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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 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.

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

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.

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 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).

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.”

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

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,

(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).


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 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.


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.

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.

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 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

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 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.


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).

- http://www.gazette.net/article/20120926/NEWS/709269598/0/gazette&template=gazette

- http://www.gazette.net/article/20110722/OPINION/707229684/0/gazette&template=gazette

-http://www.gazette.net/article/20120926/NEWS/709269598/police-defend-use-of-tasers-despite-concerns&template=gazette

-http://www.fredericknewspost.com/archive/article_0135ebb9-d0d4-5b1a-abaa-d37cbf4905d9.html

-http://www.fredericknewspost.com/archive/article_05ef0bf4-5032-5630-a2d1-92898a129093.html

-http://articles.herald-mail.com/2006-03-30/news/25045388_1_taser-international-deputies-human-rights-group

-http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-09-30/news/0009300077_1_lethal-force-lethal-weapons-suspect


-http://ww2.gazette.net/gazette_archive/2004/200426/montgomerycty/updates/223675-1.html

-http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=129937&p=NewsArticle_pf&id=1072298

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