S.J. releases Taser report

S.J. releases Taser report

STUN GUN USE BROKEN DOWN BY RACE, ETHNICITY BY COPS

By Crystal Carreon

Mercury News

The first comprehensive report on Taser use in the San Jose Police Department found that the suspects in more than half the cases in which the stun gun was fired from May to October were Latino.

San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said Friday that because 52 percent of the arrests and citations issued by police during the same period involved Latinos, it should be no surprise that 53 percent of the 110 people fired upon with a Taser were Latino.

Davis, who armed every patrol officer in the city with the non-lethal weapon this spring, said it is important to weigh Taser use that way because the weapons are most often used in situations where suspects are arrested.

But some civil rights leaders questioned whether minorities are being unfairly targeted.

``We have high percentages of minorities being Tased, and we have high percentages of minorities being arrested. San Jose, we have a problem here,'' said Rick Callender, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. ``Latinos and blacks, clearly, are being targeted. We have ended up in the cross hairs of the police, somehow.''

Callender said he applauded Davis for putting together the report, which covers the first six months that every patrol officer in the nation's 11th-largest city had a stun gun. He requested the study by race after a Mercury News story that found the 50,000-volt weapons were being fired an average of about every other day.

Callender and others note that the arrest rate in San Jose for Latinos and African-Americans is disproportionately high compared with their population. African-Americans are 3.5 percent of the population, but accounted for 10 percent of the arrests and were involved in 6 percent of the Taser cases. Hispanics make up 30.2 percent of the population, and whites make up 47.5 percent. Asians and other races make up the balance.

Similar cities

Davis, however, said the proportion of minorities arrested in San Jose is similar to that in other large U.S. cities, and said his officers are not targeting certain racial groups. He noted that Tasers were used during just .04 percent of the 235,792 calls for police service from May 1 to Oct. 31.

``The reasons why people get arrested most likely have nothing to do with race. There are socioeconomic factors,'' said Davis, noting that there are a variety of reasons, including in some instances fingerprints or video surveillance, that lead police to a suspect.

He said it was whites who were shot more often than one would expect based on arrest statistics. Thirty-two people -- or 29 percent -- of those shot during the six-month period were white, though whites accounted for just 21 percent of arrests and citations during the period.

``The group who should be concerned should be the white community,'' he said.

Sal Alvarez, chaplain for La Raza Roundtable, one of San Jose's most prominent Latino political groups, flatly disagrees with Davis on his interpretation of the numbers.

``We don't agree that the white population is the most affected; sugar-coating the report doesn't change these numbers,'' said Alvarez, who placed a call to Davis and Mayor Ron Gonzales shortly after reviewing the police study Friday. ``This is very alarming.''

Concern over shooting
...

The 665 Taser stun guns carried by San Jose police officers use darts to deliver electrical pulses that can incapacitate a person in a quarter of a second.

But Alvarez pointed to the growing chorus of concerns over the controversial stun guns -- issues that now appear, he said, to put Latinos in San Jose most at risk.

...No cases have been reported in Santa Clara County, but officials in Monterey County are investigating an August death of a suspect who died after being shot with the stun gun.

Judicious officers

Davis, though, said his officers are judicious. ``I didn't see any cases were they were trigger happy, just Tasing people,'' he said.

The report also showed:

• Five fewer officers were injured this year -- a 20 percent reduction -- in altercations with suspects than in 2003.

• Tasers were ineffective 23 percent of the time, usually in cases where the person was dressed in heavy clothing, fleeing, where the prongs failed to penetrate or were pulled out.

• Males were involved in 95 percent of the Taser shootings. Three juveniles were shot.

• 58 percent of the suspects were believed to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and 15 percent more were considered mentally ill.

• 30 percent of the Taser use occurred when investigating disturbance calls.

Outgoing Independent Police Auditor Teresa Guerrero-Daley agreed that police use was measured, but said Davis could have reviewed other data, such as how many times a Taser was used with other kinds of force. Though the department did not provide statistics on the number of times the less lethal option was used with another weapon, a Mercury News review of 81 reports provided to the newspaper found that other force -- pepper spray, baton, dog and guns -- were used with Tasers in 11 percent of those incidents.

Davis said he will continue to monitor officers' use of Tasers, but was unclear whether he would issue a report in another six months.
Contact Crystal Carreon at ccarreon [at] mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5460.

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