Feb. 29--When the dash-cam video of a Chicago police officer fatally shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times was made public last fall, many questioned why a Taser wasn't used instead. In fact, radio dispatch exchanges subsequently released revealed that officers had put in a request for someone equipped with a Taser prior to Officer Jason Van Dyke pulling out his gun.
The Taser option makes sense on its face -- a painful but theoretically nonlethal way for law enforcement to deal with an erratic person who is refusing to be reasoned with, weaving in and out of traffic and armed with a knife.
And yet filmmaker Nick Berardini is skeptical that a Taser would have actually been used in this case. The reality surrounding the use of Tasers in the field, and how the company that makes them shapes that reality, informs his documentary "Killing Them Safely." It screens Tuesday at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema as part of the Midwest Independent Film Festival's monthly film series. Berardini will discuss the film afterward.
"It's extraordinarily rare that an officer would use a Taser in the Laquan McDonald scenario," Berardini said by phone. "Would it have been a good time to use the Taser? Probably. But it doesn't happen nearly as often as when it is used on the person who is passively resisting or won't sign the back of the traffic ticket."
As Berardini's film notes, in a small number of cases, people have died after being tased. That's not a possibility police officers are told about when they are trained -- they are actually told the opposite. And that training comes directly from Taser International. The film is less an indictment of the technology than of the company itself, specifically its sales and marketing philosophy, which, according to Berardini, has allowed Tasers to serve as "an easy shortcut" for law enforcement agencies that are none the wiser.
He saw how a Taser death can unfold while working at a TV station in Columbia, Mo.
"I was a senior in college at the University of Missouri and a broadcast journalism major," said Berardini, who grew up in Lake Forest. "I had to finish up all these TV classes, where you go and work for an NBC affiliate in Columbia and you do 10- or 12-hour shifts.
"And I was at the station when a kid, Stanley Harlan, who was 23, died after being tased during a traffic stop in Moberly, which is about 30 miles north. I was working the overnight shift when he died. We got a call from his mom, who was racing to the hospital and screaming about how the police had killed her son, and that was the start."
We see Harlan's death -- one of nearly 1,00n0 Taser-related deaths in North America documented on truthottasers.blogspot.com -- unfold on a dash cam video.
Another notable case spotlighted is that of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who, after flying into to Vancouver in 2007, became disoriented and agitated when he found himself lost in the airport and, because he did not speak English, unable to communicate. The Mounties who responded tased him five times (all of it caught on video by a bystander). He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Berardini includes footage from the subsequent court case. An officer is on the stand, justifying his use of the Taser on Dziekanski, explaining that the man in question was holding a stapler in a "combative stance." The testimony is cringe-inducing. A stapler. Can you picture it? Ping, ping, ping, as he fires off staples. It would be comical if the story weren't so tragic.
Berardini said police officers are being misled about the amount of danger involved in using a Taser on a person. If that's true, you can understand why officers might reach for their Tasers as an efficient way to do their jobs. It's a lot faster than waiting for an interpreter to arrive.
Interestingly enough, Taser International consented to an on-camera interview, and this makes the film that much stronger. "The beauty of being that young," said Berardini, "was that I was really unassuming when I contacted the company, and I think that's why they agreed to do it."
Steve Tuttle, the Taser representative with whom he speaks, has an almost gee-whiz demeanor. He is never once defensive. And he makes good arguments. "There's got to be a better way to let technology incapacitate someone without causing death," he says. "To the outside observer, we're using electricity. That scares people."
(Tuttle, like the company's founders, brothers Patrick and Thomas Smith, has a weird habit of wearing clothing emblazoned with the company's name on it; even the collar of the dress shirt Tuttle wears during his interview has "TASER" stitched down one side.)
But a police psychologist who testified in the Vancouver case sees the company's marketing as a problem. "Taser International has put forward a different model of policing. Now they're telling police that the best way to police is at the end of a 35-foot wire."
Here's why: "Only 2 percent of all arrests are going to use any kind of use of force," said Berardini. "Taser knew that they had to control that 2 percent -- they had to beat pepper spray, they had to beat batons. Because if officers weren't using the Tasers in those 2 percent of circumstances, then there was no way for the company to make money, because the weapons (which can cost up to $1,500 apiece) were so expensive. They've always been more expensive than guns.
"So what happens is, in order for a department to justify spending so much money on them, they have to be able to be used ubiquitously. And what happened was, the weapons were so effective that they became tools of escalation. They would be used in scenarios that didn't seem appropriate because the officers had been trained by the company -- who controls all the training -- that they should control the situation first, because there is zero risk."
The film is straightforwardly shot but Berardini has uncovered some terrific footage of police officers using Tasers on one another in an effort to prove that the technology is harmless.
"In the beginning, Taser would go to departments, show them how it worked, shock them for half a second, the guy would drop and everybody would laugh," he said. "That mentality is why the weapon doesn't seem dangerous. The perception is that they were sort of a comedy gag. The reality is, if misused -- especially if used for a long period of time -- not only are they dangerous but they are incredibly painful."
And some departments, including one in Michigan, have decided to do away with their use altogether. As one officer puts it: "I was a cop before Tasers, and I was just fine." Certainly an idea worth chewing over as the Chicago Police Department gears up to have as many as 1,400 officers equipped with Tasers by June. According to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, every beat car will have one.
"Killing Them Safely" screens 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St. Go to www.midwestfilm.com/pages/now_showing/403.php.
