FRONTLINE REPORTS
The Frontline Reports column
features short descriptions of novel approaches to mental health
problems or creative applications
of established concepts in different settings. Material submitted
for the column should be 350 to
750 words long, with a maximum
of three authors (one is preferred), and no references, tables,
or figures. Send material to
Francine Cournos, M.D., at the
New York State Psychiatric Institute (fc15@columbia.edu) or
Stephen M. Goldfinger, M.D., at
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
(steve007ny@aol.com).

Police Use of the Taser
With People With
Mental Illness in Crisis
Police officers have become first responders to individuals with mental
illness who are experiencing a crisis.
Much recent attention has been given
to the overrepresentation of people
with severe and persistent mental disorders in U.S. jails and prisons. More
tragic still are the incidents in which
law enforcement officers either kill a
person with mental illness or are
killed during an encounter. The
Treatment Advocacy Center reports
on its Web site that 52 mentally ill individuals were killed in 2003 by law
enforcement officers and that seven
officers were killed by persons with
mental illness.
Law enforcement experts speculate
that fatal encounters with individuals
with mental illness have increased
over the past few decades as a result
of promulgation of what they call the
“21 foot rule” and an impression that
people with mental illness commonly
carry knives for self-defense. Police
are trained that a person with a knife
can traverse 21 feet and deliver a fatal
strike before an officer can draw and
accurately deploy his or her weapon.
The Summit County, Ohio, mental
health community began planning with
advocates and the Akron Police Department for implementation of a crisis
intervention team (CIT) in June 2000.
The CIT model, which was first used in
PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES

Francine Cournos, M.D., and Stephen M. Goldfinger, M.D., Editors

Memphis, provides intensive training
about mental illness and the treatment
system to patrol officers who volunteer
for this additional training. Particular
emphasis is given to verbal deescalation skills. Trained officers are on duty
at all times and respond to calls that are
believed to involve individuals in a
mental illness crisis.
In planning the program, the training director of the Akron Police Department, Michael Woody, identified
the need for CIT officers to have a
less lethal weapon available when
words alone were not adequate. The
police department decided to provide
CIT officers with the M-26 advanced
Taser, an electroshock device that is a
less lethal weapon when deployed in
situations when a regular service revolver may not be necessary. The M26 Taser delivers a 50 kV (3 mA) electrical charge by means of shooting
two darts connected to the device by
a 21-foot tether. Before adopting the
Taser, the police department’s training director consulted the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Given the choice
between guns and Tasers, the advocates at NAMI urged the department
to deploy Tasers.
We examined the early experience
of the Akron Police Department with
the Taser. CIT officers documented
use in 35 incidents during the first 18
months. No incident resulted in serious harm to the individuals in crisis
or officers. Twenty-seven of the 35
individuals were judged to have a
mental illness. Although 21 were
known to the public mental health
system, only two were engaged in
outpatient treatment and adhering to
treatment. Individuals were judged
to be acutely psychotic in eight incidents, and in 16 incidents individuals
expressed suicidal ideation and one
was also homicidal. Ten possessed
weapons, most often a knife. Sixteen
of the crises were judged to be potentially life threatening.
Police use of the Taser has become a
source of recent controversy. Concerns have been raised about its safety,
and some people believe that it may be
used too casually as a means of intimi-

♦ ps.psychiatryonline.org ♦ June 2006 Vol. 57 No. 6

dation or control. The Akron Police
Department provided Tasers only to
specially trained CIT officers, believing that these officers were more likely to encounter situations in which the
Taser might be needed and that these
officers were most likely to use verbal
deescalation skills before using force.
The police department has in fact used
the Taser sparingly. The 35 cases reported here occurred over an 18month period in which there were 541
CIT responses. The frequency of use
has increased only modestly over time,
with a total of 150 uses in the first 51
months of deployment. We did not
find any cases of clearly inappropriate
or abusive use of the Taser in the sample of 35 incidents.
Given the problem of deaths and
serious injuries resulting from encounters between the police and people with mental disorders, deployment of less lethal weapons, such as
the Taser, may be part of a solution to
a significant public health problem.
However, because of recent controversy about the safety of this weapon
and efforts to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint in mental health
settings, deployments of the Taser is
likely to be controversial, and opinions of mental health advocates are
likely to be divided.
More systematic risk-benefit studies of the Taser are clearly needed.
Perhaps this tool can be used most
prudently in communities with effective partnerships between the law enforcement and mental health treatment systems.
Mark R. Munetz, M.D.
Antonia Fitzgerald, M.D.
Lt. Michael Woody (Retired)
Dr. Munetz is chief clinical officer of the
Summit County Alcohol, Drug Addiction
and Mental Health Services Board, 100
West Cedar Street, Suite 300, Akron,
Ohio 44307 (e-mail, mmunetz@neoucom.
edu). He is also professor of psychiatry at
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of
Medicine. Dr. Fitzgerald is staff psychiatrist at St. Elizabeth Health Center in
Youngstown, Ohio. Lt. Woody is law enforcement liaison with the Ohio Criminal
Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence
at the Northeastern Ohio Universities
College of Medicine.
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