The change meant officers needed to be farther from suspects for the weapon to work reliably - a tough requirement, because data from some cities shows police most often fire Tasers within 7 feet of a suspect.Īll told, the company has sold more than 600,000 of the Taser models that police rate as less effective than older versions.
In the Taser model that Houston is using, Axon also altered the angle at which darts leave the weapon. It's not clear why the newer models were rated as less effective, though two modifications were noteworthy.īeginning in 2009, Axon reduced the power of its weapons, a change the company said would be safer for suspects. Data from three of the nation's largest cities - New York, Los Angeles and Houston - showed that officers rated newer-model Tasers as less effective than older ones. In 106 of them, the suspect became more violent after receiving the electrical shock, according to a review of case files and media reports, suggesting the Taser may have made a bad situation worse.ĪPM Reports also found evidence that two of Axon's newer models may be less effective than older ones. When Tasers fail to subdue someone, the results can be life-threatening - for police, and especially for the public.ĪPM Reports found more than 250 fatal police shootings nationwide between 20 that occurred after a Taser failed to incapacitate a suspect. Data from some of the largest police departments in the nation reveals that officers rate their Tasers as effective as little as 55 percent of the time, or just a little better than a coin flip. Over the years, Axon has claimed that Tasers are between 80 and 97 percent effective at subduing a suspect in the field.īut a year-long investigation by APM Reports shows that police rate Tasers as considerably less effective. In fact, Axon's slogan is "Protect life," and the company keeps a running tally on its website of the hundreds of thousands of lives it says it's saved. The company has long promoted Tasers to police as a reliable and effective alternative to guns.
The weapons are produced by Axon Enterprise Inc., which has a monopoly on the American market. Most patrol officers in the United States carry them, and every year tens of thousands of Americans are shot with them. In the past two decades, Tasers have become a ubiquitous law-enforcement tool. The Taser employs electricity to lock up a person's muscles for a few seconds, long enough for an officer to disarm and handcuff a suspect, usually without inflicting severe injury. The Taser was created for precisely this scenario: when police need to protect themselves but don't need lethal force. So when two patrol officers showed up at his door early on the evening of March 21, 2016, Grenon confronted them with a knife in each hand.
Grenon had no history of violence - he was a devoted father and grandfather - but he'd lately been having paranoid delusions. One day, he'd started shouting threats to his neighbors through the walls of his Burlington, Vermont, apartment, and they called the police. Phil Grenon is exactly the kind of person the Taser was designed to save.Īt 76, he'd long struggled with mental illness, and his condition had recently deteriorated. 'We did not expect him to move that fast'.
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