Item B: Eugene Police Department Taser Policy

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react in life and death situations, he said, mistakes were sometimes made. With a few exceptions, he said, Tasers stopped situations from becoming deadly. He felt that people were focusing on the exceptions to the rule, rather than the general rule. He wanted to see the policy statement about Taser use not being appropriate when a suspect was running from an officer to be tightened up to allow the use of Tasers when someone was running away and there was a threat of a fight and possible greater harm either to the officer or the person running that what would result from use of a Taser. Samantha Chirillo from Curb Tasers remarked that she was a witness of a Taser incident in which she felt the Taser was used instead of verbal communication, and that she believed the Tasering escalated the situation. She felt the policy should include the consideration of whether Taser use would escalate a situation. She believed that some of the policy changes were positive, although there was still too much discretion allowed, especially around the term “immediate credible threat.” In the situation she witnessed, she believed the Taser’s use was an excessive use of force, and she believed that Tasers needed to be defined as deadly weapons. Mike Quillin thanked the committee for its hard work and the community for showing up to share views. He spoke against the use of Tasers as video recording instruments, since this required activating the weapon and he felt it was only safe if the functions of video and weapon were separated. He requested that there be a mandatory refer policy to the Civilian Review Board (CRB) for comment about whether the use of force was justified for each Taser use. He questioned the term “reasonable, credible belief” in the drafted document, asking who was making the judgment about whether use of force was necessary. He felt that the Police Chief should not have sole judgment about what constituted appropriate use of force. Chris Calef said he was representing the Civil Liberties Defense Center. He thanked the committee for its hard work on the Taser policy, and felt the drafted policy was now reasonable if the city had a well disciplined police force that was accountable to the community, which he did not believe was the case. He felt Tasers should be used only for deadly force situations. Hope Marston commented that the committee had learned a lot during its deliberations: how the prongs entered the body and needed to be removed, how some people cannot tolerate Tasering, and how emergency vehicles need to come to tend to people who have been Tasered. She expressed concern over use of a weapon that could be deadly and considered as torture. She mentioned that the United Nations had called Tasering “torture” and that community members were expressing that Taser use needed to be curbed and considered a deadly force. Several situations in Eugene clarified the lack of ability of Eugene police officers to properly handle the use of Tasers, she said. She urged community members to sign petitions against the use of Tasers in the Eugene community. Kathy Ging said she believed Tasers should be termed “more or less lethal” rather than “non-lethal” since there had now been 375 deaths in Canada and the US with their use. She expressed concern about the militarization of police. She was editing a book, she MINUTES—Eugene Police Commission May 4, 2010 Page 4 Use of Force Committee – Taser Public Forum