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Hamilton police train with new tasers
By Cindy Iutzi/Gate City Staff Writer
HAMILTON, Ill. - The popping sound of a taser's electrical current followed by a man's hoarse yell of pain was captured along with video footage Tuesday at the Hamilton Fire Station.
Hamilton Police Chief Walt Sellens, braced on both sides by police officers, fell to the floor immobilized and in pain - just as he was supposed to do during the department's taser training session.
“You have no control,” Sellens said later. “You're locked up. Those five seconds feel like forever.”
Sellens described the pain level as a 10, an assessment in line with Hamilton officer Tony Strope's description.
“It hurts,” Strope said. “I would put it as the worst charley horse you've ever had, but in your entire body.”
Asked to evaluate the pain using a scale of 1 to 10, he said without hesitation, “Oh, it's a 10.”
Assistant Chief Bryan Finch, the department's certified taser instructor conducted the training class. He experienced the taser on Sept. 18 in Forest Park, Ill., during his certification class.
Patrol officer Robb Bell was tasered during his training in 2005 as an officer in another department. Because the experience was still fresh enough in his mind he decided to forego a repeat performance.
Finch said the taser will be used when officers encounter someone resisting arrest, displaying aggressive action toward an officer or refusing to stop fighting with someone else.
“We're still going to rely on our communications skills,” Sellens said. “We're not going to just arrive and start tasering people.”
The use of the taser is primarily to reduce injury to officers. Finch estimates that Hamilton officers confront people resisting arrest a maximum of five times a year.
He recounted an attack on an officer in the last several years by someone wielding a shovel. The shovel caught the officer in the face.
Bell recently was hit in the head with a bag carried by a robber at the golf course and several people have been wrestled into handcuffs.
Those days may be past. Feedback from officers who have had access to tasers for a while indicates that some people tailor their response to the police who carry tasers.
“A guy asked if they had tasers,” Sellens said. “He was trying to determine how he was going to behave.”
Officers carry the taser guns on the side of their weak hand and are taught to cross draw with their strong hand. The position keeps the taser gun away from the police firearm and the cross draw gives the officer time to think about what he's about to do, Sellens said.
Taser use is guided by the city's taser policy manual and use of force policy manual unanimously adopted Monday by the Hamilton City Council.
“A member may use force in the event of forceful or violent resistance to him in the discharge of his duties as a policeman and shall not use more force than is reasonable and necessary for the safe custody of a prisoner or for overcoming any resistance than is reasonable and necessary, that may be encountered,” the use of force policy manual says.
“Active physical non-compliance and active physical aggression” warrant officer response that ranges from body language, pressure points, pepper spray, taser, baton or aggressive physical contact, according to both manuals.
The policy manual notes that officers are not to use the taser:
On anyone who is “saturated with or in the presence of highly flammable or combustible materials or liquids.”
On anyone who could receive a secondary injury by falling from a place like a roof or other high elevation.
On a person's face, neck, groin or female breast, if possible.
On a person who is shackled and handcuffed unless there is an immediate threat to the officer, suspect or bystander.
As a tool of coercion or punishment.
In an excessive manner while subduing someone.
After a person is tasered and handcuffed, the taser officer is required to remove the probes. The probes are described as No. 8 straightened fishhooks that penetrate a maximum of a quarter-inch.
The taser policy requires that the site of the probe puncture be cleaned, treated and bandaged.
Those who have been tasered should be taken to a hospital emergency room and be seen by a licensed physician if they:
Have obvious injury the officer believes should be treated.
Request medical treatment whether injury is obvious to the officer or not.
Have a probe(s) lodged in the bone or embedded in soft tissue in the neck, face or groin.
Hamilton Police Chief Walt Sellens, braced on both sides by police officers, fell to the floor immobilized and in pain - just as he was supposed to do during the department's taser training session.
“You have no control,” Sellens said later. “You're locked up. Those five seconds feel like forever.”
Sellens described the pain level as a 10, an assessment in line with Hamilton officer Tony Strope's description.
“It hurts,” Strope said. “I would put it as the worst charley horse you've ever had, but in your entire body.”
Asked to evaluate the pain using a scale of 1 to 10, he said without hesitation, “Oh, it's a 10.”
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Patrol officer Robb Bell was tasered during his training in 2005 as an officer in another department. Because the experience was still fresh enough in his mind he decided to forego a repeat performance.
Finch said the taser will be used when officers encounter someone resisting arrest, displaying aggressive action toward an officer or refusing to stop fighting with someone else.
“We're still going to rely on our communications skills,” Sellens said. “We're not going to just arrive and start tasering people.”
The use of the taser is primarily to reduce injury to officers. Finch estimates that Hamilton officers confront people resisting arrest a maximum of five times a year.
He recounted an attack on an officer in the last several years by someone wielding a shovel. The shovel caught the officer in the face.
Bell recently was hit in the head with a bag carried by a robber at the golf course and several people have been wrestled into handcuffs.
Those days may be past. Feedback from officers who have had access to tasers for a while indicates that some people tailor their response to the police who carry tasers.
“A guy asked if they had tasers,” Sellens said. “He was trying to determine how he was going to behave.”
Officers carry the taser guns on the side of their weak hand and are taught to cross draw with their strong hand. The position keeps the taser gun away from the police firearm and the cross draw gives the officer time to think about what he's about to do, Sellens said.
Taser use is guided by the city's taser policy manual and use of force policy manual unanimously adopted Monday by the Hamilton City Council.
“A member may use force in the event of forceful or violent resistance to him in the discharge of his duties as a policeman and shall not use more force than is reasonable and necessary for the safe custody of a prisoner or for overcoming any resistance than is reasonable and necessary, that may be encountered,” the use of force policy manual says.
“Active physical non-compliance and active physical aggression” warrant officer response that ranges from body language, pressure points, pepper spray, taser, baton or aggressive physical contact, according to both manuals.
The policy manual notes that officers are not to use the taser:
On anyone who is “saturated with or in the presence of highly flammable or combustible materials or liquids.”
On anyone who could receive a secondary injury by falling from a place like a roof or other high elevation.
On a person's face, neck, groin or female breast, if possible.
On a person who is shackled and handcuffed unless there is an immediate threat to the officer, suspect or bystander.
As a tool of coercion or punishment.
In an excessive manner while subduing someone.
After a person is tasered and handcuffed, the taser officer is required to remove the probes. The probes are described as No. 8 straightened fishhooks that penetrate a maximum of a quarter-inch.
The taser policy requires that the site of the probe puncture be cleaned, treated and bandaged.
Those who have been tasered should be taken to a hospital emergency room and be seen by a licensed physician if they:
Have obvious injury the officer believes should be treated.
Request medical treatment whether injury is obvious to the officer or not.
Have a probe(s) lodged in the bone or embedded in soft tissue in the neck, face or groin.
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