Title
Recommendation to Authorize a New Taser Program, including the Purchase of 60 Taser Conducted Electrical Devices (CED) and the Approval of a Five Year Taser Assurance Plan for a Total Purchase Price Not to Exceed $139,509.00. (Police 3121)
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To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jill Keimach, City Manager
Re: Recommendation to Authorize the Purchase of 60 Taser Conducted Electrical Devices (CED) and Approve a Five Year Taser Assurance Plan for a Total Purchase Price Not to Exceed $139,509.00
BACKGROUND
Over the past several years, there has been a great deal of public conversation and discourse over the issue of the use of deadly force by the police, especially in handling the mentally ill. It is critical that police officers have less lethal options in handling critical incidents including people experiencing a mental health crisis and who may be armed. This topic has been the focus of widespread media reports, public protests, and has been discussed at the highest levels of our government. It is an issue that affects all communities and law enforcement agencies, regardless of size. This report does not intend to sort through the various opinions on the subject, but rather identify the need for the Alameda Police Department (APD) to purchase and deploy a device to give our officers an effective and preferred less-lethal alternative to deadly force in critical situations. The device is called a Conducted Energy Device (CED). The most widely used CED in law enforcement is made by Taser International. As of the completion of this report, the Alameda Police Department is one of only three agencies in Alameda County that do not currently deploy Taser CED’s (Berkeley PD and the UC Berkeley PD are the other two agencies). All other agencies have successfully used CED’s as an alternative to firearms when reasonable and appropriate.
DISCUSSION
The first version of a CED was developed in the early 1970’s, but its development for use by law enforcement was not evident until the early 1990’s. Over the last twenty-six years, more than 800,000 Taser CED’s have been purchased by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. As of November 1, 2016, Tasers have been used over three million times. However, similar to the varying opinions about police use of force, there have been different opinions about the safety of the device. Critics of the Taser CED claim that they have been a contributing factor for as many as 500 deaths in the United States. There is also data supplied by Taser that credits Taser’s CED use with saving 173,769 lives from death or serious injury because they provide police an alternative to firearms. Because Taser is a for-profit company, its critics dismiss those statistics as unreliable and manipulated to sell more devices. In an independent, comprehensive study by the National Institute for Justice, death after Taser use is relatively rare. There has been research that shows when used correctly, Tasers are generally safe and prevent injuries to both officers and citizens. This is especially true in comparison to firearms. This includes a United States Department of Justice study conducted by the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In that study, 1,201 subjects had Tasers used against them by the police. Of that group, 99.75% were either uninjured or received only bruises or scrapes.
The request by the police department to purchase Taser CEDs is being made to supplement, not replace, its current alternatives to using deadly force. Since 2011, APD has been sending its officers and dispatchers to state of the art Crisis Intervention and De-escalation (CID) training. This training is offered through Alameda County Behavioral Health Services, and contains eighteen training modules designed to improve officer response to persons in crisis. As of November 1, 2016, approximately two-thirds of the department have received the training, and we are committed to sending every sworn officer, command officer, and dispatcher to the training.
Over a nearly seven year period, from January 2010 through August 2016, the APD responded to a total of 469,550 calls for service and made a total of 16,724 arrests. Of those arrests, force was used in only 180 incidents, or 1.076% of all arrests. Per APD policy, all of these use of force incidents are reviewed through the chain of command, including a review by the Chief of Police (Exhibit A). There is no other report that is reviewed with as much scrutiny as a use of force incident. The existing APD policy regarding use of force incidents is also attached (Exhibit B).
Despite the extensive CID training and our low use of force statistics, a single officer involved shooting incident will likely bring the attention of the entire nation to examine our policies, training, and equipment. As you may recall, a large Bay Area police department was involved in a fatal officer involved shooting in December 2015. In the aftermath of that shooting, that department was widely criticized and questioned because they did not have Tasers. Ironically, that same police department had tried on two prior occasions to obtain them, but those requests were denied.
In order for the department to evaluate the Taser CED capabilities, the Chief of Police assigned two officers to be trained and equipped with the device for a trial basis. That evaluation began in January 2014. For this evaluation, Taser demonstrated two models, the X26P and the X2, both of which are their latest “smart” CEDs. “Smart” refers to the technology inside the CED which, upon contact with a person, measures and adjusts the output of the electrical charge. Because of that feature, a precise charge delivery is applied and can be adjusted as necessary so that a subject’s body is not over-stimulated. In addition to the CED’s built-in smart technology, the CED’s firing cartridge has a feature which only allows the user to deploy a five second duration burst for each trigger pull. This prevents a subject from being over-stimulated.
Over the course of a 45 day trial of both the X26P and X2 CEDs, four encounters occurred, where APD officers drew and displayed the CED to an aggressive subject. In each of the four instances, the subject became compliant at the sight of the device. As a result, the officer did not have to deploy the CED, resulting in no injures to either the officer or the subject. The CEDs were never actually discharged during the evaluation period.
Additionally, the smart CED records the actions of the deploying officer, the maintenance of the device, and the discharge records of the CED application. This record is logged and saved when docked and transferred into Evidence.com, which is Taser International’s proprietary data retention server. As you may recall, the department has already purchased Evidence.com storage in its five year contract for body worn cameras in July 2015. As a result, no additional storage needs to be purchased. The Taser server offers military grade security for cloud based storage system that is accessed by a web based program. This type of support offers the department a simple and effective management tool to download, securely store, categorize, and manage the data and maintenance for any CED. Audits, data maintenance, and user data will be easily accessible by department administration and trainers to evaluate usage and identify any additional training needs.
The Department has developed a draft policy for the use of the CED (Exhibit C). The policy covers the training, authorized use, safe target areas, documentation, and medical treatment considerations following deployment. The policy authorizes the use of the CED to control a violent or potentially violent individual, while minimizing the risk of serious injury. In other words, the CED will only be authorized as protection from a violent person and not simply to gain the compliance of a person, who is not attacking an officer or another person. Our existing use of force police and deadly force policy remain the same. Given the cost of legally defending a single officer-involved shooting with a firearm may approximate one half to one million dollars, and that a CED may prevent a loss of human life during a critical incident, it is recommended the City authorize CED as another effective and less lethal option for the police officers.
Based on the totality of our evaluation, the Police Department intends to sole source this purchase from Taser (Exhibit D). Taser International is the only company that offers a “Smart” CED that syncs to a web based storage/maintenance logging system which tracks user data. The Department also intends to purchase the Taser Assurance Plan (TAP) which covers all devices purchased including repairs, software updates, and equipment hardware upgrades for the life of the purchased TAP. The Department also purchased the TAP for the body worn cameras in 2015, and have found it to be very beneficial for the ongoing maintenance of that program.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The Police Department will use Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant funds to purchase the initial equipment of 60 CEDs and use funds from the Police Department General Fund operating budget to cover the accompanying annual Taser Assurance Plan (TAP) for the first year, resulting in a payment of $87,527.20, which includes tax and shipping. Existing appropriations within the General Fund and COPS Special Revenue Fund are sufficient to cover the equipment purchase and the first year maintenance. Years two through five will consist of equal TAP payments of $12,957.35 (Exhibit E). These remaining TAP payments will be included in subsequent Police Department’s operating budgets. Therefore, the total for the five-year contract for 60 CED’s and five years of TAP will be $139,508.60.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
This action does not affect the Municipal Code.
The permanent policy governing the use will be based upon our current Lexipol recommendations.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15061(b)(3).
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the purchase of 60 Taser Conducted Electrical Devices (CED) and Approve a Five Year Taser Assurance Plan for a total purchase price not to exceed $139,509.00
Respectfully submitted,
Paul J. Rolleri, Chief of Police
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Elena Adair, Finance Director
Exhibits:
1 APD Lexipol 302- Use of Force Review Boards
2 APD Lexipol 300- Use of Force
3 APD Lexipol 389- Conducted Energy Device (DRAFT)
4 Sole Source Justification
5 Purchase Quote from Taser