Only a handful of deaths in the U.S. have resulted in a police officer mistakenly pulling a Taser instead of a gun, as the Minnesota police officer who shot Daunte Wright did – and most cases have no criminal record. complaints against the officers.
Kimberly Potter, 48, a 26-year-old veteran, fatally shot Wright during a Sunday stop when she committed the tragic mistake, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters Monday.
‘Holy s – t’, she is heard on a chilling camera video. “I just shot him!”
The chief officer accidentally pulled out her firearm, though she was trained to place her Glock semi-automatic rifle and a Taser pistol grip on either side of her service belt, the chief said.
Similar shootings have occurred at least 11 times in the U.S. since 1999 – the year Taser launched the Advanced Taser M-26, according to the Star Tribune.
Older Tasers were more like a TV remote control, the newspaper noted.
In 2001, police officer Thomas Schrum in Sacramento, California, shot Steven Yount in the butt as he resisted arrest.
Schrum later said he thought he pulled his Taser on the suspect, who survived the shot.
At the time, Taser had just recently unveiled its pistol-shaped M26, a model that the company said was manufactured to the customer’s preference. It was later replaced by other models that are also pistol-shaped.
Most cases where officers mistakenly saw a service pistol as a Taser were not fatal.
In 2002, Gregory Siem, a police officer in Rochester, Minnesota, told investigators he pulled his Glock incorrectly instead of his Taser and shot Christopher Atak in the back while trying to subdue him.
Siem has not been prosecuted, and Atak has won a $ 900,000 settlement in a civil lawsuit, the newspaper reported.
But two cases in California and one in Oklahoma were fatal.
The officers involved in the deaths of Everardo Torres in Madera, California, in 2002, Oscar Grant III in Oakland, California, in 2009, and Eric Courtney Harris in Tulsa, Okla., In 2015, said they also plan to was to pull their Tasers.
The Star Tribune said Brooklyn Center police did not respond to his question about which model Taser Potter used.
The Taser, which fires two thorny arrows attached to thin wires, delivers an electric current that disables muscles.
The weapon can be easily distinguished from handguns, manufacturer Axon Enterprise said in a statement.
Tasers, available in yellow and black, have different grips and are lighter than pistols – and have an LED screen that lights up when safety is turned off.
“Axon also warns specifically about the possibility of weapon confusion and offers training recommendations to mitigate it,” the company said in a statement.
“Based on recommendations by the use of force experts, Axon recommends that a Taser energy weapon be placed on an officer’s non-dominant side, and firearms on the dominant side,” he added.
According to the Brooklyn Center’s Police Guide, all Tasers must be clearly and distinctly marked to distinguish them from the officer’s firearm, according to the Star Tribune.
Police must also undergo annual training in the use of the weapon.
