The Story
The Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA) is holding a forum on July 15 addressing the Minneapolis Police Department´s Taser policy. The forum is in response to the MPD changing their 2006 policy on Tasers for the MPD Policy and Procedure Manual. The MPD revised its entire Use of Force policy in the MPD manual in 2007 without consulting City Council, and the CRA is proposing that they change it back. (The CRA is made up of citizens appointed by the Mayor and City Council who investigate complaints against any Minneapolis Police Officer.)
The CRA’s demands
In April, the CRA recommended to MPD that they change the Taser policy back to the form it was in prior to 8/17/07. (Tasers are formally referred to in the CRA and MPD documents as “Conducted Energy Device” or CED.) Their recommendation included two aspects:
1. That the substance of the Conducted Energy Device (CED) policy be the same as that which was established on April 14, 2006.
2. That the CED policy be stated explicitly in the MPD Policy and Procedure Manual, without need for reference to training.
The reasons for the first aspect of the recommendation were that the former policy was still valid, that it had been written in a transparent manner with “opportunities for public comment and input” and was made by consulting all interested city departments.
By contrast, the CRA asserted that “the change to the text of the MPD Policy and Procedure Manual on 8/17/07 was made without consultation with, or even notification to, most of the interested and affected parties.” CRA also said they recommended switching back to the 2006 policy because it contains specific wording such as “Only one officer should activate a Taser against a person at a time” as opposed to more complex guidelines. The CRA’s recommendation said that words like “reasonableness” used in the newer policy, leads to “wide variations in application from officer to officer.”
The reasons CRA gave for the second aspect of their recommendation, to not include references to training were: greater transparency, public reassurance, verifiability, consistency and easier version control. Also, CRA felt that relying on the policy itself rather than references to training would aid CRA and Internal Affairs to provide oversight and accountability. “It is much more difficult to verify current policy if it is contained in a variety of training manuals, rather than in one comprehensive document,” the recommendation stated.
The MPD Response
In June, the MPD responded to the recommendation with a refusal. The response stated that the new Taser policy includes procedures for administering medical aid to citizens who had been affected by a Taser that the 2006 policy lacked.
The MPD also wrote that while it values the need for transparency, “transparency must sometimes yield to ensuring the safety of officers and citizens.” The MPD’s statement said that documenting specific law enforcement techniques and technical procedures “increases the risk of harm to officers and citizens.” It also assured the CRA that the use of Tasers would be “consistent with national standards, best practices and guidelines established by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).” Finally, the MPD’s response to CRA’s complaint that the change in policy came about without consulting other city departments was that “waiting until all interested entities have an opportunity to provide input or feedback before policy is adopted is impractical and clearly outside the scope of the City Charter.”
In response to a request for comment on this article, Jesse Garcia, spokesperson for MPD, said that “Our changes have become more stringent to provide more training, better first aid, use of also integration of crisis intervention.” In response to the training manual’s language about officers taking into account the “totality of circumstance,” Garcia said: “all situations are pretty fluid.” He said that the new policy allows officer to change as the situation changes. “You can’t have a manual for every situation that may occur,” Garcia said.
The Community Response
Dave Bicking sent us the CRA timeline, and other documents.
Alia Trindle, now a Philadelphia resident wrote in to say she was tasered by the MPD on in Minneanpolis on Friday August 31st, 2007 during a Critical Mass bike ride. “I was not resisting arrest or showing any signs of hostility before, during, or after their tasering me,” Trindle wrote. “I was eventually charged with three misdemeanors and a gross misdemeanor, all of which were subsequently dropped before the case ever went to trial.” Part of Trindle’s defense rested on this video of the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_PpgVUraQQ. If you watch the video, you will notice that many of the bystanders are shouting “she’s not resisting!”
Charley Underwood wrote in to correct this article’s use of the term “non-lethal” weapon. “They are not,” he wrote. Underwood also shared this study by Amnesty International, which documented 152 deaths by tasers between June 2001 and mid-February 2006. Underwood wrote that there were 61 taser-caused deaths in 2005 alone. “Likely the numbers will be higher for the years since then, since taser use has been increasing during that time,” he said.
Underwood went on: “In some ways, death is not the worse outcome. Being tased while handcuffed, restrained and in police custody is becoming quite common. In that case, it cannot really be called an instrument of compliance. I truly cannot think of any accurate name to call that use except “torture.” The pain of taser death is finite, but the memory of repeated taser shocks by police often lasts for an entire lifetime.”
Background (Posting of the Timeline: CRA MPD Taser Policy Timeline.doc): CRA provides this history of the use of Tasers by the MPD beginning in 2001 until the present. It has links to official documents regarding changes in MPD Taser policy, and includes the Taser policy as implemented in 2006 and the current Taser Policy
Committee Will Examine Police Taser Use examines the 2006 controversy and city council action.
Getting Tased, Part I and Getting Tased, Part II examine the experience of tasers, training videos, arguments for and against taser use, and deaths related to taser use.
How can citizens respond?
The Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA) will hold a public forum on MPD Taser policy, and whether changes to the policy should be made at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15 in Room 319 of City Hall, 350 S. 5th St. (use after-hours entrance: the center doors on 4th St. – north side of building)
Help us report this story
Have you been tased? Do you know someone who has? If you have information, or suggestions about who should be interviewed for this story, email sheila@tcdailyplanet.net.
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