http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-03-taser_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno
Schools restrict use of Tasers

By Donna Leinwand

6/3/2005

Dozens of incidents in which police officers have used electric stun guns to subdue unruly students have led school officials around the USA to restrict the use of the devices on campus.

In Miami-Dade County, Fla., schools Superintendent Rudy Crew was inundated with complaints from parents in October after a police officer used a stun gun on a 6-year-old student. The child was waving a piece of glass and had been cut by it. Crew asked Miami-Dade Police Director Bobby Parker to ban the use of stun guns by officers who help provide security in elementary schools, and to use the devices, commonly referred to as Tasers, only as a last resort in middle and high schools.

"Certain tactics should never be used ... with young children," Crew wrote to Parker.

The student was not seriously injured, but the episode reflected rising concern about the safety of stun guns. Investigations by Amnesty International and The Arizona Republic have linked more than 100 deaths to the devices. Taser International, the nation's largest maker of stun guns, estimates that 1,700 cops assigned to U.S. schools carried the devices at the start of this school year. It's unclear whether any kids have died from stun-gun shocks. But reports of youths being zapped have increased as the guns — now used by 7,000 of the USA's 16,000 police agencies — have become more common in schools:

• In the central Florida counties of Orange, Seminole, Brevard and Polk, at least 24 students have been shocked with stun guns during the past 19 months, the Orlando Sentinel reported in April. The stun guns usually were used to break up fights, the Sentinel said. Complaints about such incidents have led Florida's Legislature to consider banning stun guns on school grounds.

• In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina, at least four students have been shocked by officers, The Charlotte Observer said Tuesday.

Schools in St. Paul and elsewhere have joined Miami-Dade in limiting stun guns. St. Paul's school board voted in May to allow officers in schools to use them on students only in life-threatening situations.

In Jacksonville, Sheriff John Rutherford is holding 16 town meetings on stun guns in schools to help him set a policy for the next school year. He says he is inclined to allow their use in schools — but only when lethal force is justified.

Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser International, said in a statement that "the Taser device has been shown to be medically safe when used on children."

Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a firm in Cleveland, says, "The vast majority of police working in the schools are not ... zapping children left and right.

"The key word for Taser use in schools is 'conservative.' ... There are a lot of unanswered questions about Taser use on young bodies."