Exclusive | Troopers' use of tasers excessive?

A pilot program to decide whether Highway Patrol troopers should be equipped with stun guns has resulted in 17 motorists being jolted since last fall, 11 of whom are African-American, the patrol said.

Of the troopers who used 50,000-volt Tasers on motorists, 14 are white officers, and three are black officers, according to information released to The State under the Freedom of Information Act.

A trooper’s use of a Taser in a January Colleton County traffic stop is among three cases Gov. Mark Sanford reviewed when he criticized patrol leaders last month for being too lenient on an officer in a different stop. That trooper used a racial slur. Two senior agency officials resigned.

Black leaders have complained that some troopers treat African-Americans differently than white motorists. They said the ratio of stun gun use is evidence of their complaints.

“Sixty-six percent of the people burned were African-Americans,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “That is a problem.”

Yet Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg and a longtime legislative critic of the patrol, said problems are not limited to race.

“I think it’s wrong to frame this through the lens of color,” said Cobb-Hunter, who is black. “It’s way beyond that. It’s the cowboy mentality that seems to pervade that institution.”

A patrol spokesman and a national expert in police procedures, Geoff Alpert of USC, said the stun gun numbers are too small to be significant and lack context.

“It suggests that it’s not a black suspect, white officer issue,” said Alpert, who is conducting what he called the nation’s largest analysis of stun gun use and effectiveness.

By comparison, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department stuns about 15 to 20 people monthly, a spokesman said. Deputies began using Tasers in October 2004.

THE TRAFFIC STOP

Yolanda Williams, the motorist in the Jan. 27 incident, has hired a lawyer who said Tuesday she was not the aggressor before Cpl. R.L. Hardee jolted her.

“I have no doubt there was a struggle out there,” attorney Scott Palmer said of the traffic stop in the parking lot of a Burger King. “The penultimate issue is who was the aggressor and was the Taser necessary?”

The patrol on Tuesday released the video from Hardee’s cruiser to The State.

Highway Patrol spokesman Sid Gaulden and Sanford’s office declined comment Tuesday, saying the case remains under internal affairs review.

The video shows Williams arguing with Hardee from the moment he walks up to her Honda Accord in the parking lot of the Burger King where she worked.

The trooper asks at least 19 times to see her driver’s license and registration.

Williams, 26, insists she has done nothing wrong and starts making calls on her mobile phone. She walks to the passenger side of the car as Hardee follows her, asking for documentation. He begins telling her that she can be arrested for failing to follow a lawful order.

Williams points her finger toward the trooper’s face, occasionally shouting.

She returns to the driver side of the Honda, leans inside, gets her purse and starts to walk into the restaurant, saying she is late for work.

Hardee, a 17-year patrol veteran, orders her to stop, then pushes her to the hood, warning she is about to be arrested.

With her back to Hardee, she continues to ignore his demands. He then fires the Taser from about two feet away. The electrified darts strike her on the back. Four minutes has lapsed since he approached her.

Williams screams in pain and collapses. “Oh my God. I can’t believe you did this to me.”

She then threatens a lawsuit at least 44 times. At one point, Williams tells the trooper, “Thanks for making me rich.”

Attorney Palmer, who had not seen the video Tuesday, said Williams told him she remained in a “defensive mode.”

The video shows Hardee call for an ambulance, as protocols require. Medics monitored Williams, who was taken to a local emergency room, Palmer said.

Afterward, Hardee took Williams to jail on charges of resisting arrest, refusing to follow a police order and failing to wear her seat belt.

STUN GUN SAFETY

National guidelines for the use of stun guns call for their use only against people who actively resist arrest, are aggressive, or are dangers to themselves or others.

The Police Executive Research Forum also recommends that no more than one officer administer a jolt and that the suspect be evaluated before a second jolt.

The patrol requires eight hours of training, and troopers must submit to being shocked, Gaulden said.

Alpert, the USC criminologist, said he knows of only one death directly related to the electrical jolt from stun guns.

Suspects who die are killed because their bodies already are stressed from fleeing or the circumstances of their arrest, he said.

Just last week, a 17-year-old died after Charlotte police shocked him during a disturbance at a grocery store where he worked.

Two people died in South Carolina in 2005. A 32-year-old running from Florence County deputies died after refusing five orders to stop. In June 2005, a Lancaster County jail inmate did not survive after a guard shocked him for nearly three minutes.

In Lexington County, deputy supervisors have used stun guns since the late 1980s. Other deputies are allowed to buy their own and also must be trained, Maj. John Allard said.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said a USC study of his department’s use of stun guns showed the devices help officers and the public.

“Use of Tasers reduced injuries to suspects and to deputies,” Lott said. “They’re probably one of the best things we’ve got.”

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664. Staff Writer Rick Brundrett contributed to this story.