CC Minutes - 06/14/10 Work Session

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Responding to a question from Mr. Zelenka about the deletion of the word “immediate” from the phrase that previously read “creates an immediate credible threat,” Chief Kerns shared a typical scenario involving domestic violence to illustrate how a credible threat might not be immediate. Ms. Ortiz said the policy was about placing safety first. She agreed that training was important, but noted her own experience working in an emergency room and witnessing out-of-control individuals in mental health crisis who required physical brute strength to be brought under control. She viewed the taser as a tool to allow the police to do their work. Speaking to Ms. Taylor’s remarks, Ms. Ortiz said she did not know if she would want to tell the police to use a taser anymore than she would tell Public Works what size tires to buy. She believed it was up to Police Chief Kerns to decide whether to deploy tasers in Eugene and hoped that the chief took the amount of work the commission had done on the policy into consideration. Mr. Pryor said that the policy spoke to the alternatives that existed for officers and provided guidelines for the reasonable use of the taser. He said the commission had attempted to provide guidelines for reasonable preemptive use of the taser. He understood that people would have different comfort levels in regard to what constituted reasonable preemptive use. Mr. Pryor thought the commission got close to defining what was difficult to define, but he believed that the commission also recognized that ultimately, officers would have to use their judgment about when to use the taser. He believed the policy might require additional tweaks but considered it a step forward. Ms. Taylor asked Chief Kerns if there were any situations that would have had different outcomes if the revised policy had been in place. Chief Kerns did not know. He said the policy set a high standard for the use of the taser but was only one element of a larger overall approach toward reducing the department’s use of force. He emphasized the importance of training in reducing force as well as the importance of the other factors, such as how a call was dispatched and how an officer positioned himself or herself in the response, in reducing force, making it less likely that the department would have to use the taser. Mr. Brown agreed that training was a key factor in reducing the use of force. He said that ultimately, the citizens decided on the job description for police officers as well as other City employees, and the ultimate decision to use tasers rested with the council in consultation with the department. Mr. Brown was willing to accept the policy with the acknowledgement it might need to be refined in the future. He envisioned the possibility that the council might decide it did not want to use tasers, and noted that both Memphis, Tennessee and San Francisco, California, did not use tasers. Mayor Piercy believed Chief Kerns would take all the council input to heart. She conceded that the taser was a controversial tool but recalled that the community had asked that the City employ them as an alternative to more lethal weapons. She acknowledged tasers were dangerous but the City wanted to use them carefully as that alternative. Mayor Piercy believed the Police Department was admired for its rare use of weapons and hoped the same approach was taken to taser use, in that they were rarely but appropriately used. Mayor Piercy appreciated the fact that the commission and chief acknowledged the policy needed to be revised and that they recognized other changes might be needed. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 14, 2010 Page 7 Work Session