Fatal officer involved shootings following the use of TASER conducted energy weapons
| Author | Howard E Williams,Daniel Reinhard,Temitope B Oriola |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X211030322 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
Article
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2022, Vol. 95(4) 713–733
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211030322
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Fatal officer involved shootings
following the use of TASER
conducted energy weapons
Howard E Williamsand Daniel Reinhard
School of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA
Temitope B Oriola
Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Abstract
This study investigates the risks and causes of fatal officer involved shootings (OIS)
following ineffective applications of TASER conducted energy weapons (CEWs). Content
analysis of open-source records resulted in quantitative and qualitative characteristics and
conditions associated with the ineffective application of CEWs resulting in fatal OIS.
Research and field-use data indicate that CEWs were ineffective in as many as 47% of
applications. From 1985 through 2020, 1349 fatal OIS followed ineffective applications of
CEWs in the United States. Officers were more likely first to use CEWs to subdue
minority suspects before fatally shooting them than they were with White suspects. In 14
instances since 2004, suspects shot and killed 16 law enforcement officers following
ineffective applications of CEWs. The policy implications of the findings are articulated.
This is the first study to examine the use of deadly force following the ineffective use of
TASER technology.
Keywords
Deadly force, less-lethal force, TASER, officer involved shooting
Introduction
For two decades, researchers have explored the physiological effects of the use of
TASER
®
1
technology and its relationship to adverse reactions and sudden arrest-related
Corresponding author:
Howard E Williams, School of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Texas State University, HAC 118, 601
University Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.
Email: hw1007@txstate.edu
deaths (Kroll, 2009;Vilke et al., 2007;Williams, 2008;Websteret al., 2006;Werner et al.,
2012). Physiological research has examined cardiac, respiratory, and metabolic effects
(Baliatsas et al., 2021;Bozeman et al., 2009;Jauchem et al., 2009). More recently,
research has centered on the effects of associated trauma, such as injuries from un-
controlled falls, from the ignition of volatile fumes, and from impacts to the eyes (Gapsis
et al., 2017;Kroll et al., 2016;Kroll et al., 2017). One topic lacking from the literature is
fatalities from the use of deadly force following the failure of conducted energy weapons
(CEWs) to subdue violent subjects. This study examines fatal police officer involved
shootings (OIS) following the ineffective application of TASER CEWs in the United
States.
On the website of Axon
®
Enterprise, Inc.
2
(the company manufacturing the TASER
CEW), the Chief Executive Officer, Rick Smith, states, “We are going to make the bullet
obsolete”(Axon, 2021). His intent is clear—to make CEWs a suitable substitute for the
use of firearms in deadly force encounters. As of November 2020, the company claims
that in approximately 4.5 million field applications TASER CEWs have saved more than
245,000 lives (Axon, 2020). Independent data bases do not exist to verify or to contradict
Axon’s claim. Nonetheless, despite the claims of lives saved, law enforcement officers in
the United States shoot and kill more than 1000 people annually (Williams et al., 2019),
often after the ineffective use of a TASER CEW. This study focuses on incidents of OIS in
the United States because of the large number of incidents there.
Little research exists on the efficacy of less-lethal force in avoiding or mitigating the
need for deadly force in law enforcement. Nevertheless, officers’knowledge of the
capabilities and limitations of CEWs in subduing suspects during deadly force encounters
is critical for officer and public safety. Ineffective applications of CEWs during violent
confrontations have culminated in officers’and citizens’deaths. Understanding how
frequently and under what conditions CEWs are ineffective can inform officer judgment
of whether to use a CEW or resort to an alternative force option. Those decisions can have
dire consequences, as the nationwide protests and riots in the United States during the
summer of 2020 dramatically demonstrated.
This study examines the risks and causes of fatal OIS following ineffective appli-
cations of TASER CEWs. It contributes to the literature on use of CEWs and deployment
of deadly force following the ineffective use of TASER CEW technology. The findings of
this study are relevant for informing use of force policy and officer training. The study is
divided into six sections. The first section explores available evidence on deadly use of
force after ineffective TASER CEW deployment. The second section focuses on the data
and methods of this study. The findings of the study are articulated in the third section. The
section four deals with discussion of findings. The limitations of the study are highlighted
in section five. The final section offers conclusions and implications of the findings.
Interrogating use of deadly force after ineffective TASER
CEW deployment
Reliable sources of data related to use of deadly force after ineffective deployment of
TASER CEWs are non-existent. Below, we engage with the available sources of data and
714 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 95(4)
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