Police shootings after electrical weapon seizure: homicide or suicide-by-cop.

PURPOSE: Risks of handheld electrical weapons include head impact trauma associated with uncontrolled falls, ocular probe penetration injuries, thermal injuries from the ignition of volatile fumes, and weapon confusion police-involved shooting. There is also an uncommon but critical risk of a shooting after a subject gained control of an officer's electrical weapons. METHODS: The authors searched for police shooting incidents involving loss of control of TASER® weapons via open-source media reports, crowd-sourced internet sites, litigation filings, and a survey of Axon law-enforcement master instructors. RESULTS: The authors report 131 incidents of subjects attempting to or gaining control of an officer's electrical weapon from 2004 to 2020, 53 of which resulting in a shooting. These incidents demonstrated a risk of 11.8 shootings per million electrical weapon discharges (95% confidence limits of 9.0 to 15.1 per million by Wilson score interval). CONCLUSIONS: The use of electrical weapons presents a rare but real risk of injury and death from a shooting following a subject's attempts to gain control of the weapon.

Applied Force During Prone Restraint: Is Officer Weight a Factor?

INTRODUCTION: It has been suggested that law enforcement officer (LEO) weight on the backs of prone subjects may cause asphyxia. METHODS: Law enforcement officers used their agency-trained "local" single- and double-knee techniques, the "Wisconsin" 3-Point Ground Stabilization, and the Human Factor Research Group Inc single-knee tactical handcuffing techniques, and the weight force was measured. RESULTS: Forty-one LEOs (36 men, 5 women) participated, aged 38.4 ± 8.3 years, and weighing 96.2 ± 19.4 kg. The double-knee technique transmitted more weight than single knee (P < 0.0001). Wisconsin technique force was lower than other single-knee techniques (P < 0.0001). Double-knee weight was 23.3 kg plus 24% of LEO's body weight. Mean values for local and Human Factor Research Group Inc single-knee were 30.9 and 32.9 kg, respectively. The Wisconsin single knee weight force was given by 15.4 kg plus 9.5 kg for a male. CONCLUSIONS: A double-knee technique applies more weight force than single-knee techniques. The Wisconsin single-knee technique provides the least weight force of single-knee techniques. Law enforcement officer body weight is irrelevant to prone-force weight with single-knee techniques. With double-knee restraint, it has a modest influence. Our data do not support the hypothesis of restraint asphyxia.