Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan “Use of Force in the Montgomery County Police (MCP): An alternative to how MCP measures and assesses ECDs deployment” I. Electronic Control Devices (ECDs): how, why and when did they become accepted as police use of force? A. Policing and ECDs. A national overview: In the 1960’s, heavyhanded crowdcontrol techniques earned the police condemnation from the public and sparked the search for effective but less dangerous weapons. Jack Cover, a onetime NASA scientist, began developing the Taser as a nonlethal weapon to combat the hijackings and riots that were happening at that time. The need for lessthanlethal substitutes for deadly force was codified into law in 1985 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee vs. Garner. Electronic Control Devices –including but not limited to Tasers appeared on the market in the 1970s. The Taser M26 and X26 models have been available to police agencies since 1999 and 2003, respectively. The book “Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle” by Victor Appleton inspired Jack Cover to create the acronym TASER. Competitors to Taser International include Law Enforcement Associates and Stinger Systems; however, Taser International accounts for a substantial majority of stun devices sold in the United States. Consequently, the existing academic research is primarily concerned with describing the frequency and nature of Taser use by officers in the field, as well as departmental policies on the appropriate use of the device. According to 2005 GAO estimates, nearly half of the law enforcement agencies in the U.S. now issue ECDs to some or all of their officers, and there have been more than 70,000 estimated deployments of these devices. In general, useofforce incidents are relatively rare events compared to the overall number of policecitizen contacts. Research based on a whole variety of data sources, including
Transcript
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
“Use of Force in the Montgomery County Police (MCP):
An alternative to how MCP measures and assesses ECDs deployment”
I. Electronic Control Devices (ECDs): how, why and when did they become accepted as
police use of force?
A. Policing and ECDs. A national overview: In the 1960’s, heavy-‐handed crowd-‐control
techniques earned the police condemnation from the public and sparked the search for
effective but less dangerous weapons. Jack Cover, a one-‐time NASA scientist, began
developing the Taser as a nonlethal weapon to combat the hijackings and riots that were
happening at that time. The need for less-‐than-‐lethal substitutes for deadly force was
codified into law in 1985 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee vs. Garner. Electronic
Control Devices –including but not limited to Tasers-‐ appeared on the market in the 1970s.
The Taser M26 and X26 models have been available to police agencies since 1999 and
2003, respectively. The book “Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle” by Victor Appleton inspired
Jack Cover to create the acronym TASER. Competitors to Taser International include Law
Enforcement Associates and Stinger Systems; however, Taser International accounts for a
substantial majority of stun devices sold in the United States. Consequently, the existing
academic research is primarily concerned with describing the frequency and nature of
Taser use by officers in the field, as well as departmental policies on the appropriate use of
the device. According to 2005 GAO estimates, nearly half of the law enforcement agencies
in the U.S. now issue ECDs to some or all of their officers, and there have been more than
70,000 estimated deployments of these devices.
In general, use-‐of-‐force incidents are relatively rare events compared to the overall number
of police-‐citizen contacts. Research based on a whole variety of data sources, including
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan police use-‐of-‐force reports, civilian complaints, victim surveys, and observational methods,
consistently demonstrates that a very small number of police-‐to-‐citizen contacts include
any use of force by the officers (Alpert et al., 2011). Trend data from a NIJ study based
primarily on “A Multi-‐Method Evaluation of Police Use of Force Outcomes,” (July 2010),
demonstrated a general increased presence of ECDs in law enforcement. Deployment of
ECDs has risen significantly to about 70% of all law enforcement agencies. Furthermore,
the greater use of ECDs has displaced the use of batons. Standard baton use is down to less
than a quarter of law enforcement agencies in 2008, from a little over one-‐third in 2005.
Conversely, slightly more agencies are reporting that their officers are carrying ECDs on
their person rather than in their vehicles. In addition, both baton use and empty-‐hand
tactics are becoming less frequently used by officers. ECD use was ranked among the top
two or three most used tactics from 2005 to 2008. It is of interest to note that the general
availability of ECDs to officers has gone up over the period studied, but the use of the
devices has remained fairly stable. Researchers speculate on the reason for this counter-‐
intuitive finding. Their reasoning is that when ECDs are first introduced in departments,
there are few restrictive policies on their use, coupled with a tendency for officers to over-‐
use the devices. These circumstances lead to a higher rate of usage. As departments gain
more experience using the devices, and perhaps, have complaints, they set more restrictive
policies on their use. In addition, as suspects become more accustomed to officers having
the ECD option, they begin to comply to commands with only the threat of use, or upon
seeing the red laser beam on them. These circumstances lead to a lower level of actual
usage.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan In any case, every scholar so far emphasizes that there continues to be a need for additional
studies on the use of force by police and officer and suspect injuries, especially as they
relate to ECDs. The dearth of research to date has left law enforcement executives and
other policy-‐makers with scant information on which to base critical decisions regarding
policy, training, and equipment. Regarding ECDs, despite advances in their technology and
the increasing use of tasers by police agencies, uncertainties remain about their
appropriate use and effectiveness, as well as their potential for harmful physiological
effects.
B. Maryland’s experience with ECDs:
In 2011, the Maryland Legislature enacted and Governor O’Malley signed into law House Bill
507, entitled “Use of Electronic Control Devices – Reports.” That law is now part of the Public
Safety Article in Maryland’s Annotated Code, specifically PS 3-508. This new law requires
Maryland law enforcement agencies that issue electronic control devices to their law
enforcement officers to report certain information regarding the use of those devices on an
annual basis to the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP). Start date for
the collection of ECD data was January 1, 2012 with the first report to GOCCP due by March 31,
2013. Subsequent annual reports will be due by March 31st of the year following the calendar
year for which the data has been collected. This requirement will remain effective until
December 31, 2015 with the final Maryland Statistical Analysis Center report due to General
Assembly by September 1, 2016.
On November 18, 2007, twenty year old Jarrel Gray of Frederick, Md. died after being shocked
with an electronic control weapon during an altercation with local police. As a result of the
controversy surrounding the death of Gray and similar incidents across the country, Maryland
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler created the Attorney General’s Task Force on Electronic
Weapons (“Task Force”) to provide policymakers with concrete judgments and
recommendations for best practices regarding the use of Electronic Control Weapons (“ECWs”)
within the State of Maryland. The Task Force made 60 specific recommendations after assessing
both the risks and benefits of tasers and considering whether these devices should be adopted,
how to structure their deployment process, the appropriate training, the procedures for proper
use, medical care following discharge, and supervision and record keeping related to these
weapons.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan According to the Task Force’s Report, a recent survey of Maryland law enforcement agencies
found that of the 32 agencies that responded to the survey, 24 use ECDs. The Task Force also
reviewed Maryland law enforcement agencies’ ECDs polices and found that ECD training, use,
and monitoring vary widely in many respects. Since April 2004, at least 13 people have died in
Maryland after Taser use, three in Montgomery County. The median age was 40. For the most
part, they were suffering from mental, physical or chemical disturbances. Apart from their
disturbed behavior, none was involved in a crime at the time of the police encounter. State Police
road troopers in Maryland do not carry ECDs, but members of the State Police Special Tactical
Assault Team Element (S.T.A.T.E.) do.
The Task Force concluded that training materials provided by the manufacturer of these devices
and early law enforcement training tended to significantly understate the risks associated with
ECD use. This fact, coupled with the ease of use of this device, appear to have led to
overreliance on ECDs by law enforcement nationwide, particularly in response to relatively low-
level threats of harm and situations that have now been shown to involve a heightened risk of
injury or death.
C. Measuring and assessing ECDs police use of force.
The Task Force concluded in 2009 that a use-‐of-‐force investigation should occur in
operational settings regardless of whether an ECD discharge is accidental or intentional.
Even when the weapon is merely cycled or the laser dot is used to gain compliance,
investigation and documentation are crucial to ensure the weapon is being used
appropriately. Reporting and investigating weapon cycling and laser dot aiming not only
allows law enforcement to justify use and demonstrate restraint when allegations of abuse
arise, but such efforts also provide a rare instance where a prevented outcome can
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan reasonably be measured. Entities investigating and reviewing ECD use should not only
assess whether the officer’s actions were in compliance with law and policy, but should
also take the opportunity to determine whether the incident indicates any need for changes
to the agency’s policies, training, or equipment. To that end, agencies should also consider
conducting periodic reviews and critiques of ECD cases to learn from these situations.
While many Maryland agencies already collect extensive data regarding ECD use, few
compile such data or make it easily accessible to the public. Nor do agencies collect data in
a comparable format, hindering accurate statewide assessment of ECD benefits and risks.
The lack of any centralized statewide repository for such information further complicates
the public’s ability to review ECD usage data. To the extent such data is currently available
it would have to be obtained in a piecemeal fashion from each individual agency. One of the
advantages of X26 tasers is that they create an electronic record of each discharge, which
details a variety of information, including the time that the discharge occurred, the number
of times the taser was discharged, and the duration of each discharge. According to the
Task Force, law enforcement agencies should require regular downloading of this data
from all ECDs. In addition to the data automatically recorded by tasers, other data related
to taser use is routinely recorded in arrest and use-‐of-‐force reports. Uniform data from all
sources should be timely collected and maintained. All information should be immediately
collected and timely reported. Some information may not be immediately available but
should be provided when it does become available.
Very little research has tracked the number and level of force used by the police over time,
with nationally representative samples (Alpert et al., 2011).
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan Police department use-‐of-‐force policies provide officers with guidelines to follow during
police-‐citizen encounters. The appropriate level of police force depends on the nature of
suspect resistance encountered and the threat to officers and citizens. As police agencies
adopt the taser, many have begun to adjust their use-‐of-‐force policies to incorporate this
new force option. The Government Accountability Office (2005) found that departments
are not consistent regarding the level of resistance needed to authorize the taser. While it
appears that many departments place ECDs at the same level as pepper spray
(International Association of Chiefs of Police 2005), there is considerable variation in terms
of policy. Some agencies authorize use of the taser when the suspect is assaulting an officer;
others permit use of the device at a lower level of resistance, such as when the subject is
actively resisting arrest; and yet others allow for use of the device after continued passive
resistance (The U.S. Government Accountability Office 2005).
II. Measuring and assessing ECDs deployment in the MCP
A. ECDs deployment by MCP policemen: a descriptive policy analysis
1. Retrospective policy analysis (What has been happening to date?)
In November, 2001 the Montgomery County Police Department distributed Headquarters
Memorandum 01-19 about the use of M26 Taser, the X26's bulkier predecessor designed in
1999. The memo is two pages long and dedicates less than three paragraphs to guide officers
about M26 deployment:
“The M26 Taser may be used to control a dangerous or violent subject when deadly force is not
justified and attempts to control the subject by other tactics have been ineffective or there is
reasonable expectation that it is unsafe for officers to approach within contact range of the
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan subject. The M26 Taser may be used to subdue individuals who pose an immediate risk to
themselves or others or to safely effect an arrest.”
In the considerations about discharging an M26 the memo suggests, when practical, to use verbal
commands prior to deploying it and it should never be aimed at the head or face of the subject.
In March, 2002 Edward Hickey and Joel Garner published “The rate of force used by the police
in Montgomery County, Maryland” This research was supported by a grant from the National
Institute of Justice and by the active cooperation of the Montgomery County Department of the
Police. However, this report describes the types and amount of force used by and against MCP
between January, 1993 and December, 1999. According to journalist Megan Cloherty, Taser
International started selling ECDs to law enforcement agencies in 1998. The report
acknowledges that during the period of the study the MCP, as it third level force continuum,
involved the use of various approved instruments, such as flashlights, batons, or a taser.
However, the report only refers to findings related to the use of hands and feet, OC spray and
canines not mentioning tasers once in the report’s 101 pages. To sum up, the report also explains
that officers in the MCP attend in-service training every year during which the current use of
force policy is taught. Back then, officers were re-certified each year each in the proper use of
the asp and O.C. spray only. In addition, officers were tested annually on firearm policies,
handgun and shotgun marksmanship. The fact that the report never mentioned anything about
ECDs in this section is the best indicator that until 1999 MCP was not issuing tasers to its
officers. In the summary, the authors provide additional useful information. Allegedly, the use of
force during the 1990s in Montgomery County was infrequent and, when force was used, it most
commonly involved the use of weaponless tactics. The most commonly used weapons then were
OC spray and canines. Finally, the authors concluded that in Montgomery County between 1993
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan and 1999 the use of life threating weapons was rare, suspects involved in use of force incidents
commonly used weaponless tactics or no force at all and that suspects also rarely used life
threatening weapons, such as the use of knives or firearms. The injuries received by suspects and
officers tended to be relatively minor.
In 2003, Edwin Franklin sued the MCP and officer Lumsden because he “indirectly touched
Franklin in a harmful or offensive manner by deploying his Taser.” In 2005 a court denied
Lumsden motion for summary judgment considering that Franklin presented enough evidence to
support his claim of battery against Lumsden. The Court considered that there was a factual
dispute over the events preceding the tackle and use of the Taser on Franklin, which materially
affected the determination of whether the force used by the officer was reasonable.
In January, 2004 MCP updated its memo on use of M26 Taser and renamed it “Montgomery
County Police Department Advanced Taser Policy.” The new document is five pages long and
explicitly discourages taser use when the subject refuses to obey commands but is not posing an
immediate threat or danger. The new policy no longer mentions that tasers may be used “to
safely effect an arrest.” Nevertheless, the MCP37 Use of Force Report that was effective in 2004
still didn’t include any specific references to taser deployment or taser injuries and, thus, it seems
that taser discharges had to be filed as “Other (OT)” when declaring the code of type of force
used and then explained in the Supplementary Narrative section. The form effective in 2004
hadn’t been revised since 1998 and the proponent unit was the Office of Staff Inspections.
According to MCP’s Policy and Planning Division the 2004 version of the use M26 taser was
never approved by MCP’s leadership due to differences with the police officers’ union.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan In April, 2004 Eric Wolle, 45 years old, died after Montgomery County police tried to subdue
him with a Taser with two blasts that had no effect. According to reporters, an autopsy concluded
that Wolle died of heart failure and that the Taser did not cause his death.
In 2005, the International Association of Chiefs of Police with grant support from the National
Institute of Justice, and in collaboration with MCP Department developed an Executive Brief
titled “Electro-Muscular Disruption Technology. A nine-step strategy for effective deployment,”
the purpose of the brief was “to inform law enforcement leadership on deployment challenges
surrounding electro-muscular disruption technology (EMDT).” The brief offered a systematic
guide to aid law enforcement agencies in selecting, acquiring, and using ECD. Additionally the
brief assisted law enforcement leadership in developing policies, procedures, and training
curricula for the communities they serve by focusing on technology management, rather than
ECD technology itself.
In 2007, MCP’s Policy and Planning Division started issuing annual use of force reports
“intended to provide a snapshot view of the overall incidents involving use of force and to also
identify trends or any training issues.” On average, between 2007 and 2011, MCP officers
reported 520 incidents per year in which force was used. The greatest number of reported use of
force was the result of an officer making an arrest, which was 70% of the times a report was
filed. Tasers are predominantly deployed when effecting an arrest. On average, tasers were
reported to be deployed 179 times per year between 2007 and 2011, or almost half the times an
arrest was made. MCP, on average during those years, had 475 officers per year carrying tasers,
all having received some kind of training and were previously certified to carry and deploy the
device. In November 2007, Taser International, Inc announced in a press release that it received
an order from the Montgomery County Police in Rockville, Maryland for 234 X26s taser and
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan related accessories. According to the press release, the 234 taser units purchased by the
Montgomery County Police supplemented its previous inventory of over 250 taser units for its
1,200 sworn officers. No data was available, or offered by MCP, for any period before 2007
while the research for this paper was made.
In August 2008, MCP’s Policy and Planning Division revised the MCP37 Use of Form report
and tasers appeared coded as an option of authorized police use of force. It is uncertain and not
confirmed by the Policy and Planning Division, whether this option was incorporated in the
August 2008 revision or before.
In March 2009, the Policy and Planning Division revised the report and incorporated tasers as
way of injuring a suspect (“Taser Marks”) and also by asking officers to differentiate by type of
taser deployment (“Cartridge,” “Drive-stun” or both). In the 2009 Annual Use of Force Report
nothing is mentioned about types of taser deployment but, it does mention that “There were 26
cases where the ECD was used multiple times during the incident (2 or more officers) and one
case where the ECD was deployed three times.” In the 2010 and 2011 Annual Use of Force
Reports statistics are provided about taser type of deployment. On average, during these two
years, tasers were deployed drive stun only 33% of the time and 67% with the cartridge and/or
drive stun.
In August 2012, MCP’s Policy and Planning Division revised the MCP37 Report again, this time
to include a “point of impact” description where the officer has to specify taser type of
deployment. In 2012, of the 1,159 officers on the Montgomery county police force, 580 were
certified to carry the X26 Taser model used by the department, Officer Scott Davis (MCP Taser
instructor) told the local Gazette newspaper. According to Davis, training is essential in using
tasers correctly because tasers are so effective, officers can develop a tendency to overuse them.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan Officer Davis points out most officers would rather use tasers than their gun. Montgomery
County police are required to be shot with Tasers themselves before being permitted to carry
them as well as undergo training with the devices. In the 2008 Annual Use of Force Report,
unlike in the 2007, the Policy and Planning Division acknowledged that “Officers must attend 40
hours of crisis intervention training and receive certification in the use of the ECD before one
can be obtained.”
In the International Assocation of Chiefs of Police (IACP)’s website it’s available for
downloading the scanned version of the “Certified Operator Information Packet” issued by the
Montgomery County Police regarding its M26 Taser Operator’s Course, effective in 2004.
According to this document, in 2004 the M26 Taser Operator’s Course, prepared by the MCP
was accomplished in 4.5 hours.
In a March 29, 2011 memorandum, available for downloading at Montgomery County’s official
website, and written to the “Public Safety and Health and Human Services Committees” by two
Legislative analysts, it is confirmed that in 2011 the Use of M26 Taser police memo (dated
11/30/2001) was the effective taser policy and not the 2004 “Montgomery County Police
Department Advanced Taser Policy” included in MCP’s M26 Taser operator’s course, available
in the IACP’s website. According to MCP officer Scott A. Davis, in 2011 the MCP taser
program required officers to complete a 40-hour crisis intervention team certification course and
an additional 10 hours of taser instruction to be issued a taser. Training consisted of lectures,
practical exercises, policy and law reviews and a written test.
2. Evaluative policy analysis (Are the purposes of current policy being met?)
In order to appropriately evaluate MCP performance, first the purposes of current policy have to
be identified and clarified. As regards ECDs unfortunately there are no clear policies. The best
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan indicator that supports this claim is the Task Force created in 2009 by Maryland’s Attorney
General. For the most part, empirical research and assessments on the issue have been carried out
by special interest groups, such as manufacturers or individual rights advocacy organizations. In
order to solve this problem, the state of Maryland in 2011 has required law enforcement agencies
to annually report uniform and detailed data about ECD deployment for the following four
consecutive years. Thus, in September, 2016 the Maryland Statistical Analysis Center will
provide to Maryland’s General Assembly a final report assessing data driven patterns and
conclusions about ECD discharges made by all the state’s law enforcement agencies.
Therefore, explicit policies about ECD deployment are not available and, as the Task Force
acknowledged:
“There are a high number of detailed recommendations covering a broad range of subjects
because, to date, these issues have not been adequately addressed in Maryland. While a few law
enforcement agencies currently have reasonable training and procedures, the majority of law
enforcement agencies are inadequate across the entire range of recommendations made by this
Task Force. No agency currently follows all of the best practices recommended here.”
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
Thus, the state of Maryland will soon be identifying and issuing new ECD policies based on the
conclusions of the final report due in 2016. In order to understand and foresee which policies
will the State apply to law enforcement agencies in the near future, it is worth analyzing the Task
Force report on the subject and whether MCP policies on ECD deployment adapt to it.
As it was previously mentioned, on April 12, 2011, Governor O’Malley signed into law House
Bill 507 requiring law enforcement agencies that issue electronic control devices (ECDs) to their
law enforcement officers, such as MCP, to report certain data on all ECD discharges. The
Governor’s Office of Crime Control & Prevention (GOCCP) and the Police Training
Commission worked with local law enforcement agencies to develop an efficient, user-friendly
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan format for recording and reporting data. HB 507 so far requires that specific details be recorded
by agencies, and submitted annually to GOCCP before March 31 of the following year, every
year through 2016.
This recent state law is based on one of the 60 specific recommendations made by the Report of
the Maryland Attorney General’s Task Force on Electronic Weapons. The Task Force had to
propose legislative agenda for the Maryland General Assembly. In their report the Task Force
proposed to the General Assembly to issue a requirement for state-wide collection, compilation,
and analysis of uniform and comprehensive agency data regarding ECD use. The data collected
should include all data itemized in the report, as well as the Medical Examiner’s report for any
death for which an ECD is listed as a cause of death or a contributing factor. In addition, the
recommendation suggested that this data should be collected, compiled and published annually
by the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention. Furthermore, the legislation should
also require that each individual law enforcement agency make its reported data available to the
public upon request to ensure that citizens can be informed about use of ECDs in their
communities. On September 6, 2011 the executive director of Maryland Police and Correctional
Training Commissions notified MCP and every law enforcement agency in the state that,
according to the newly incorporated PS 3-508 section of the Public Safety Article in Maryland’s
Annotated Code, law enforcement agencies are now required to report certain information
regarding the use of electronic control devices on an annual basis. According to the Task Force
original recommendation, while many Maryland agencies already collect extensive data
regarding ECD use, few compile such data or make it easily accessible to the public. Nor do
agencies collect data in a comparable format, hindering accurate statewide assessment of ECD
benefits and risks. The lack of any centralized statewide repository for such information further
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan complicates the public’s ability to review ECD usage data. To the extent such data is currently
available it has to be obtained in a piecemeal fashion from each individual agency. Thus, the data
regarding ECD discharges collected by Maryland agencies should be uniform and collected,
maintained, and made available to the public via a state-wide process. Sufficient data collection
is also necessary for law enforcement agencies and the broader community to assess the costs
and benefits of ECDs, especially as compared to other tools available. As the scrutiny of ECDs
increases, it is especially important that comprehensive and reliable data be available to
accurately assess the actual risks and benefits associated with ECD use.
If it can be agreed that comprehensive, reliable data and accurate assessments available to the
community are the current purposes of state policy regarding ECD deployment by police
agencies, how is MCP meeting these purposes?
The research for this study was done in the MCP Policy and Planning Division between January
and April 2013, while MCP was finishing and submitting the first annual report on ECDs to
GOCCP and due in March 31st, 2013.
From the specific information MCP was required by the state to report about every ECD
discharge made during 2012, the following concerns came up during this study:
• The notification, received in 2011, required MCP to inform in 2013 the type of mode use
(e.g. probe, drive stun, or both) and the point of impact (arm, leg, head, etc.) of the
discharges made during 2012. According to the MCP37 Use of Force Reports provided
by the Policy and Planning Division for this study the Division didn’t add the mandatory
description of the taser’s “point of impact” into the MCP37 report until August 2012.
Thus, it appears to be that MCP was not able to duly fulfill the state requirement for 2012
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
considering that between January and August it was not mandatory for MCP officers to
describe their taser’s point of impact in the target’s body.
• The notification required MCP to inform the type of incident, referring to the agency’s
initial response to the person against whom the ECD was discharged regardless of the
reason the ECD was discharged. The three mandated options available were non-criminal
incident, criminal incident and traffic stop. As of August, 2012 MCP37 Use of Force
report didn’t required officers to include any of these answers.
• The notification also required MCP to inform cycle duration of each ECD discharge
made during 2012, together with the duration between cycles when it was more than one.
In MCP, the Policy and Planning Division is in charge of analyzing and storing MCP37
Use of Force reports. However, according to the MCP Use of Taser policy, is the
District’s CIT responsibility to maintain records for the tasers and ensure that downloads
are conducted on a monthly basis. Data collection and storage of use of ECD in MCP
should be centralized and managed by the same division to facilitate annual reporting to
state authorities.
• Finally, the notification also required MCP to provide a copy to the state of the report to
the agency’s local governing body or chief executive officer. Since 2007, the Policy and
Planning Division has been issuing annual use of force reports, including statistics and
assessments about how many times were ECDs deployed as use of force, number of
ECDs issued by the department and the breakdown for ECD deployment by district. The
Policy and Planning Division stores the MCP37 reports in paper files and doesn’t assess
their content until the whole annual caseload is completed. The annual use of force
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
reports are vague, inconsistent and unreliable because of how inefficiently the Division
manually handles and stores the paper caseload of reports.
Since 2007, MCP officers have been carrying X26 tasers which are smaller and lighter than its
precursor, the M26, putting down suspects faster and using less energy. However, MCP has been
reluctant to update its Use of M26 taser policy, mandatory to every MCP officer carrying one.
MCP Taser instructors, in 2011, still referred to Headquarters Memo 01-19 as its official policy
on taser use. The Headquarters Memo 01-19 is dated November 30, 2001. According to the
IACP’s website MCP significantly updated and revised its taser policy in January 2004.
In 2009 the Task Force on ECDs considered MCP’s Headquarters Memo 01-19 to contain too
vague standards that could be read to permit use in a wide variety of situations, even when the
person is not offering “active resistance” of any kind.
According to the Task Force, the Montgomery County police’s taser formal use-of-force
deployment standard was “to safely effect an arrest.” The Task Force considered this a vague
permissive policy that can be read to permit use in a wide variety of situations, even when the
individual is not posing a threat to anyone. Such exceedingly vague standards, according to the
Task Force, provide a law enforcement officer with no meaningful guidance on when taser
deployment is reasonable and may therefore facilitate inappropriate use.
The most striking fact however was to find out, during the research done independently for this
paper, that in 2005 the MCP coauthored with the International Association of Chiefs of Police a
publication named “Electro-Muscular Disruption Technology. A nine-step strategy for effective
deployment.” According to the coauthors, the nine-step strategy is “intended to help law
enforcement leadership develop policies, procedures, and training curricula that are responsive
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan and relevant to the needs of the communities they serve.” Thus, next we will analyze MCP
current policies, procedures and training curricula retroactively considering the strategy and
guidelines MCP helped to design in 2005.
The first step outlined by the IACP is building an ECD leadership team that should address
acquisition, cost, policy, training, liability and evaluation issues. The team should include
relevant stakeholders such as legal counsels, community representatives and media liaisons who
can provide a full and fair assessment of the issues and advise the agency about deployment of
the technology.
MCP Policy and Planning Division was the division requested to prepare the ECDs report due on
March 31st, 2013 to the state’s GOCCP. In addition, the division is responsible of: (a) designing
and revising the MCP37 Use of Force reports; (b) receiving, storing and evaluating the submitted
MCP37 reports; and (c) issuing MCP’s annual use of force reports. However, the Division is not
responsible and, thus, not aware of: (a) the police academy and its training programs; (b) the
ECD acquisition processes and stock and maintenance requirements; (c) community outreach
and communications strategy, (d) applicable federal, state and local legislations and regulations;
or (d) previously existing internal publications or reports with recommendations relating to ECD
use of force.
MCP is definitively not prioritizing building an ECD leadership team. The department divisions
are decentralized and the Policy and Planning division is overwhelmed with ECDs paperwork
and in no conditions to assess whether the Police Academy, the District CIT Coordinator or the
discharging officer are fulfilling their ECDs obligations appropriately.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan The second step refers to ECD and the agency’s use of force continuum. MCP, IACP and many
other relevant sources in favor of issuing ECDs to police officers bring up empirical research that
indicates that adding ECD to the use of force continuum reduces the use of lethal force and
improves the safety of officers, suspects and bystanders to support their argument. The nine-step
strategy explicitly mentions that the ECDs team should ensure that “current research supports
this understanding.” Officer Scott A. Davis, MCP CIT coordinator and MCP taser trainer
claimed in 2011 that “since [taser] fielding, there has been a 61% reduction in officer injuries
and a 50% reduction in suspect injuries.” What is not clear is how Officer Davis estimated this
statistics and whether they are reliable. It would be interesting to confirm whether MCP
leadership before acquiring its first tasers, or even once they were issued to MCP officers,
considered the findings mentioned in the 2002 report to the Montgomery County Department of
the Police and the National Institute of Justice written by E. Hickey and J. Garner and titled “The
rate of force used by the police in Montgomery County, Maryland” As mentioned above this
report describes the types and amount of force used by and against the MCP just before the
agency decided to buy and issue ECDs to its officers. The report is categorical in its summary
when it concludes that:
“Many of our descriptive findings conform to prior empirical research on the use of force by and
against the police: the use of force is infrequent and, when force is used, it most commonly
involves the use of weaponless tactics. The most commonly used weapons are OC spray and
canines. The use of life threatening weapons is rare. Suspects involved in use of force incidents
commonly use weaponless tactics or no force at all. Suspects also rarely use life threatening
weapons. (…)The injuries received by suspects and officers tend to be relatively minor.”
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan These findings are related to the third step, assessing the costs and benefits of using ECDs. The
nine-step strategy highlights how critical is for departments to analyze the cost/benefit
considerations involved in determining whether the use of ECDs will help reduce serious injuries
or deaths to suspects, law enforcement officers and third parties. The Policy and Planning
Division should be aware that in 2005, the MCP was endorsing IACP’s innovative standards in
ECD deployment but was not appropriately incorporating them to its organization. The third step
couldn’t be more explicit in stressing the importance of preparing, analyzing and presenting data
and statistics that justify use, together with the expected outcome benefits gained or lost from
introducing ECDs.
During the three months of this study it was made evident to researchers how roles and
responsibilities for ECD deployment were not duly identified within MCP. The role of the Policy
and Planning Division is inconsistent in approaching and reinforcing decisions about how ECDs
were and should be used, monitored and reported. This lack of a proper role definition doesn’t
help stakeholders to better understand the technology, the reasons for its use, the applicable
limits on the use of the technology and the responsibilities of everyone involved. From a
thorough google research focused on: (a) media appearances of MCP mentioning taser policy,
data or statistics; and (b) MCP official materials openly available online, demonstrated how
inconsistent and outdated MCP standing on ECD issues is. Most local newspaper articles about
taser issues in Montgomery County are ill-defined, unreliable and manifest the journalists’ lack
of access to official materials, data or contacts. The official MCP documents and data on ECDs
deployment are outdated, inconsistent and unreliable. The nine-step strategy recommended
agencies to prepare informational materials relating to the technology, obtain objective data
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan relating to health effects of ECDs and discuss the costs and benefits of using this technology as a
less-lethal force option.
To sum up, in this section I have tried to asses and support with the scarce information available,
to what extent MCP doesn’t meet the purposes of the current vague policies on ECDs.
As the IACP and the MCP determined in 2005:
“It is strongly recommended that departments conduct follow-up assessments of EMDT use. Such
assessments can determine whether the technology is performing as expected, and whether
officers are complying with department policies. In addition, they can allow a department to take
remedial action that can improve use-of-force outcomes. Appropriate follow-up action is
necessarily dependent upon accurate and prompt reporting of EMDT incidents. Once timely and
complete information has been obtained, the department may want to consider a variety of
options to improve future use-of-force outcomes.”
It’s disappointing to find out that what the MCP was internationally advocating in 2005 is not
what the agency has been doing indoors since then to date. No follow-up assessments of ECD
were ever done and it’s never too late to set the example.
B. How should MCP measure and assess ECDs deployment?
1. Description of the new approach
According to MCP’s effective policy on use of force (FC131), the MCP37 “Use of Force
Report” will be used administratively to evaluate use of force department-‐wide. The
MCP37 has to be completed by MCP officers in the following circumstances:
(1) Any time force is used to counteract a physical struggle,
(2) Following use of any force which results in an injury to an individual,
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
(3) When the individual claims an injury as a result of the amount of force used,
(4) Whenever force is applied by the use of a protective instrument,
(5) Whenever a firearm is discharged other than authorized target practice,
(6) Whenever a police officer is assaulted; or
(7) Whenever a department canine inflicts injury to any subject or suspect in
conjunction with a search, arrest attempt, or apprehension.
The report has to be completed prior to the end of the tour of duty and regardless of
whether or not the officer is injured, an event report is filed, or a criminal charge is
pending. The form must be forwarded, via the chain of command, to the Chief of Police, who
after review will forward it to the Policy and Planning Division. According to the directive,
no photocopies of the Use of Force Report will be kept in any location other than the Policy
and Planning Division.
During the research for this paper, several versions of the MCP37 were available for study.
The oldest one was from July, 1998 and the most recent one from August, 2012 when the
Policy and Planning Division revised the form and included the description of the point of
impact if a taser was deployed.
According to the Annual Use of Force Reports issued each year since 2007 by MCP’s Policy
and Planning Division, officers have reported, on average, 520 MCP37 Use of Force Report
per year. The Policy and Planning Division made available for this research project five of
its Annual Use of Force Reports (2007/2011).
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
The reports offer basic raw statistics, almost no analysis and vague information about the
topic showing some inconsistencies among them because of changes in how the
information is collected or reported. For example, they inform that ECDs were used “in 171
(36%) cases in 2011 which is a slight increase from 2010 in which the ECD was used in 35%.”
However the percentages estimated in the report contemplate the total number of Use of
Force incidents. According to the same report ECDs are “predominantly deployed when
affecting an arrest.” Thus, another interesting percentage that can be calculated from the
data in the report but it is not informed by the Policy and Planning Division is the
percentage of ECD deployment when MCP officers were affecting an arrest. In that case,
171 ECDs cases represent 49% of the 2011 incidents in which officers were affecting an
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan arrest, which is the same percentage (49%) in which ECDs were used in 2010. Therefore,
it’s not clear in the reports if whether these percentages should also be included because
they offer additional relevant information, or if the statement about ECDs being
predominantly deployed when affecting an arrest should be omitted.
This example is one of many in the reports, that give the impression that these reports are
not done committedly and that most probably they are just done to accomplish an external
formal requirement with no real assessment of the data presented in them.
In 2011, MCP was notified that the agency would have to report to the Governor’s Office of
Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP) certain information regarding the use of electronic
control devices on an annual basis and for the next four years. The Use of Force FC131
directive established that MCP’s Policy and Planning Division must be in charge of storing
and analyzing completed MCP37 Use of Force reports. For this reason, the notification
requesting annual information about MCP’s ECDs deployment was forwarded to MCP’s
Policy and Planning to take care of it.
Before March 31, 2013 the division had to submit to GOCCP its first report with the data
regarding 2012 ECD deployment by MCP officers.
The division struggle to complete this report because the data requested by GOCCP doesn’t
come out directly from the current version of the MCP37 Use of Force Reports.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan Considering that the Policy and Planning has already submitted its first report but that
three more will have to be submitted in the next three years, the division faces three
options: (A) Take no-‐action (continuation of the status quo); (B) Update MCP37; or (C)
Create new Use of Taser form and redesign reporting processes.
(A) The no-‐action alternative (continuation of the status quo with minor modifications)
MCP’s Policy and Planning Division so far has implicitly adopted the no-‐action alternative.
It can be argued that MCP has been implicitly taking no action in ECD related matters, since
at least 2005 when the department coauthored with IACP the nine-‐step strategy for ECD
effective deployment. In any case, the Policy and Planning Division definitively took a no
action strategy, implicitly or not, when in 2011 was notified of the new state law requiring
certain ECD information to be annually reported for the next 5 years.
By taking no action regarding ECDs internal and external reporting, MCP faces certain
favorable and unfavorable scenarios.
The positive aspects of persisting with this current no-‐action strategy are the following:
• No additional staff hours spent analyzing and brainstorming how to adapt to this
issue.
• MCP officers and P&P personnel do not have to be retrained in submitting any new
versions of the current forms.
The negative aspects of persisting with this current no-‐action strategy are the following:
• MCP leadership might receive a noncompliance warning from the GOCCP as it is
prescribed in the original notification.
• The MSAC final report will be based on less reliable data, assuming most law
enforcement agencies act in the same way.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
• The reporting burden will continue to fall exclusively on P&P personnel.
(B) Update MCP37
As it was previously explained, recent state law requires law enforcement agencies to
report their ECD data. This new requirement is based in one of the 60 recommendations
made by Maryland Attorney General’s Task Force on Electronic Weapons in 2009. The
whole purpose of adding to law enforcement agencies the bureaucratic burden of annually
reporting their data on ECDs is justified by the State’s overarching goal of implementing a
state-‐wide process to collect, maintain and make available to the public uniform data
regarding ECD discharges. By implementing this state-‐wide uniform data collection process
the state of Maryland wants to simplify everyone’s ability to evaluate ECDs deployment
data. Thus, law enforcement agencies have to avoid seeing this requirement as strictly
formal and do their best efforts to provide in their reports reliable, clean and substantial
ECD data.
By updating the design of the MCP37 Use of Force report simply to include and comply
with the reporting items required by the new law, MCP will avoid any risks of receiving a
noncompliance warning by state authorities and be able to promote compliance with
state’s standards. Attached as Appendix #1 is the suggested version of how the MCP37
form can be easily adapted to include every item mandated by the state.
Therefore, the positive aspects of this suggested strategy are the following:
• MCP’s ECDs reporting standards will meet those recently set by state authorities.
MCP will have the opportunity to promote this accomplishment to the local media
and the community, generating positive feedback.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
• MCP leadership will alleviate the reporting effort made by the P&P personnel each
year and for the following three years.
Adopting this strategy has minimum negative aspects for MCP. Essentially, police officers
and P&P personnel will have to adapt to this new reporting standard mandated by the
state.
(C) Create new Use of Taser form and redesign reporting processes.
MCP should take advantage of this opportunity and capitalize it by becoming one of
Maryland’s leading law enforcement agencies in ECD data collection and assessment. Since
2008, state authorities have been signaling that ECD usage by law enforcement agencies
will be an important item in the political agenda at least until 2016.
After having analyzed internally how MCP’s Policy and Planning Division collects,
maintains and reports its data regarding officer’s use of force and taser deployment, this
paper strongly recommends to the Policy and Planning Division splitting its MCP37 Use of
Force report into two different forms: the MCP37 Use of Force Report and the new
MCP37bis Taser Deployment Report.
The MCP37 Use of force Report will be redesigned to omit any references to taser
deployment and its characteristics. Officers will be only asked to check in the form whether
their taser was deployed (for use of force continuum purposes) and, if it was, a small box to
complete the identification number of the MCP37bis Taser Deployment Report that they
will also have to complete when ECDs are discharged. The current MCP37 Use of Force
report requests too much information from officers and there is not enough space for
officers to appropriately provide relevant information. As far as the author of this paper is
concern, the MCP37 is only used administratively by the Policy and Planning Division to
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan evaluate use of force department-‐wide. MCP’s data on ECDs is the only data reported in the
MCP37 that, since 2011, has to be reported and evaluated outside the department and by
the state.
The current version of the MCP37 form already underreports ECD relevant data and it lacks
enough space to include additional requirements. In addition, the report’s current design is
not GOCCP-‐friendly for data analysts that now have to report MCP’s annual ECD data to
state authorities.
The MCP37bis Taser Deployment Report will be explicitly designed to include every detail
requested in the description of fields to be included in the GOCCP format guide that state
authorities expect when they receive each annual report.
For example, MCP’s Policy and Planning Division when it revised the MPC37 report in
August 2012 it only added the request to officers of the taser’s description of “point of
impact.” This modification leaves full discretion to each officer to decide how to complete
the blank space in the report. In the notification sent by GOCCP to MCP in 2011, the “ECD
discharge data definitions & format guide” expressly requires that the description of the
point of impact field should be limited to the following:
“The point of impact of each ECD discharge (check all that apply):
• Arm
• Leg
• Head
• Neck
• Front torso
• Back torso
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
• Miss”
Considering that Tasers fire two separate probes, the guide expects law enforcement
agencies to ask their officers to detail where each of the probes hit the target.
It’s evident from the MCP37 version that was revised by the Policy and Planning Division in
August, 2012 that instead of prioritizing the state’s guide, the Division prioritized fitting the
additional request in the scarce available space, sacrificing a complete answer.
Also, because the GOCCP notification requires agencies to report the duration of each ECD
cycle deployed and number of ECD cycles for each particular incident, MCP’s Policy and
Planning Division has to redesign the FC131 Use of Force directive.
According to MCP’s Use of Taser policy, it’s the district CIT Coordinator’s responsibility to:
• Maintain records for the tasers; and
• Ensure data downloads are conducted on a monthly basis.
However, MCP’s Use of Force (FC131) general policy indicates that officers have to
complete their MCP37s prior to the end of their tour of duty and, once completed, each
MCP37 has to be forwarded, via the chain of command, to the Chief of Police, who after
reviewing it, will forward it to MCP’s Policy and Planning Division.
The FC131has to be revised so that the new MCP37bis after being completed by each
officer and prior to being forwarded to the Chief of Police will be forwarded to each
District’s CIT Coordinator. Thus, in this way, once each officer completes the new MCP37bis
Taser Deployment Report, the corresponding District CIT coordinator once a month will
complete on every report the information that is downloaded from each Taser and, only
then, forward it to Chief of Police to continue the normal process. The advantage of
modifying the process this was is that the Policy and Planning Division will receive the
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan MCP37bis reports with all the information requested by GOCCP. The Division, unlike it has
to do nowadays, won’t have to contact CIT to request and confirm that the data from the
report matches the data downloaded from each taser.
One of the disadvantages, however, is that CIT will have to assign resources and redefine it
processes to perform the MCP37bis data completion. This new process will simplify and
improve the quality of the ECD data that MCP has to report annually to GOCCP. The
bureaucratic burden conversely will be placed on CIT district coordinators.
Finally, once the Policy and Planning Division implements the new MCP37bis report and
redesigns the process of data completion and collection it is strongly suggested that the
Division prioritizes the way it generates the Annual Use of Force Reports. The IACP and
MCP in its 2005 Nine-‐step strategy already highlighted how important and useful
assessments about ECDs are. State authorities and the ECD Task Force also confirmed this
understanding. For all these reasons, MCP still has an invaluable opportunity of redefining
its internal processes and becoming a leader in ECD reporting methods and assessment
evaluations. MCP can strive to predict what Maryland Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC)
report will conclude in 2016, after evaluating the statewide ECD data collected during
2012/2015. Furthermore, because MSAC’s report will most probably estimate state
averages, MCP should be ready to report –once MSAC’s conclusions are out-‐ in which
statistics MCP is above/below the state average to motivate stakeholders in those cases
above the average and to offer feedback and solutions to those cases below average.
Project Course final paper – Bellocq, Juan
Bibliography: - Alpert, G.P., Fridell, L.A., Kaminski, R.J., Kubu, B., MacDonald, J., and Smith, M.R.; “A Multi-Method Evaluation of Police Use of Force Outcomes: Final Report to the National Institute of Justice” (July, 2010).
- Alpert, G.P., Taylor, B., Kubu, B., Woods, D. and Dunham, R.G.; “Changes in officer use of force over time: a descriptive analysis of a national survey” (2009, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Vol. 34 No. 2, 2011 pp. 211-232)
- Collins, P.A. Lovrich, N.P. and Thomas, K.J.; “Conducted Energy Device Use in Municipal Policing: Results of a National Survey on Policy and Effectiveness Assessments” (Police Quarterly, 2010 13:290).
- Gau, J.M., Mosher, C., and Pratt, T.C.; “An Inquiry into the Impact of Suspect Race on Police Use of Tasers” (Police Quarterly, 2010 13:27).
- Sousa, W., Ready, J., and Ault, M.; “The impact of TASERs on police use-of-force decisions: Findings from a randomized field-training experiment” (2010, J. Exp. Criminol.)
- “Report of the Maryland Attorney General’s Task Force on Electronic Weapons” (December 2009)
- “Use of Force by Police. Overview of National and Local Data” National Institute of Justice jointly published with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999).
