Community Corner
NAACP’s Esdaile on Tasers: ‘Stop Using These Tools of Torture’
In the wake of a Sunday evening incident outside the Meriden Police Department, members of the state NAACP and ACLU are calling to end use of stun guns in law enforcement – but police say they are only telling one side of the story.
The use of a stun gun in subduing a combative 43-year-old Meriden man on Sunday may have been a contributing factor in his death and if it is, would represent the third of it’s kind in Meriden alone, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut said Wednesday.
Now the two civil rights groups are calling for a thorough investigation regarding Taser use at the Meriden Police Department and seeking a moratorium in both Meriden and across Connecticut due to what they said are departments using Tasers and stun guns as “tools of torture.”
“We are calling for a moratorium because of the drastic disparities in how Tasers are being used here in the state of Connecticut and throughout the nation,” said Scot X. Esdaile, board member of the Connecticut NAACP, “and we have huge concerns about Taser use here in Meriden.”
The criticism comes after a Sunday night incident outside the police department where 43-year-old Meriden resident Noel Mendoza was subdued with a stun gun after becoming violent and combative with medical personnel and officers.
Mendoza had told officers he smoked crack and swallowed cocaine. He was subdued with a stun gun and placed into cuffs where he grabbed a second stun gun and refused to let go, Meriden police said.
State police said he was brought into an ambulance and taken to MidState Medical Center where he eventually died while in the emergency room. State police are continuing to investigate the incident.
Other stories on the Taser incident in Meriden:
- Man Dies After Being Tasered, Officer Placed on Administrative Leave
- Man Tasered Behind Police Station Identified as Noel Mendoza
Esdaile and David J. McGuire, Staff Attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, said there have been 12 incidents of death following use of a Taser in the state including nine that involved blacks or Hispanics. Three of those incidents, including the latest involving Mendoza, occurred in Meriden, they said.
Standing outside the Meriden Police Department on Tuesday afternoon, the two and Meriden/Wallingford NAACP President Jason Teal said there are a lot of unanswered questions and very little transparency surrounding the use of Tasers.
“In several of the incidents, including the one that occurred right here at Meriden Police Headquarters, those who died after being Tasered had no weapons and the use of a Taser could have been prevented,” McGuire said.
Esdaile and Teal also said the disparity is a problem because it appears minorities – namely blacks and Hispanics – are targets of many of these incidents, all while representing just 20 percent of the state’s population.
But while the two organizations are challenging Taser use, Meriden officers defended its advantages and noted that there are far more benefits – and lives that have saved – then there are incidents of stun gun misuse.
Det. Lt. Mark Walerysiak, public information officer for the department, said incidents involving Tasers that end in death find their way into media reports every time, but countless lives have been saved in incidents that were never reported at all.
Meriden police, like most departments in the state, also have detailed forms required anytime use of force is needed in a response, he said, and in some cases the stun guns even have a camera or other form of monitor to record when the weapon is used and for how long.
In addition, every officer who is issued a Taser or stun gun must pass regular training courses and also receive an electric shock in those training sessions before being issued the weapon.
“When it comes to Tasers, it’s a split-second decision that the officers must make. The public is not given the full story,” Walerysiak said. “It’s extremely unfair to blame these deaths on Taser use when not a single case has the Taser been found as the cause of death.”
In the state of Connecticut the most common cause of death in cases where someone died following incidents in which they were hit with a stun gun has been a term known as “excited delirium.” By definition, excited delirium is a death that could have been caused by a wide variety of factors. In most cases involving Taser use and death, the victims were reportedly acting erratically and tested positive as having stimulants or hallucinogens in their system during toxicology reports at the time of the autopsy, officials said.
But excited delirium, a term first developed in connection with Cocaine use in the 1980s, was not a common diagnosis until the late 1990s and has been most commonly associated with deaths in cases where a Taser or stun gun was used, McGuire said.
In six of the 12 deaths in the state that have involved some sort of stun gun use, McGuire said officers acted irrationally and used the weapon on someone who was under severe emotional distress and was not armed. He said there need to be other solutions.
The ACLU last spring proposed a bill that would put restrictions on Taser use and require extensive reporting with any use of force by any officer in the state. The bill did not pass, however, as there was not enough support within the Connecticut legislature.
McGuire said with the latest incident, however, it’s time to revisit options and find a way to make a change so others don’t become victims.
“We need to get a clearer understanding of exactly how Tasers are being used in Meriden and throughout the state,” McGuire said. “If officers know the use will be under extreme scrutiny, it may help them to think twice before using them.”
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