ACLU faults police Taser policies in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa — Policies on Taser use by Iowa law enforcement agencies are inadequate and alarmingly varied, with only a handful of the state's 99 sheriff's departments specifically prohibiting using electric shocks on pregnant women, the elderly, children or people who are already restrained, the first statewide review of the weapons shows.

The state's lack of officer training requirements also jeopardizes public safety while potentially depriving citizens of their constitutional rights against excessive force and cruel or unusual punishment. The deficiencies expose police agencies to potentially serious and expensive liabilities, the study by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the University of Iowa College of Law Clinic concludes.

The report, obtained exclusively by the Register, is the first to thoroughly examine how Iowa police officers are using Tasers after the weapons contributed to the deaths of two men and were used on a mentally disabled woman last year. State lawmakers talked about instituting training requirements, but ultimately took no action before the session ended earlier this year.

Requiring standardized statewide training and setting minimum Taser-use policies would better protect citizens and law enforcement officers, both the ACLU and the president of the Iowa State Sheriffs' and Deputies' Association told the Register last week.

"This is about protecting the public from excessive force, but good policies also protect officers and protect public dollars," said Rita Bettis, the legal director of the ACLU of Iowa. "There are not compelling reasons to avoid adopting clear and effective Taser policies across the state."

Every state except Florida allows local law enforcement departments to set their own Taser use policies, according to Taser International.

Nathan Miller, assistant director of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights and co-author of the study, said the wide variations and even complete absence of Taser policies in some counties demonstrates the need for Iowa to implement minimum Taser policy standards.

Some existing policies contained language that contradicted other parts of the departments' policies, the study noted. Those types of issues could create greater legal liabilities, Miller said.

"I expected some variation, but to really go in and find significant variation across almost every single policy issue that we isolated, I was taken aback," Miller said.

Electronic control devices, best known as "Tasers" after the most popular world manufacturer of the device, are often referred to as non-lethal weapons. But they can increase risks of heart attacks and death, particularly in vulnerable populations such as the elderly or people with physical impairments, multiple scientific studies have concluded. Those populations already can have weakened physical conditions, causing more serious effects, the studies cited by the ACLU show.

Last year, two men in Iowa died after law enforcement officers shocked them multiple times with Tasers.

The ACLU review and legislative discussion came after the Register published a video Nov. 24 of a Muscatine County jail employee using a Taser on Marie Franks, a 58-year-old mentally disabled woman.

Franks was shocked four times in an eight-minute period by jailers attempting to force her to change her jumpsuit. Some of the 50,000-volt shocks came while she was handcuffed, lying on her back, with as many as six jail employees around her.

Records showed Sgt. John Crump, the Muscatine jailer who used the Taser, had failed to attend an annual Taser refresher course required by his department for more than three years.

At least eight lawsuits alleging excessive force involving Tasers have been filed over a six-year period ending in 2013, resulting in individual payouts as high as $150,000, the Register found.

As part of its investigation, the Register obtained other videos: one showing another mentally disabled person being shocked with a Taser multiple times while lying handcuffed in the back of a Chariton police cruiser, and another showing a man shocked by a Des Moines County sheriff's deputy while the man was on his knees with his hands behind his head.

The ACLU surveyed all 99 county sheriff's departments and found that all but seven — Dubuque, Franklin, Hardin, Howard, Marshall, Mitchell and Monona — use Tasers.

Three counties — Adams, Lucas and Lyon — were using Tasers but had no policies as of last month, according to the ACLU study.

Adams County Sheriff Alan Johannes told the Register last week that his department has used the devices since 2010 and has now implemented a policy, partly because it's necessary to protect the sheriff's office.

"They never adapted one before, and we just realized we need a policy," Johannes said.