On September 7, 2016, Donald Degraw, a 58-year-old veteran of the Gulf War, died at the hands of police, joining 72 others who were killed by police in September alone. Unlike the vast majority of the other cases, however, Degraw wasn’t killed by a gunshot. Instead, he died from what is supposed to be a nonlethal weapon: a Taser. Degraw had begun suffering what appeared to be an episode related to his PTSD, prompting his wife to call 911, reporting his erratic behavior and emotional distress. When police arrived at Degraw’s home, they determined that his behavior merited placing him under protective custody, and Tased him in order to subdue him, fearing he may have had access to a weapon. After the shock, police handcuffed Degraw, then quickly discovered that he had lost consciousness. Instead of being taken into protective custody, he was transported to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.
Cases like Degraw’s where police kill with Tasers are unusual, and are certainly far rarer than those in which guns are used. The precise number of people killed is nearly impossible to determine, since many of these deaths are labelled by medical examiners as due to “excited delirium,” a term which serves as a diagnostic cover-all for situations in which an individual dies mysteriously while in a highly agitated state. “Excited delirium” diagnoses also serve as a shield for the Taser industry, since wrongful death lawsuits against Taser companies are nearly impossible if the deceased’s cause of death is something other than Tasers. To make sure this shield stays intact, Taser International has sent hundreds of pamphlets to medical examiners explaining the theory of excited delirium, and also even holds numerous seminars for law-enforcement officials on the issue. Those fighting against police Taser deaths are thus left on terrible footing, unable to sue manufacturers or even just to know the true scope of the problem. The estimates produced by observers pale in comparison to the number of police killings using firearms, but still show that Tasers pose a serious public health risk: Amnesty International estimates that 540 people died in this manner between 2001 and 2012.
To focus on Taser deaths, when deaths by police gunfire are much more common, may seem absurd — but all deaths are tragedies. The use of Tasers constitutes lethal force, and if police departments come to terms with this fact and adjust their policies accordingly, future Taser deaths can be avoided.
The current state of Taser policy in the US is convoluted and scattered. With no national standard on police Taser use, individual agencies and departments are left to formulate their own Taser use standards. Because of this, there are thousands of different standards for Taser use, varying wildly across agencies and departments. Organizations such as Amnesty International and the ACLU have been cautioning about the lack of a strict national standard for years, since agencies and departments are left free to institute their own lax and inadequate policies without one, while the death toll continues to rise. Until Congress answers these calls, and institutes a strict national standard for Taser use, unjust and unnecessary Taser deaths are unlikely to stop. As Donald Degraw and the hundreds of other Americans who die by police Tasers prove, use of Tasers constitutes lethal force; it’s time for a national standard that recognizes this, and only permits the use of Tasers as an alternative to other lethal force in situations in which such force is authorized.
Once implemented, enforcement of this national standard must be far stricter than that of our current local guidelines, which many officers seemingly violate without fear of prosecution or punishment. In certain cases of death by police Tasers, officers have brazenly violated existing standards, using Tasers to retributively inflict pain on victims. In one case, Inocencio Cardenas Jr.’s wife called police on him as he stumbled through the street intoxicated. She was worried that he might hurt himself and hoped that the police would ensure his safety. Instead, when police arrived, witnesses say that officers drive-stunned him three times, including while he was handcuffed and being held down by three officers, unable to move anything but his head. He died on the street, his hands cuffed behind him. No charges have been filed against the officers involved. The message sent to other officers by this case is clear: Using Tasers to inflict pain on an immobilized man is acceptable behavior.
Police departments also need new training procedures to create a better understanding of the risks associated with Tasers. Rather than training officers to see Tasers as a nonlethal means of safely incapacitating a suspect, departments should show the lethality of the devices, making sure that officers understand that any use of a Taser might end up being lethal force. Furthermore, officers need to be trained to understand how individuals experiencing mental health crises need to be treated. Rather than training officers on the dangers of those experiencing the questionable “excited delirium,” portraying those in crisis as superhuman dangers, departments should teach de-escalation and should humanize those in crisis, making it less likely that officers will overuse Tasers out of fear and panic.
Addressing America’s police Taser problem may be just a small step toward ending police brutality, but it is an important and clear one nonetheless. In this time of seeming hopelessness, where police killings continue despite widespread outrage and protest, ending police Taser abuse and overuse can be a beacon of hope, showing that reform and progress are possible. An enforceable national standard should be implemented immediately; until it is, unjust and preventable deaths by police Taser usage will continue to add up with no end in sight.
