ACLU of Northern California Welcomes San Jose Human Rights Commission Call for a Temporary Moratorium on Tasers


For Immediate Release: October 21, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - The ACLU-NC welcomes the recommendations of the San Jose Human Rights Commission in calling for a temporary moratorium on the use of Tasers until the San Jose City Council places regulations on the weapon. Since September 2004, 15 people have died in Taser-related encounters with law enforcement in northern California.

"The Commission took an important step last night in calling on the City Council to take action to regulate Tasers," said Sanjeev Bery, San Jose Director of the ACLU-NC. "By changing their prior position of merely altering police training, the Human Rights Commission is sending a clear message that the City Council must regulate Tasers. San Jose currently has one of the weakest policies in the state and strong regulations are necessary to prevent unnecessary and avoidable deaths."

In last night's meeting, the San Jose Human Rights Commission initially passed a resolution calling for improved training but after further debate, approved a measure calling for a moratorium on the use of the stun guns.

San Jose Human Rights Commissioner Socorro Reyes-McCord said, "It is clear that simply updating the San Jose Police Department's training on Tasers is not enough. That's why the Human Rights Commission took the final step of calling for a temporary moratorium on Taser use until the San Jose City Council decides what the specific rules for Tasers should be."

In report released two weeks ago titled "Stun Gun Fallacy: How the Lack of Taser Regulation Endangers Lives," the ACLU-NC surveyed police departments throughout northern and central California and revealed a profound lack of regulation of Tasers. The report contained a number of policy recommendations and concludes that Tasers should only be used in life threatening situations.

The report is being distributed to police departments throughout the state.