Shock and Law: Tasers and the Cult of Compliance

The State of CT mandates the tracking of taser use by law enforcement, which is fairly rare across the country. We've got the 2015 numbers. From Connecticut Magazine:

A total of 650 reported Taser incidents involved 610 people. Of those subjected to Taser use in 2015:

83 percent were unarmed
53 percent were people of color
49 percent were under the influence of drugs or alcohol
33 percent were described as “emotionally disturbed”
13 percent were suicidal
Two died

When involved in Taser incidents, including instances when a Taser is drawn but a shock is not delivered, people of color were more likely to be shocked and less likely to be given a warning before being shocked than whites.

The state of CT found that 100% of these taser uses were justified, and that's where the problem lies. Such weapons are an important tool for law enforcement, but too often they are used not in lieu of lethal force (it's better to tase than shoot!), but in lieu of patience and conversation. The people who suffer from this the most are people of color, disabled individuals, and especially disabled people of color.

Policing the Police
McGuire says, in Connecticut, all the Taser investigations “have vindicated the officers and found no police misconduct.” But there are cases in which justification of Taser use is unclear, he says. “A few years back, in Middletown, a person who was in mental health crisis was [shocked] 34 times by three different officers, and that was deemed a justifiable use of force and ultimately the officers were exonerated.”

Accountability must be part of reform. Data serves accountability, so I'm glad they are counting.

"Restraining Bag" - What Can Happen When Law Enforcement Gets a Tool

The ACLU this morning is sharing a video of a black man asserting his rights, standing with his hands up, who is suddenly tased. He falls and hits his head. Likely, though not provably at this time, he was tased for talking back to the police (in their eyes. In my eyes "I know my rights" is a fundamentally American statement that must be respected). Here's the tweet, which you can follow to the upsetting video.

MUST WATCH: Tased by #police for no reason, but he knew his rights. #allonvideo #blacklivesmatter #PoliceReform https://t.co/X2035owDxN

— ACLU National (@ACLU) September 9, 2016

TASER (that's a brand name. CEW = Conducted Electrical Weapon is the type) are great tools for cops, allowing them to engage with dangerous situations without resorting to lethal force. They undoubtedly have saved the lives of many disabled people, for example, who might have been armed and threatening, but who the police managed to  hit with a CEW rather than shoot.

Too often, though, a new tool like this becomes used instead of replacing lethal force (let's call it the top of the force continuum, though likely my cop friends will correct my lingo!), it's used down the continuum. Where once an officer might have used a nightstick or physical restraint, they now use an ECW. This is likely sometimes a good thing too! Physical scuffles are dangerous for everyone. But the Cult of Compliance keeps pushing to use the tool more and more often, so that anyone just standing there but not being properly obedient gets tased. And then we have a problem.

I'm writing this because I've been thinking about the "restraining bag," as discussed in this fairly hyperbolic piece, about the NYPD's practice of putting people in certain forms of crisis into big duffel bags.

Earlier this year the New York Police Department (NYPD), an organization of some 34,000 uniformed officers and an annual budget surpassing $5 billion, introduced a new crime fighting device, the ‘restraining bag,’ or as it is sometimes affectionately called, ‘the burrito.’ It is essentially a full-body sized duffel bag that officers can stuff a perpetrator into and cart him off to jail like a piece of luggage.

Image: The torsos of two officers holding a blue and white striped back saying NYPD ESU.
Presumably, there's the body of a person inside, being "restrained"

The New York Times has followed up on the story.

In response to questions about the bags, the Police Department said it had used the restraints for 25 years. The department said only “highly trained members” of the Emergency Service Unit were authorized to use them. The person being restrained is assessed while being held and afterward, and is taken by an ambulance to a hospital for medical and psychological evaluation.
From Jan. 1 through April 20 of this year, the bag was used 122 times, the police said, or about once a day. During that same period, the department said, it received more than 44,000 emergency calls about emotionally disturbed people.

That's probably good. I'm glad to know about these bags so we can keep an eye on their use. I am sure there are plenty of difficult situations in which this bag is the right tool to wrap up a person and safely transport them to help. I'm also sure that, absent clear rules and consequences for breaking those rules, they will be mis-used.

I asked Lou Hayes, a a former SWAT supervisor, and current CIT detective in Chicagoland, who also trains police in use of force, about whether he thought the bag was useful. He told me:

Does it have it's purpose? Sure. Extremely limited use though. As with any piece of equipment, it has the possibility of being misused and overused in the wrong circumstances. Every problem looks like a nail to he with a hammer.

I still argue that team arrest/custody tactics are of way more use than any of the fancy equipment out there. (Keep in mind that I use "arrest/custody" loosely, which covers the non-criminal protective custody of violent or otherwise involuntary folks.)

What is the so-called best practices, with broad application and highly adaptable? Team handcuffing, with multi-string of cuffs, hobble restraint (think: a cross between a tie-down strap & a dog leash) around legs/ankles, then secured to a paramedic backboard with the multitude of straps (like seatbelt webbing) and the head blocks w/ forehead strap.

Is it too early to be discussing field-administered sedatives by paramedics?

A team of cops & paramedics that I trained in the above tactics saved a young man's life last week who was wigging out on flakka or bath salts or some other fierce street drug cocktail. The man was "packaged up" for hasty transport to ER where he was in a physical position to be easily treated by ER staff. The trick was the hasty and decisive escalation by the cops to put the naked young man (~20) into the best position to be medically treated for a metabolic emergency where his body temp was so high he was essentially cooking himself from the inside.

Would a restraint bag have helped? Maybe. But to what extent will there be a prolonged fight to get him into it? Then what sort of position is the person in to be treated at ER?

So the picture is terrifying. The use is limited. I fear that every time there's a non-compliant individual, especially someone who is disabled (which means the cops will be influenced by anti-disability stigma, and likely afraid), the impulse will become, "bag them."

Let's make sure that doesn't happen.

#CultOfCompliance - Abuse of Disabled Children of Color in Schools

Several stories around the same themes. A black child is abused by guards or police in schools. There's almost always a disability context.

1. A lawsuit alleges a 6-year-old black child in Chicago with "special needs" was handcuffed under a stair for over an hour to "teach her a fucking lesson."

The security guard at Fernwood Elementary School punished Marlena Wordlow's daughter in March by handcuffing her near the school's boilers. Other students had told the security guard that little Madisyn had stolen a piece of candy, but her mother said it was part of her lunch.
...
In a statement, the Chicago Public Schools says the guard has been fired and a "do not hire" note was placed in his personnel file. The district says it took immediate action.
Wordlow was horrifed when she showed up at the school and was taken to her daughter, who was still handcuffed. Madisyn was "crying, sweating, and visibly scared and distraught," according to the lawsuit.

No criminal charges were filed, though the guard was fired. How is this not a criminal act of abuse? A guard decided to respond to an alleged THEFT OF A PIECE OF CANDY by handcuffing a child by the boilers.

2. The ACLU has gotten involved in the "Spring Valley" case that, thanks to a video of a school police officer (SRO = School Resource Officer) hurling a black teen to a floor, got a lot of attention awhile back. The complaint is here. An NYT story here.

Disruption in a classroom must not be criminalized. There are plenty of disciplinary measures schools should take, but everything we know about school discipline is that non-white students, disabled students, and especially non-white disabled students will be treated differently than their white, abled, peers. Laws, often stemming from the zero tolerance/zero common sense movement, criminalize standard classroom disruptions.

I wrote on the Spring Valley case and a new policy in SC to keep SROs out of discipline situations here.

3. Rebecca Klein at Huffington Post has a long report on TASERs in schools. Klein doesn't address the disability context, but it's an important recent story and I'm sure that if we dug into the data, we'd find a major overlap.

Tasers and the Cult of Compliance: Maryland Investigative Report

Here's a big study on taser use from Maryland, thanks to the hard work of the Baltimore Sun.

In reporting Taser incidents to the state, police departments must record the reason for discharging the weapon. Officers have only three options: "non-compliant and non-threatening," "use of threat" or "use of force."
Of all incidents from 2012 through 2014, police reported firing Tasers in 59 percent of cases because individuals were noncompliant. Officers said they fired because individuals used force against them in 23 percent of cases and because officers were threatened in 18 percent.

I don't have hard stats, but almost all "lawful but awful" (and plenty of non-lawful and awful) cases of police use of force start with an officer escalating an encounter due to non-compliance. I'm often asked what changes I'd like to see, and I have a long list of topics for discussion, but here's the first - teach law enforcement officers not to treat non-compliance, on its own, as a reason for escalation.

Tasers, too often, work in the other direction. They can be really good tools, but only if they are used in lieu of lethal force. Instead, officers use tasers in lieu of patience or conversation.

TASERs are Not Mental Health Care. Disability is Not a Crime.

In response to the recent shooting of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones, embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel has made a decision - give all cops Tasers.

Chicago's mayor and police superintendent will announce Wednesday afternoon that every police officer who responds to service calls will be equipped with a Taser and properly trained to use it by June 1, the mayor's deputy director of communications said. The announcement, to be made at 2 p.m. CT, will be part of a major overhaul in Chicago Police Department policy on how officers respond to incidents and the use of physical and lethal force, mayor's spokesman Adam Collins said.

Tasers are a fine tool for policing, when used correctly. Too often, they reinforce the cult of compliance, giving police an easy (and approved) way to inflict pain on non-compliant, but non-threatening, individuals. Overall, though, I have been convinced that law enforcement officers (LEOs) should be provided with Tasers in most contexts, so long as abusers are held accountable.

What we're seeing, though, with Emanuel's response to Legrier/Jones and Philip Coleman is a continued focus on teaching police to manage crisis better. Such training and tools may be required, but the real solutions require focusing before the crisis and investing in public health, pushing back against stigma, funding community mental care teams, and more.

Instead, we're giving cops TASERs and closing community mental health care facilities.

Cult of Compliance - Linwood Lambert's death

There is new video of the death of Linwood Lambert.

If police want to have TASERs, which they do and they should, then the people who abuse them have to be held accountable.

When three Virginia police officers put Linwood Lambert in a squad car around 5 a.m. on May 4, 2013, they said they were taking him to the ER for medical attention because he was speaking delusionally. Just over an hour later, Lambert died in police custody.

He was never given medical care, though the officers of South Boston, Va. did drive him to the hospital. He was not initially put under arrest, though the officers ultimately arrested him, shackled his hands and legs, and tased him repeatedly. While in custody he was agitated and ran from the officers. Ambulance workers say police later claimed he fought them at a time when videos show he was actually unconscious. Police dispute that account and deny allegations of excessive force.

Repeated tasers are often the pattern in these deaths. Repeated tasering of a restrained individual may be excessive force. We need better protocols and accountability.

Sunday Roundup: Prenatal testing and TASERs.

I've been busy researching several new pieces this week so the blogging has been a bit light. That's likely to continue next week as well. Bear with me! Good stuff is coming.

The most important piece I wrote this week was about the efforts of a radical right-wing group to use Down syndrome prenatal testing as a wedge issue in the abortion wars. They do not care about living people with Down syndrome. They do not care about parents. They do not care about schools, inclusion, ABLE, or anything else - just wedge issues and abortion. They threaten the existence of the pro-information coalition. 

I had two pieces on TASERS - one general, one about Toronto, and another about police violence and the deaf. I am, in general, increasingly skeptical of CIT training and awareness efforts to protect the disabled. Police culture needs to change.

Finally, a thought or two about writing and the internet (and music). I am grateful for you, my readers, whether you are silent, a frequent commentator, or a writer yourself. The online community sustains my efforts.