Military Taser - FORT JACKSON, SC — Last Friday, I knowingly allowed someone to use a stun gun. It's important to get this out of the way before we go any further. It wasn't a coincidence or a misunderstanding: I asked a sheriff's deputy to perform a "stun" on me. You can find a few people who will tell you about times when they just metaphorically "asked for it", but Friday wasn't one of them. I was really polite, diligently photographing school drills in the 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment. Richland County Sheriff's deputies trained the Fort Jackson police in the use of the stun gun, a tool that attaches to local deputies' belts.
This training is not just point and shoot. The military police also had to be on the recipient side of the high-voltage stun gun. After seeing some of them go full blast with stun weapons, I decided that this could have been a more interesting story if I had a better understanding of what I was writing about.
Military Taser
"Officers are exposed to it, so they know what it will look like and what it will do to the body," said Cpl. Dominic Pagano, one of the Richland County Sheriff's deputies who led the training last week. He said the session was necessary before the Fort Jackson police could use stun guns while on duty.
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"The main reason we're doing this is to give law enforcement a tool to deal with resistance and potentially threatening behavior," Pagano said. “An officer doesn't really need to put his hands on an object that could cause injury. This tool keeps him at a safe distance, but is still able to control recalcitrant behavior."
Today's training covered various stun activities, all of which led to the same conclusion. Some officers were subjected to darts fired in the back from a stun gun, leaving them face down and helpless. Others were hit with crocodile clips attached to the gun, which also left them face down and helpless. Others, like me, got stunned in the leg while lying facedown and helpless, which doesn't seem fair, but it took less work on my part.
The reluctance also showed up in most stun gun examples, including mine. In the first draft of this story, I included a list of all the profanities the military police and I shouted during Friday training, but my editors cut them out of the story. If you email me I will send you the unedited list. (Editor's note: No, he won't.)
This part of the tutorial ended on a much lighter note than it started. Some of those involved sweated like bullets, waiting their turn to stun. Most sessions were like rowing on a roller coaster. You could tell which of us had been through it before because our smiles didn't look plastered. However, after a while the tension subsided, even for us last in line.
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"(Officers who are stunned) are usually very nervous at first, but then there is a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment and they understand what it's all about," he said. "Once it's over, it's over, and there are no lasting effects."
“It started out slow at first, but once we got to it, it became almost fun. Especially if you're not the one doing the stun," said Major Brad Fisher, Major Brad Fisher, pastor of Fort Jackson. "I've been through this before, but it's good to be able to use stun guns here in Fort Jackson. It's a good tool for our officers." A soldier of the 503rd Military Police Battalion is electrocuted during training. February 22, 2019 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Army/Sergeant Ashley Savage First Class)
Most military stun guns have reached the end of their intended life and are unusable, largely due to dead batteries, according to a report the service submitted to a Senate committee last year.
Army Times obtained a September 2020 report showing that 58.5 percent - 6,650 out of 11,377 - of X-26E stun guns are inoperative.
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The failure rate is 77 percent for non-deployable units arranged according to the allocation and quota tables. These TDA units include the Emergency Services Installation Directorates, which oversee law enforcement and physical security at army posts.
“These systems have the greatest operational (daily) use in military installations,” the report reads. "[They] were commercially purchased an average of more than 10 to 12 years ago ... and are currently unfit to maintain a registration program."
The Army issues tasers to soldiers and civilians in both garrison and deployed environments. According to a National Guard Bureau factsheet, less lethal weapons such as tasers are also included in the specialized training that National Guard crowd control and riot response forces, known as the National Guard Response Force, receive.
The report attributes the failures mainly to dying batteries that the army cannot replace, as well as the age of the weapons.
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"Most of the failures are caused by discharged batteries, the stock of which is limited at the Defense Logistics Agency," the report reads. “The seller no longer produces this type of X26E battery. After stock runs out, there are no more replacements available.
In the report, the Army estimates that replacing the X-26E with the newer X-26P model would cost $27.5 million.
While the report came in response to a request from lawmakers in the 2021 Defense Bill asking the Army to consider replacing stun guns, the upgrade plan may fall victim to competing priorities for upgrading the service.
The Army had to make difficult decisions regarding the priorities of its projects in the 2022 budget request it sent to Congress. If the Biden administration's request is granted, it would mean a total of $3.6 billion in cuts to the service's funding.
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"We're balancing preparedness, we're balancing modernization, so we have to make some tough choices," Army Secretary Christine Warmuth told lawmakers in June.
Despite the apparent lack of operational X-26E stun guns, the Army did not include funds for a taser upgrade in its 2022 budget request or in its annual list of unfunded needs.
Davis Winkey is a senior reporter working for the Army, specializing in reporting on accountability, personnel issues and military disputes. Joined Military Times in 2020. Davis studied history at Vanderbilt University and UNC-Chapel Hill, writing his thesis on the influence of the Cold War Department of Defense on Hollywood World War II films.
Tags: army DNR stun guns army how many stun guns does the army have x-26e taser upgrade army x-26 taser army
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Enrollment for VA medical care increased last year following the passage of the PACT Act. Department leaders are confident that the increase will not increase wait times for appointments.1/3 Show Caption + Hide Caption - Jonathan Keillor (left), police captain's supervisor A Department of Emergency Services and Public Information Officer uses a stun gun on Sgt. . Austin Payton, Military Police of the 410th MP Company, during a Tazer training session here on March 5... (Photo: USA) WATCH THE ORIGINAL
2/3 Show caption + hide caption - Jonathan Keillor, Captain Superior, Police Officer and Public Information Officer for the Department of Emergency Services, demonstrates the use of a stun gun on a sleeping person during a stun gun class here on March 5. Keillor explains that using a taser... (Image credit: USA) WATCH THE ORIGINAL
3/3 Show Caption + Hide Caption - Jonathan Keillor, Superintendent's Captain, Department of Emergency Services Police Officer and Public Information Officer, and Jennifer Round, DES Patrol Captain, demonstrate the use of two tasers to completely incapacitate a subject during taser training. cla... (Image credit: USA) SEE THE ORIGINAL
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"The focus today is on EMT certification," said Capt. Jonathan Keillor, a police officer and head of the Special Response Team Training Unit in the Emergency Management Directorate, hails from Austin, Texas. "Part of our certification process for this level of force is having them tasered."
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