19 - Laserfiche WebLink

probes fail to connect to the suspect's skin, the circuit is not completed and the Taser is not effective. This most commonly occurs because a probe misses the suspect due to his/her movement or because it is caught in thick or baggy clothing. The Taser X26P can only be loaded with one single -use cartridge. If a deployment is ineffective, an officer must reload the Taser with a new cartridge and again attempt to successfully connect two probes to the suspect. The Taser 7 allows two cartridges to be loaded into the device and Adaptive Cross -Connect technology allows a probe from one cartridge to complete a circuit with a probe from another cartridge. The result is if one probe is ineffective during a deployment, an officer can deploy a second cartridge without reloading and only needs to connect one additional probe to complete the circuit. This improves the likelihood of a successful CED deployment. The probes of the Taser 7 have also been redesigned to improve effectiveness. They are spiral in shape so they travel straighter. They also travel faster with approximately double the kinetic energy of the X26P probes. This allows the probes to better penetrate thick or baggy clothing. A successful Taser deployment can become ineffective if the suspect is able to remove the probe once it attaches. The Taser 7 probes have additional spooled wire which breaks away upon impact. This spooled wire adds slack to the connected wires allowing them to fall to the ground, away from the suspect's grasp and makes it less likely to disconnect if pulled. The redesigned probes of the Taser 7 increase the chances of an officer successfully apprehending a combative suspect without using additional force. Tasers can often be used to gain a resisting suspect's cooperation without delivering an electrical shock. This can be achieved by an officer who points a Taser at a suspect and provides a verbal warning of its impending use. The warning can be escalated to include a "spark" of the Taser which activates an electrical arc to provide a visual and audible demonstration that the Taser is active but without launching the probes. With the X26P, sparking the device requires an officer to remove the Taser's cartridge. If the warning spark is not successful, the officer must reload the cartridge to use it. The Taser 7 has a "spark" switch that creates the electrical arc with the Taser cartridges still loaded. An officer can also use the arc switch defensively at close range without discharging a loaded cartridge. The renewed Axon contract includes updated training resources and an allotment of training cartridges. Officers will need to be trained on the new features of the Taser 7. Taser Use Statistics The police department tracks the activation and deployment of CEDs as well as whether the CED was effective when it was deployed. The following shows activations, deployments and effective deployments since 2015: Page 3 of 8