Trenton,
NJ – Attorney General Anne Milgram’s
advisory committee on the use of less-lethal
force has scheduled an all-day public hearing
to solicit opinions on whether law enforcement
officers should be permitted to use stun
guns to temporarily disable people in less-lethal
force situations.
The
hearing will be held at the New Jersey National
Guard Armory in Lawrenceville on Wednesday,
May 7. The advisory group will convene at
9:30 a.m. and listen to testimony throughout
the day. The Armory is at 101 Eggert Crossing
Road.
Earlier
this year, the advisory committee made recommendations
to the Attorney General on amending the
use of force policy to authorize the use
of less lethal ammunition in specific circumstances
where deadly force may not be justified.
Examining
the legal and policy issues of stun guns,
such as Tasers, is the second policy question
to be taken up by the committee. The hearing
is expected to provide the advisory committee
with information to make further recommendations
to the Attorney General on whether to allow
the use of stun guns and, if allowed, under
what specific circumstances.
The
group expects to hear testimony from law
enforcement officials and citizens interested
in the issue of less lethal force.
The
advisory group on less lethal force is co-chaired
by retired Superior Court Appellate Judge
Dennis J. Braithwaite and Mitchell Sklar,
the executive director of the New Jersey
State Association of Chiefs of Police.
Other
advisory group members are Essex County
Prosecutor Paula Dow; Middlesex County Prosecutor
Bruce Kaplan; Robert N. Davison, the executive
director of the Mental Health Association
of Essex County; Deputy Attorney General
Dermot O’Grady, who is the acting
director of the Office of State Police Affairs;
and Ricardo Solano Jr., a criminal defense
director at the Gibbons law firm in Newark.
In
order to help with scheduling for the hearing,
the advisory committee asks that those interested
in testifying contact Mary Procaccino in
the Office of the Attorney General at 609-984-3425.
Attorney
General Milgram issued a supplemental use
of force policy in March concerning less-lethal
ammunition and the circumstances in which
the ammunition should be used. The supplemental
policy is based on the advisory committee’s
first round of recommendations on the use
of less-lethal force.
The supplemental policy amended the existing
use of force policy, and applies specifically
to the use of less-lethal ammunition that
is targeted at a person and is designed
to stun or temporarily incapacitate a person
without penetrating the body.
The
policy states that less-lethal ammunition
may be directed against a person only when
such force is reasonably necessary to prevent
the person from causing death or serious
bodily injury to himself or herself, a police
officer, or any other person.
An
example of a situation where the use of
less-lethal ammunition might be authorized
would be a circumstance in which a person
is armed, or appears to be armed, with a
potentially deadly weapon and refuses to
comply with an officer’s order to
disarm, but the danger to the officer is
not yet imminent.
Another
example would be a person threatening or
actively engaged in suicidal or other self-destructive
behavior, and the use of less-lethal ammunition
is necessary to prevent the person from
causing death or serious injury to himself
or herself.
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