Can You Shoot Again With a Taser
EXPLAINER: How does someone confuse a gun for a Taser?
The jury deliberating at Kim Potter's manslaughter trial in the shooting death of Daunte Wright asked a judge whether the officeholder's handgun could be freed from an bear witness box so they could agree it
The jury deliberating at Kim Potter's manslaughter trial in the shooting death of Daunte Wright asked a judge whether the officer's handgun could exist freed from an bear witness box and so they could hold information technology.
Their question Tuesday went to the middle of the erstwhile police officer's claim that she made a tragic error when she grabbed her gun, instead of her Taser, and shot Wright during a traffic stop April eleven in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center.
Prosecutors had highlighted the differences in the look, feel and weight betwixt Potter's gun and Taser, and had promised jurors they would be able to handle them during deliberations.
Taser-gun mix-ups are rare but have happened in several states in recent years.
Hither are some questions and answers about such incidents:
HOW FREQUENTLY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
Experts agree that such incidents are rare and probably happen fewer than one time per year throughout the U.South. A 2012 article published in the monthly law journal Americans for Effective Law Enforcement documented nine cases dating back to 2001 in which officers shot suspects with handguns when they said they meant to fire stun guns.
The phenomena of "weapons confusion" is well known in policing, co-ordinate to the prosecution's use-of-force skillful, Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He testified that he knew of "fewer than 20" cases since Tasers were introduced in 1993 in which officers used their firearms instead. He said the manufacturer has taken steps to try to forestall such errors and it'southward go an important role of the grooming officers get.
WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?
Reasons that have been cited include officer grooming, the style they comport their weapons and the force per unit area they feel during dangerous and cluttered situations. To avoid confusion, officers typically behave their stun guns on their weak sides, away from handguns holstered on their dominant paw's side. That's how Potter carried hers.
Jurors at Potter's trial heard testimony from a land Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent about the differences between the ii weapons and how officers use them, with photographs to illustrate.
Sam McGinnis testified that the holsters on Potter's duty belt require an officer to accept deliberate deportment to release the weapons. The gun holster has a snap, while the Taser holster has a lever. The black handgun weighs but over 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms), while the mostly xanthous Taser weighs just under a pound (0.45 kilograms), he said.
The Taser and gun likewise accept dissimilar triggers, grips and rubber mechanisms that must exist engaged before firing, McGinnis testified. The Taser has a laser and LED lights that display before information technology is fired, which he demonstrated for the jury, while the handgun does not.
WHAT DOES THE DEFENSE SAY?
The defense force brought in a use-of-force proficient to testify that in cluttered situations like Wright'southward traffic stop, a person's ingrained training takes over.
Laurence Miller, a psychologist who teaches at Florida Atlantic University, said that the more someone repeats the same act, the less they take to think about it. He said that when a person learns a new skill, memory of an old skill might override that, resulting in an "action error" in which an intended action has an unintended effect.
"You intend to practice 1 thing, retrieve you're doing that thing, merely do something else and only realize later that the activity that yous intended was not the i y'all took," he said.
"We are in a human business," defense attorney Paul Engh said. "Police officers are human beings. And that's what occurred."
Bill Lewinski, an practiced on police psychology and the founder of the Forcefulness Science Found in Mankato, Minnesota, has used the term "slip and capture" errors to draw the miracle.
Lewinski, who has testified on behalf of law, has said officers sometimes perform the direct opposite of their intended deportment under stress — that their actions "slip" and are "captured" by a stronger response. He notes that officers train far more often on cartoon and firing their handguns than they do on using their stun guns.
Other experts are skeptical of the theory.
"In that location's no science behind information technology," said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina and an skillful on constabulary utilize of force. "It's a expert theory, but we accept no thought if information technology's accurate."
Alpert said a major cistron in why officers mistakenly draw their firearms is that stun guns typically look and experience like a firearm.
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER CASES?
In i of the best-known cases, a transit officer responding to a fight at a railroad train station in Oakland, California, killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant in 2009. Johannes Mehserle testified at trial that, fearing Grant had a weapon, he reached for his stun gun but mistakenly pulled his .xl-caliber handgun instead.
Mehserle was bedevilled of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to ii years in prison. His department paid $ii.8 1000000 to Grant's daughter and her mother.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a white volunteer sheriff'southward deputy, Robert Bates, said he accidentally fired his handgun when he meant to deploy his stun gun on an unarmed Blackness man, Eric Harris, who was being held downward by other officers in 2015.
Bates apologized for killing Harris only described his mortiferous mistake equally a common problem in police enforcement, saying "This has happened a number of times around the country. ... Yous must believe me, it can happen to anyone."
Bates was convicted of second-caste manslaughter and sentenced to 4 years in prison. Tulsa County ultimately agreed to pay $half-dozen million to Harris' estate to settle a federal ceremonious rights lawsuit.
In 2019, a suburban St. Louis police force officer, Julia Crews, said she meant to use her stun gun but mistakenly grabbed her service revolver and shot a suspected shoplifter, Ashley Hall, who suffered serious injuries. Crews resigned and was charged with second-degree assault. That was eventually dropped at Hall's asking after the victim and the former officer agreed to participate in restorative justice arbitration. Separately, the city of Ladue agreed to a $2 meg settlement with Hall.
———
Discover the AP'south total coverage of the Daunte Wright case: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-daunte-wright
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/explainer-confuse-gun-taser-81894695
0 Response to "Can You Shoot Again With a Taser"
Postar um comentário