Representatives from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors held a Zoom meeting to discuss the consequences of using Tasers on mentally ill patients or inmates on Wednesday.
Maelin Aquino, community organizer at Asian Law Alliance, said Tasers are considered a type of military equipment as defined by California Assembly Bill 481.
“This (bill) requires the Board of Supervisors’ approval for the sheriff's office to acquire Tasers, and have the right to buy and utilize them,” Aquino said.
Aquino also said this proposal will allow the county sheriff’s office to have Tasers, comparing the position of sheriffs and other police in the community to a pyramid.
“At the bottom, the base of the pyramid, we have our city police departments, individual municipalities, and then a step above those individual cities and their police departments we have the sheriff’s office,” Aquino said. “They serve and protect people of the county and supervise other cities that may not be large enough to have their own police department.”
The county's vendor for Tasers would be Axon, which already supplies the sheriff's office with body-worn cameras, according to KTVU. The $15 billion corporation branded with the purpose of "saving lives" fostered a toxic culture where employees are stunned and tattooed with Tasers or company branding to show their loyalty, according to the same site.
There have been at least 1,081 deaths following use of Tasers in the United States, which came after the weapon began coming into widespread use in the early 2000s, according to Reuters.
Raymond Goins, representative of Silicon Valley De-Bug and Coalition for Justice and Accountability, said his experience in a correctional facility was unacceptable because of the staff and their abuse of power.
“I suffer from mental illness, like depression and ADHD,” Goins said. “If I was in my cell in a depressive state, I needed mental health help and support. Instead, I was met with police disagreeing with my state and instead using their Tasers because they’re not equipped to deal with the topic.”
Goins also said he suffered from physical injuries from Tasers because of the lack of protection in the cell from the impact of the Tasers.
“Everything in that cell will kill you if you fall,” Goins said. “We shouldn’t be allowing sherriffs to use Tasers on people like me and other people like me in my community, because it is just giving us a death sentence we don’t know we have yet.”
Santa Clara County Sheriff Sean Allen said using the term “tool” to describe a Taser is simply to soften the reality of what the weapon actually does.
“It is the most lethal device out of all the use of force weapons available to law enforcement officers with the exception of the firearm,” Allen said. “Law enforcement officers testifying about their use of force with a Taser in the question should be asked, ‘did your training tell you that this weapon could kill people?’ The answer should be yes.”
Robert Jonsen, 29th Sheriff of Santa Clara County, plans to present options for arming deputies on the street and in county jail facilities with Tasers to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, according to San Jose Spotlight.
Since 2000, there have been 104 deaths involving Tasers behind bars, with the Taser being listed as a cause or contributing factor in more than a quarter of 84 inmate deaths in U.S. prisons or jails, according to Reuters. Some of the in-custody deaths were deemed “multi-factorial,” with no distinct cause, and some were attributed to pre-existing health problems, according to the same site.
In 2009, 20-year-old Martini Smith had been detained on charges of stabbing a boyfriend she’d accused of beating her, according to Global News. Smith was unable to remove the silver stud from her tongue after being requested to, after being cuffed for six hours, according to the same site.
Smith, who was pregnant and stripped naked, was tased, crying that she simply wanted to sleep, according to Columbus Navigator. Five days later, she had a miscarriage.
Aquino shared video footage from the event, providing a trigger warning for attendees who may have been uncomfortable viewing nudity and violence.
Axon Enterprise Inc. warns police that some people are at higher risk of death or serious injury from the weapons, including pregnant women, young children, the frail or elderly, those with heart conditions and individuals on drugs or alcohol, according to The Crime Report.
“It’s a weapon, but for people who represent law enforcement, it’s seen as a toy,” Goins said. “We can’t let sheriffs have them.”
