Boca police asking city
for advanced stun guns
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Palm Beach Post StajJWriter

BOCA RATON - ''Would
you rather be hit on the head and
have stitches left or be incapacitated without injury?"
This is no trick question. Police Chief Andrew Scott is making a case for TASER stun guns,
devices designed to knock the
sense out of anybody unwilling to
go quietly.
Today the Boca Raton City
Council will vote on a department
request for 85 of the M26 Advanced TASER stun guns billed
by their Arizona-based manufacturer as a "less-than-Iethal" alternative to deadly force. Price tag:
$60,790.
The new guns, which look
like semi-automatic handguns,
use a cartridge of compressed
nitrogen to shoot a pair of barbs
up to 21 feet. The barbs are connected to two insulated metal
wires and snag skin or clothing
within seconds. They carry a
charge QC2Bwatts C50,OOO volts)
-vs. a mere five or seven watts in
previous versions strong
enough to pass through two
inches of material, yet with an
amperage so low it won't injure
people with heart problems or
internal devices like pacemakers,
according to company spokesman Steve Tuttle.
Florida is TASER's thirdlargest customer base, behind
California and Washington. Deputies in Florida's Orange County
carry the M26; so do police officers in Titusville and Cape Coral,
Tuttle said.
We're talking the "latest and
greatest in TASERs," Scott said.
Worst case scenario, if you were
hit by a barb, "you would drop
down to the ground. You'd probably go into· some semblance of
spasms, convulsions," he said.
But consider the alternative:
batons and pepper spray. Messy
for you, but also for police, Tuttle
said.
'''That's the beauty of the sys-

tem - it just puts you down ~cm-·
porarily with no after-effects,"
Tuttle said.
Scott said, "Rather than using
an impact weapon, we'll be able to
subdue a violent subject with
minimal harm to him and the officer."
Tuttle said TASER (which
stands for the founder's favorite
kid's book, Tom Swift and his
Eledric Rifle) has seen no longterm injuries from the guns since
they debuted in December [999.
He said they have never setlled a
lawsuit or otherwise tapped
product liability insurance.
Alleged police abuse of stun
guns like TASERs gained national attention during the Rodney
King case in 1991, as wen as in
local cases. In a failed suit against
Lake Worth police in 1990, Jal~les
Dowling alleged an officer repeatedly stunned him at the jail.
Two years later, a Martin County
man filed a complaint with the
sheriff's office there alleging a
. deputy stunned him while he was
unconscious and handcuffed in a
hospital bed.
After deputies told prosecutors they saw Martin County
sheriff's Lt. Bill Ward shock the
drunken-driving suspect, a grand
jury charged Ward with four
counts of misdemeanor battery.
Ward, who was demoted to deputy, was ordered to pay a $700 fine
after he pleaded no contest to two
of the counts.
Prosecutors dropped the other two charges, and the judge
withheld ,adjudication in the nocontest plea, meaning they did
not go on his record.
Tuttle said the new guns have
a computer memory that stores
dates and times for the gun's last
585 shots, which can be used as
evidence in court.
"It keeps (officers) responsible in the future," Tuttle said.
Staff writerJohn Murawski contributed to this story.
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molly_hennessy-fiske@
pbpost.com