser? >> thank you for the question. i think there is a move away from taser. we're talking about this new generation of devices, which only became widespread starting in 2003, and since 2005. there is less than 10 years of history here. taser reported fourth quarter

earnings, and sales are way down. i have talked to representatives from small apartments, who have told me they are thinking about dropping the device because of their concern about liability and effectiveness. i think we are going to see a phase-out of these devices over the next several years. now that i have gotten involved in this, somebody demonstrated a device to me that was a really bright light. it was so effective. this guy with the knife would not have been able to do anything. he could not have seen, just with this light. so there are a lot of alternatives to shooting darts attached to wires and running current through the person for five seconds. thank you for the time. >> thank you for coming all the way up from los angeles. could i ask that reeny first

speak? she is a western regional director of amnesty international. if you have a power point, please connect that and be ready so we can move. >> thank you. i promise to keep my comments brief, knowing there are several people interested in testifying. i am the western regional director for amnesty international. first of all, i would like to thank members of the police commission for giving me an opportunity to testify this evening about amnesty international concerns with the proposal before the commission to harm san francisco police officers with a weapon that in our view is not safe.

between july 2001 and august 2008, amnesty international studied more than 304 reported that occurred after police use. this may be a conservative number. in other cases, the role of the weapon is unclear. according to international standards, international -- electronic weapons should only be used in cases where there could be lethal force. far from minimizing the use of

force by police, this is dangerously blurred the lines around what is considered acceptable levels of force. one of our principal concerns is that ceds are increasingly be used in situations where firearms or other weapons would not be an option. they have sometimes been used preemptively, at the first sign of even minor resistance. furthermore, our study found that because ceds are often seen as nonlethal, they are often used as a weapon of first rather than last resort. the have become less an alternative to firearms and deadly force, rather than an alternative to less intensive techniques. in the 2008 study, amnesty international found that of the 334 persons who died following ced use, the vast majority of

individuals, roughly 90%, or not carrying a weapon of any sort. many did not appear to present a serious threat when they were electroshocked. far from preventing escalation of force, law enforcement agencies are using ceds to subdue noncompliant individuals who do not pose a significant threat. they include people who continue to struggle while in restraints, who are intoxicated but not dangerous, or who walked or ran from officers during non-life- threatening incidents. several individuals were shot for failing to comply with demands when there were already incapacitated. some were shocked by more than one officer at a time, for long periods, multiple times.

the 2008 report also documents multiple examples of people being shot with ceds for nonviolent interactions with the police. examples include a mentally ill teenager who died after being shocked repeatedly while he was naked and lying on the floor of a jail. a young medical doctor crashed his car after he had an epileptic seizure. he was repeatedly shocked at the roadside for refusing to comply with commands. amnesty international considers use of electric shock weapons contrary to international standards that require police to use force only as a last resort, in proportion to the threat posed, and in a matter -- manner designed to minimize pain or injury. we acknowledge the importance of developing less lethal force options to decrease the risk of injury and death inherent in

police use of firearms or other impact weapons. amnesty international has serious concerns about the use of electroshock devices in law enforcement, both as regards their safety and potential for misuse. no deaths should occur from international -- from inappropriate levels of police force, or from weapons that have not been properly tested or controlled. we applaud the commission adoption of the memphis model of crisis intervention training for the police force as a crucial first step in improving police interactions with mentally ill individuals and reducing unnecessary deaths and injuries. however, we caution the commission against opening a pandora's box, by harming police officers with a weapon that is in our opinion unsafe and prone to overuse. thank you. [applause]

>> we have some new commissioners. you said they were not controlled and are untested. can you explain what you mean by that? >> part of the issue that has been documented in our report, which did do a fairly comprehensive survey of the type of medical evidence and other reports out there, is that there does not seem to be any independent, comprehensive, unbiased study out there that documents the concerns around tasers. there is still concerns around how people from certain vulnerable populations are affected by the use of tasers. in our report, there were a number of instances documented were perfectly helpful -- healthy individuals ended up killed because of these issues.

>> next we have dr. sang, assistant professor of medicine at the cardiology division of ucsf. thank you for presenting today. >> good evening, commissioners. thank you for the invitation, commissioner chan. let me keep this up here. by way of introduction, i wear three hats at the university. i am a practicing cardiologist. i also perform research and and a faculty member. -- and am a faculty member. in terms of potential conflicts of interest, i receive significant research grants from the national institutes of health on a comprehensive study of sudden cardiac death. i also have been consulting for taser policy with the

governments of british columbia in canada. a lot to do a brief research summary in 10 minutes. i will focus a little bit on our own study, and perhaps address complaint that there is not any independent real world study of pacers -- of tasers. this is a situation where, in the operating room, i imprint defibrillators. we shopped in a particular time in the cardiac cycle, inducing circulation. luckily, we have a very effective, 99% effective, antidote to cardiac arrest, which is a bit for bit later -- which is a defibrillator.

one is impossible. the other is a widely available, it easily deployed device which is present in airports and other public spaces. the other key fact that i want to highlight is that the timing of the fibrillation is key to survival. if you look at 50% survival, you have to shock within two minutes. when it goes to 9 to 10 minutes, survival drops to 10%. it continues to drop as some topically -- asymptotally after that. what are some situations, medical situations in which there is increased risk?

if somebody has a cardiac disease, heart failure, high adrenaline, as in situations where somebody is struggling, or someone is in the illicit drugs -- cocaine and methamphetamines decrease of vulnerability to the fibrillation -- to def ibrillation. this is someone of a review, so i will breeze through this. we know the effect of tasers increases application. it overcomes voluntary control of muscles. intense pain, obviously. subjects are dazed and immobilized for five to 15 minutes. miscarriages can happen. i injuries, eye ingu -- eye injuries, and other areas of

injury. an autopsy can reveal nothing if somebody dies from cardiac arrest from a taser, because it is an electrical event. there can be nothing on the autopsy. there have been some taser animal studies. taser-funded study showed no effect, but they used this simulator rather than the actual weapon. three independent studies have shown that there is a distinct risk with taser. taser is applied to this animal model. what about human studies? the real limitation of a human study is to cannot do this in an ethical manner. studies are done in resting, help the police volunteers. no capture of the heart. another independent study, a

prisoner who happen to have a pacemaker -- taser read at the time a [unintelligible] now we come to my particular study, which was peer reviewed and published in january 2009. we set out to ask the question. in the real world, how do tasers impact these outcomes? when you bring in a taser, does it increase rate of sudden death? does it affect officer injuries? the affect people before shooting? does it really bring these things down? we had over 100 california agencies deploying the taser. 90 replied. 80 complied.

50 supplied data to us. i would contrast that to the first study, which had only seven studies and compared nine cities. the other important research design methodology issue is that the proper selection of controls -- i will borrow a matter earlier, which was apples to oranges. when you compare cities to different cities, there can be unmeasured effects like crime rates, population size, and demographics. we took every single city and they each for their own control. we look at measures five years before and five years after. all the variables are controlled for when you use the same city as their own control. this is the major point of the study, which is rates of in- custody deaths increased sixfold in first year of taser use.

shortly after the publication of the study was when taser finally admitted to this risk of sudden death. also, i believe there rate of one cardiac arrest per 100,000 comes from our study. i will tell you why that is a misleading attribution. when you look on the y axis, these are sudden deaths per 100,000 arrests. arrests does not mean the taser was used. even before tasers were used, sudden deaths were happening. as we saw here, the rate of sudden death before tasers were used was on average 1 per 100 -- 1 per 100,000 arrests. that increased to six sudden deaths per 100,000 arrests. it did come down to 1.4 per