Taser limit means Midlands cops will go hand-to-hand with suspects, officials say

Midlands police officers will be going hand-to-hand with suspects more often after a recent court ruling limited the use of Tasers, officials say.

That prediction comes after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that law enforcement only should use Tasers when there is “an immediate safety risk” – not merely when a suspect is resisting officers or behaving in a way that endangers only the suspect.

“You’re going to see a lot of this resort back to the old days of nightsticks and clubs,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. “The Taser replaced those types of tools we had – and they should have been replaced.”

His department has rewritten its rules on Taser use, Lott said.

“When we’re in a foot pursuit with someone, we’ve used (a Taser) to stop them,” he said. “We’ve used it to prevent individuals from committing suicide.”

Having to deal with situations hands-on means more manpower is needed, requiring multiple officers to do what one could do with a Taser, he continued.

“When you engage in a physical confrontation with someone, there’s going to be injuries, period – either to the suspect or the officer,” Lott said. “The Taser eliminated that. Now, we’ve taken a step back.”

The ruling comes after a mentally ill man died when police used a Taser when he clung to a sign post to prevent officers from taking him to the hospital.

Columbia police are changing rules on use of the equipment, although staff attorney Mike Hemlepp said the revisions are largely tweaks.

But Hemlepp added the ruling isn’t very clear.

“I hope this gets appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and heard,” he said. “We need better clarification than we got from the 4th Circuit.”

Lexington County deputies won’t be affected very much by the ruling, Sheriff Jay Koon said. The department’s guidelines, which Koon inherited when he took office almost 10 months ago, already restrict Taser use.

“It’s my understanding, talking to general counsel and training folks and instructors, our policy already falls in line with it,” Koon said. “It already talks about prohibiting deployment to force compliance for someone who is actively resisting a deputy.”

The S.C. Criminal Justice Academy is taking the ruling into account when teaching use of force, spokeswoman Maj. Florence McCants said.

But an important part of police training is learning how to resolve situations by talking, she added.

“The ruling is one more thing to prove there is power in words,” she said.

This restriction has been a long time in coming, according to Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied police use of force. Alpert added that while Tasers have been abused nationally, he didn’t know of any Taser-related deaths in the Midlands.

“We (researchers) actually predicted this, because we said if police officers and police commanders can’t control (Tasers) themselves, the courts are going to do it,” Alpert said. “This is not a new or remarkable issue – it’s the courts catching up with reality.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 4:43 PM.