Beneficial Impact of Conducted Electrical Weapons

MEDICAL SCHOOL

In the Mentally Ill Population

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
EMERGENCY MEDICINE PROGRAM

Jeffrey D. Ho, MD • Donald M. Dawes, MD • Jenny Thacker, MD • Erik Lundin • Mark Johnson

OBJECTIVE:
Conducted Electrical Weapons (CEW’s) are non-lethal weapons that cause temporary neuromuscular
incapacitation (NMI) and pain. The law enforcement community does not consider these weapons a replacement
for firearms, but their ability to incapacitate from a distance makes these weapons useful in many situations where
lethal force would otherwise be justifiable or where a subject poses an imminent lethal danger to himself.
We reviewed law enforcement-reported data to determine how often a CEW was used in situations involving
mentally-ill persons where lethal force would have been justified or where the subject posed an imminent lethal
danger to himself.

WASHINGTON
109 EDP

MONTANA
6 EDP

NORTH DAKOTA
2 EDP

VERMONT
MINNESOTA
103 EDP

MAINE
5 EDP

1 EDP

NEW
HAMPSHIRE
13 EDP

OREGON
47 EDP
IDAHO
2 EDP

WISCONSIN
135 EDP

SOUTH DAKOTA
6 EDP

MICHIGAN
75 EDP

NEW YORK
25 EDP

WYOMING
3 EDP
PENNSYLVANIA
82 EDP

CALIFORNIA
159 EDP
NEVADA
13 EDP

NEBRASKA
46 EDP
UTAH
30 EDP

METHODS:

IOWA
17 EDP

COLORADO
129 EDP

INDIANA
26 EDP

OHIO
149 EDP
WEST
VERGINIA
6 EDP

MISSOURI
105 EDP

KANSAS
34 EDP

TASER International (Scottsdale, AZ), a CEW manufacturer, has maintained a database of voluntarily-reported
law enforcement CEW use since 1999.
The database includes narratives of law enforcement contact circumstances, subject mental health, whether
lethal force could have been justifiable as determined by the reporting officer based on individual department
policy, or whether the subject posed an imminent danger to himself.
We queried this database and descriptive statistics were applied to the data.

ILLINOIS
33 EDP

KENTUCKY
17 EDP

TENNESSEE
30 EDP

ARIZONA
112 EDP

OKLAHOMA
64 EDP

MISSISSIPPI
5 EDP
TEXAS
95 EDP

2,200,00

ALABAMA
39 EDP

RHODE
ISLAND
8 EDP
CONNECTICUT
19 EDP
NEW
JERSEY
DELAWARE
5 EDP
MARYLAND
18 EDP

NORTH
CAROLINA
66 EDP

SOUTH
CAROLINA
30 EDP

ARKANSAS
14 EDP

NEW MEXICO
44 EDP

VIRGINA
13 EDP

MASSACHUSETTS

GEORGIA
35 EDP

LOUISIANA
31 EDP

FLORIDA
119 EDP

256,905

330 (58.9%) Imminent Danger to Self
30,000

RESULTS:
There were a total of 10,608 reports of CEW
use in the database over a 72 - month period.
A subset of this total was 2,452 reports of
CEW use in mentally-ill persons.
Of these reports of CEW use in mentally-ill
persons, 1,111(45.3%) were in situations
where lethal force would have been justified
according to the reporting officer or where
the subject posed an imminent lethal danger
to himself.

1076

816

560

Reported
Mental Illness Source: SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2002 and 2003

CONCLUSIONS:
Mentally Disturbed

Suicidal

549 (67.3%) Lethal Force Justified
or Imminent Danger to Self
232 (21.6%) Lethal Force Justified

CEW use appears to play a significant role on the type of force that is used by law enforcement in contacts with
mentally-ill persons. In the database we queried, 45.3% of the CEW uses were in situations where lethal force would
have been justified or in situations where the subject posed an imminent lethal danger to himself.
Although this data is subject to reporting limitations, the results suggest that in a significant number of law
enforcement contacts with mentally-ill persons, escalation of the contact to lethal force or suicide was prevented by
a CEW. We recommend further investigation to better understand the impact and benefits of CEW use in contacts
with the mentally-ill population.