WIUM Local
(2008-07-29)
COLUMBIA, MO
(KBIA) -
The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is asking Columbia's City Council to investigate the police department's use of tasers. This comes after police subdued a man Friday with a taser. He was threatening to commit suicide. The man fell 15 feet off a bridge overpass after being tased. City Council recently approved the purchase of 40 additional tasers but Mid-Missouri A-C-L-U General Council Dan Viets says distribution of those weapons should be postponed. He says the group wants the city council to consider taser policies and the problems associated with their use.
According to the police department, their own self-imposed policy is to not tase an individual who might be injured by falling, and yet that is precisely what was apparently done on Friday, so it is difficult to reconcile those statements.
Columbia Police Captain Zim Schwartze says she has no comment on the A-C-L-U's statement. She says she regrets the individual was injured, but says the police had no other option.
"What else would have been more effective? This situation, due to circumstances was not justifiable in
deadly force, so we could not use our firearms. Sparaying an individual would have been ineffective- like with mace. He was on the other side of the fence, that may have caused him to fall onto I-70. That's also ineffective because you have to be in close range to the person."
Schwartze says an officer and a sergeant each fired their taser once. The police department is conducting a standard review of the incident. Schwartze says the department hopes to complete the review within a month.
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