Taser bills its less-lethal weapons as tools to reduce police shootings. According to the marketing pitch, officers will be less likely to shoot suspects if they can disable them with electric shocks. That promise has not come true in Chicago, Dan Hinkel and Alex Richards report for the Chicago Tribune:

In 2010, the city armed hundreds more officers with the weapon, fueling a 329 percent jump in Taser use, from 195 incidents in 2009 to 836 in 2011. Yet shootings by police didn’t drop significantly during that period, according to figures from the city’s Independent Police Review Authority.

The numbers raise questions about how often police use the weapons to defuse confrontations that might otherwise escalate to use of deadly force. Civil lawyers and department critics have alleged that, rather than deploying Tasers to subdue dangerous criminals, officers have sometimes drawn them on mildly obstinate suspects.

The best line in the story goes to a Florida policing consultant:

“The big investment in Taser is meant to preserve lives,” said Roy Bedard, a Florida-based consultant on policing and use of force. “If you’re Tasing more people and you’re still shooting more people, well, something’s wrong.”

Despite the lackluster outcomes, the Chicago Police Department is replacing its 600-Taser arsenal with the $1300 X2 model, for even more firepower.

[Photo credit: hradcanska, Creative Commons.]