In response to President Barack
Obama’s 21st Century Task Force on Policing, the San Francisco Police
Department began adopting many of its recommendations. The graphic killing of
Mario Woods has intensified the department’s self-examination on how it can and
must do better. We applaud the changes in policies and philosophies, as well as
the advances in training at the academy.
The important reforms include
better training, reporting and supervision each time a gun is drawn, expansion
of the Crisis Intervention Team, creation of a new bureau to bring community
policing to the forefront, and new training in implicit bias, cultural
competency and procedural justice.
These are necessary steps to
rebuild trust and legitimacy in the wake of a number of police shootings. A
survey of youth by Jamestown Community Center recently reported that “police
brutality” was at the very top of children’s concerns. These measures show that
the department understands the importance of showing dignity, respect and
compassion to the people it serves and rebuilding connections to the community.
A police department is only as
good as the relationship it has with the community it serves. In San
Francisco’s communities of color in particular, that relationship is in serious
crisis. The introduction of Tasers right now would be a jarring misstep in the
attempt to reestablish harmony between police and community and would undermine
efforts to emphasize the importance of building rapport and de-escalation.
The effect of Tasers is not fully
understood enough to know if they would be a better weapon than guns, but right
now, we need more words, time, and understanding — we don’t need more weapons
which will be used by the police against the people they are meant to protect.
There have been a number of
studies of Tasers, but barely any have been independent. Heart doctors at UCSF
set out to gauge the accuracy of 50 published studies on the potential dangers
of using Taser products. They found that among the product safety studies they
analyzed, the likelihood of a study concluding Taser devices are safe was 75
percent higher when the studies were either funded by the manufacturer or written
by authors affiliated with the company, than when studies were conducted
independently.
In their examination of data
post-introduction of Tasers in municipalities across the country, the study
found that fatal shootings by police more than doubled in the first year after
adoption. In the following years, the numbers go down but remain higher than
the pre-Taser time period. In-custody deaths skyrocket by 500 percent the first
year after these devices were introduced. That number drops down in the following
years, but again remains higher than before Tasers were introduced.
Individuals are not only severely
injured but killed by these devices, and they have been banned in cities like
Portland, after demonstrating extreme bias in their use. Because half of the
SFPD officer-involved shootings are of individuals in psychiatric crisis, using
Tasers instead of a gun likely would have the same fatal potential because of
the medications in play.
Chief Greg Suhr has introduced
language that allows the use of these devices by a limited number of officers
and circumstances, however, it is believed by many community members that once
introduced, they will be expanded to the rest of the department. This is the
crux of the problem, there is enough doubt about these weapons, and their
introduction is so contrary to the positive steps SFPD has taken to decrease
the use of force, that an introduction of a new weapon at this time will only
inflame distrust and harm the relationship that so many have worked to repair.
It is for these reasons that we
urge the commission and the department to put the discussion of Tasers on hold
and give de-escalation, new training and community policing a chance. The
underlying philosophy of teaching officers to listen to people and take the
time to talk things down, is undercut by a less-lethal weapon that can
literally stop the heart from beating. We need to build real connections
between officers and the communities they serve and Tasers will act only to
short-circuit the path to true reform.
Victor Hwang and Petra de Jesus
are members of the San Francisco Police Commission.
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