AXON:  Can technology reduce shootings by police?

THE VISIT

On October 30, 2024, I along with members of other community groups and state agencies, attended a 2.5-hour presentation at Axon regarding Tasers and other technological innovations.  The founder reported that he began the business 32 years ago after two friends were killed in Scottsdale in a road rage incident. What he didn’t mention is that they used to be Taser International.  In 2017 they changed their name to Axon that allegedly came from the nerve fibers in the body that connect the muscles to the brain.  

According to Axon’s website, their main goal is to protect life by replacing lethal guns. They tout that they have saved 308,004 lives in 5,703,781 uses around the world with 99.75% resulting in no serious injury. This data is based on a study of only 1,201 field cases – not much out of nearly 6 million uses.  The company is worldwide with offices in Scottsdale; Seattle; Sydney; Amsterdam; Tamere, Finland; Ho Chi Minh City; and London.  They are also branching out to retail, private security, and personal use.

In February 2024 they held a discussion about “Being Black in Policing” and included former Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams on the panel.  Unfortunately she has been negatively implicated in the three-year DOJ investigation of the continued excessive use of force by the Phoenix police and the violation of citizens human rights.  

As Taser International, they bragged that they never paid out on the legal claims made against them. But they did pay $2.85 million in 2010 in Butler v. Taser International when a 45-year-old man suffered anoxic brain injury from use of a Taser.  As recently as October 2023, Axon has been sued by at least two towns in a class action anti-trust suit claiming that Axon drove out competition and drove up prices.

The Axon headquarters is in far north Scottsdale.  Upon entering it felt a bit Star Trekky with the dull silver unmarked doors that glide open and closed on a whisper as you approach and pass through. Turns out the founder likes Star Trek. The first brief tour was of the manufacturing floor that primarily showed machines making things and humans doing the manual work to facilitate that. I had forgotten to wear closed toe shoes so could not go but those who did said I didn’t miss anything, especially if you have ever worked in a factory which I have.

The second tour was of the three-story building with its open concept to encourage communications, so they said.  A Black Box room was just that for the secretive work.  A wall of patents held plaques announcing those obtained thus far.  A tiny museum showcased the technological advancements in Tasers and body cameras over the last 30 years. We ended on the rooftop with a beautiful view of the mountains that would be a great place for lunch at least half the year.  

Upon the return to the ground floor, a four-person panel discussed their roles and answered questions.  Panel members discussed Axon’s expansion into the federal arena and product development primarily robots and drones.  They are moving into not only federal law enforcement but the military.  

The  “Moonshot 50 in 10” has a goal of reducing police shootings by 50% in 10 years (2033) by replacing guns with Tasers. Their point is that if law enforcement (LE) feels safe, they can use the Taser to disable rather than a gun to kill.  I wondered if they meant reduce police killings or police shootings.  To replace lethal guns with non-lethal Tasers might reduce killings, but there is no evidence it would reduce shootings especially against vulnerable communities.  

When asked what actions they had taken to achieve their Moonshot, they said that the T10 is less lethal. In addition there is new software that keeps the caller on the phone directly to the officer, so the officer has more information when going to the situation. They are working on sending in drones ahead of the officer to get a bird’s eye look at what is happening so the officer can plan better and avoid being on the front line. They also mentioned they have an AI training for officers on how to de-escalate especially with people with mental disabilities and those who are very angry. 

With that they touted their new T10 Taser that has a longer range, is more accurate, has better pulses, and has the usual automatic feedback mechanism i.e. when it is pulled out, when it is used, what angle it is at, etc. The probe itself looks like a fishhook at the end with a little ring below it so it cannot go too far into the body.  One of the issues is to figure out how to get through heavy clothing or other obstacles and yet not damage the body.  

After the Uvalde school shooting, Axon suggested having drones in schools to immobilize shooters before police arrived (or having arrived stood around in the hallway for 74 minutes with their shields and guns leaving unarmed children to face a killer). That ignited a firestorm of opposition especially regarding the widespread and documented discrimination against Black and Brown students in schools and the school-to-prison pipeline.  The product was withdrawn for further research that is ongoing.

Training was one of the issues admitted as a problem i.e. officers do not get enough training to be comfortable with the device.  Axon has started to offer virtual training to remedy that problem. An officer can only fire the drone 16 times in training but 200 times in virtual training. Axon said they also train on empathy and dealing with mental disability.  Other issues in training have arisen in research.

Empathy training is allegedly a way to teach people to understand the feelings and perspectives of others and to respond appropriately.  I thought that was called kindergarten. One empathy trainer talks about unconscious bias.  I thought that was anti-racism and anti-sexism training.  Another empathy trainer talks about listening.  I thought that was called conversation or dialogue. Feminist 101 back in the 1960s talked about using “I” statements, not interrupting, attacking an idea not a person, letting other people talk etc. as good group discussion tactics.  I guess they missed all that. 

Axon seeks said the main health danger is the fall not the electrical pulses themselves. However they do train not to shoot for the head, chest near the heart, or groin. Others dispute these claims.

The practice silhouette we could shoot at. Green means go. There is a back side though policy says not to shoot at a fleeing subject.

Reuters published a series in 2017 that found that Conducted Energy Devises (CED) were a cause or contributing factor for 1,005 people in the U.S. who had died after LE used a CED. Reuters found 442 CED-related lawsuits. The National Institute of Justice now recommends medical screening and monitoring after CEDs are used. In 2014, the American Medical Association also called for assessments.  

During community question time, one attendee asked about the problem of LE failing to turn the camera on. Technology exists for automatic prompts to turn it on. Those prompts can be when an officer opens the car door, drives over a certain speed, touches a holster etc.  But the policy of what to install is up to the individual LE agency and that is where the problem lies. Axon has performance software that reports how often and when the camera was turned on that can be compared to call data and police reports if the agency chooses.  

After the panel, the audience switched back and forth to participate in two demonstrations.  One was a virtual reality headset about the history of weapons and other topics. It made me fearful for life on this planet. The other was practice shooting the new T10 Taser.  When the Taser comes out of the holster, it makes a unique sound.  So officers should not be confused about which weapon they have in their hand (as some have claimed). It also has lights saying it is activated and charged.  

A different noise is made when engaged so the suspect can consider if s/he wants to comply before being tased and again, officers should hear that noise and know exactly what it means, and that de-escalation is still possible. On both the old and new tasers there is a button or switch to re-activate the probes that are already in the person.  So “taze him again” as we hear on the body cameras means re-activate the electricity in the already existing probe. 

The Axon speakers admitted pros and cons exist to the technology and that Black and Brown people are over policed and under protected. But they argued that body cameras protect everyone.  However, the research thus far has shown primarily that body cams protect the police. 

RESEARCH ON BODY WORN CAMERAS

Body worn cameras produced by Axon have not lived up to the hype. Current research shows no consistent benefit. (National Institute of Justice, Research on Body-Worn Cameras and Law Enforcement, January 7, 2022) A 2018 report found that LE obtained the cameras to improve officer safety, evidence collection, and to reduce civilian complaints and agency liability.  In a meta study, no effect was found. (See Practice Profile: Body-Worn Cameras’ Effects on Police Officer Behavior. This profile is based on a meta-analysis published in 2020.) In an NIJ study that included Phoenix from 2017-2021, they found the cameras reduced citizens’ complaints but increased use-of-force – not exactly the desired result.  

The high cost of administration and storage is one negative as well as a complaint from the police that the public may see an incident differently from the police and may form a hostile public opinion. I would suggest that LE stop doing what they are doing to cause a hostile public opinion. Public review is the point – they are a civilian force. (National Policing Institute:  National Policing Institute. (2020). Police body cameras: What have we learned over ten years of deployment? https://www.policinginstitute.org/publication/police-body-cameras-what-have-we-learned-over-ten-years-of-deployment/)

In general, research has found that body cams help officers by having fewer complaints. One department paid for the program by the decreased cost of internal affairs and investigating public complaints. Research shows that cameras do not reduce use-of-force as the public had hoped. Officers generally like them because it protects them. The community generally likes them because they think it makes the department fairer, and it increases the rate of guilty pleas, convictions, and case clearances.  But young people and people of color did not like them because of the perceived and actual misuse.

RESEARCH ON CONDUCTED ENERGY DEVICES (CEDs)

Ten thousand police departments in the U.S. use TASER though serious questions have arisen about physiological side effects with Amnesty International reporting more than 300 people who have died. Few real-world studies exist so this study looked at media reports from 2002 to 2006.  They found that drug use (not alcohol), mental illness, and continued resistance often resulting in multiple deployments were the main correlations with TASER deaths. They suggest a continued look at bias, a national use-of-force data base, and of course more research especially from non-police related venues. (Research on Tasers has not lived up to the promise. Michael D. White, Justin Ready, Tasers in the Media:  Examining fatal and nonfatal incidents involving the TASER, Identifying predictors of suspect death reported in the media, Arizona State University, Volume 8, Issue 4, Criminology and Public Policy 863, Nov. 2009.)  

In a National Institute of Justice Journal article (Paul A. Haskins, Conducted Energy Devices:  Policies on Use Evolve to Reflect Research and Field Deployment Experience, May 1, 2019) Haskins argued that court decisions and research on the impact of CEDs especially if used improperly, are curbing enthusiasm for CEDs as a method to control fleeing or resisting subjects.  One problem of course is the definition of “resisting.”  Many officers and even some state statutes define resisting as anything the officer says it is including asking why are you arresting me or saying I have the right to video you. Some departments are only allowing use of the CED when there is an immediate threat of physical harm to the officer or others.  That too has proven to be a very subjective definition.  In the Hope case in Avondale, the young man was running away from the officer into the desert but somehow, the officer perceived a threat to himself and killed him. 

Thus far, CEDs when used properly have not been shown to cause any lasting physical or mental damage to most people and result in fewer injuries and lethality for subjects and officers.  But improper use such as repeated tasing or a direct hit on the chest can cause injury and deaths especially with the at-risk groups such as children, the elderly, pregnant women, people with heart conditions, and people under the influence of drugs.

The author’s research showed the CEDs was used too often with inadequate supervision and accountability. Officers were using the CED too early in a confrontation with a citizen and too often. Officers were not using the CED instead of a gun, they were using it instead of communication.     

The courts have not been silent.  Several courts have referred to the pain, called CEDs dangerous, and referenced cruel and unusual punishment.  Federal courts have said that mere physical resistance or failure to comply is not a reason to deploy a CED.  When the subject is unarmed and there is no threat to officers, they should not use a CED (or a gun).  The Fourth Circuit in 2016 said clearly that officers cannot use a CED to control a subject or against a fleeing subject but only to protect police or a third person from harm. The Ninth Circuit that governs AZ agreed. However, an NIJ-supported pre-2010 survey of more than 500 law enforcement agencies found that almost three-fourths of the agencies using CEDs allowed their use against fleeing subjects.

In 2013, the Seventh Circuit said that CEDs are in the middle of the use-of-force spectrum, but the Fourth Circuit saw them closer to the lethal-force end. The Ninth Circuit said they are higher on the spectrum than other non-lethal methods. However the recent 3-year review by the U.S. DOJ found that Phoenix Police officers use the weapons without warning and fire on people with their hands up or who have surrendered or are already restrained. The current draft of Phoenix use-of-force guidelines do not mention the weapon.

The 4^th Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable force as well as unreasonable searches. Courts have found CED use excessive and a violation of law. The United Nations Committee against Torture calls the Taser a form of torture that can cause death. The court in the Ninth circuit case found that there is less justification for use of a CED in a case with a mentally ill person not more. It’s intended for crimes; not control. 

In a June 2011 a special report by the Arizona ACLU, “A Force to be Reckoned With, Taser Use and policies in 20 Arizona law enforcement agencies” found that virtually every sworn officer has a Taser.  Having a CED did not reduce the use of lethal force. Rather they were used instead of other non-lethal force like chemical spray. The ACLU found that CEDs are used pre-emptively against the public and are used to extract compliance rather than self-protection. The ACLU recommended strong accountability mechanisms and collection of data; policies to allow use only with threat of imminent harm not for compliance; and to improve independent training separate from the for-profit developer. 

WHERE DO WE GO NEXT?

Technology whether body cameras or CEDs are not a panacea to fix law enforcement.  One problem is that police now think they are a quasi-military force which makes the public the enemy.  Rather than working for community-based policing, the community has become the enemy.  That must change.

Ultimately, the issue is not the technology.  Technology, as the Axon president said repeatedly, is a tool. It depends on how it’s used. You can use a hammer to build a house or bash in a head. You can use a car to get to the hospital in an emergency or harass bicyclists. The tool is not the problem, it’s who’s using it and how.  If you have bad policy, bad training, or bad people, you will have problems.  GIGO

And before the pro-gun people say – see it’s not the guns but the shooter – let me say that hammers and cars have positive uses in the society.  An assault rifle has no positive use in civilian society.  An assault rifle is a military weapon for use only in the military.  One does not go hunting for anything (except people) with an assault rifle.  Cars that have killing power are heavily regulated unlike guns in our society.  Cars must have licenses and insurance and safety checks.  Drivers must be a certain age, pass a test, be able to see, and be insured.  Guns need to be regulated like cars.

As for CEDs and body cams, while certain tinkering can be done to make them more safe and more accountable, the ultimate problem is the culture of the police in our society. Since 2016, the Ku Klux Klan have reported massive new membership from law enforcement and the military.  We saw it on January 6, 2021 as many of the rioters were retired or active LE and military.  We saw it in the “challenge coin” that the Phoenix Police created after shooting a First Amendment protester in the groin. We saw it in the Arizona Border Patrol when more than half of them posted to a racist website.  We saw it in the MCSO found guilty of bias.  

Changing technology won’t fix that problem.  We must fix the culture of policing in the U.S. The Phoenix Police union said half the officers would resign if there is to be a court ordered consent decree. Let them.  We can then start anew and build a civilian police force that is part of and responsive to the community.