The Los Angeles Police Commission this week approved arming several hundred officers in Hollywood and South L.A. with new Tasers that have more than double the range as their old models, an upgrade they hope will help prevent officers from resorting to using their guns in encounters with combative people.
The test pilot for the Taser 10 approved Tuesday, Sept. 12 will run for one year starting in late October. LAPD will deploy 200 Tasers each to the Hollywood, Central, Southeast and 77th Street stations. Officers already trained on the old Tasers will get two hours of additional training on the new devices.
LAPD’s previous model, the Taser 7, fired two barbs attached by electric wires to the weapon itself, allowing officers to deliver an electric shock to a person with a pull of the trigger. That weapon had a range of 22 feet, said LAPD Deputy Chief Marc Reina.
The new Tasers fire 10 barbs up to 45 feet, which officers can activate depending on which barbs have actually attached.
Reina said the intent behind the Taser upgrades was “to decrease the intensity of encounters where there’s the potential for use of force.”
“We believe (the new Tasers) should have a substantial impact on an officer’s ability to use de-escalation principles, such as time, distance and cover,” Reina told the commission.
The 800 Tasers, produced by Axon Technologies, will cost $3 million.
Tasers are one of LAPD officers most commonly used less-lethal weapons. In 2022, officers activated their Tasers 432 times across 200 incidents according to the department’s annual use-of-force report, which also showed officers found the devices only worked slightly more than half of the time they were used.
While they are intended to deliver a non-fatal electric shock, some people who have been shot with a Taser have died.
In January, Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old teacher from Washington, D.C., died several hours after LAPD officers stopped him for a suspected hit-and-run,
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