Creates the stun gun grant program

The bill directs the Office of General Services to contract with a manufacturer of stun guns to obtain the best price available. Additionally, the Division of Criminal Justice Services may require that applicants provide matching funds, but no more than the amount of the grant awarded. Police Departments with annual operating budgets of $150,000 or less shall not be required to come up with matching funds.

Section two of the bill defines "police departments" as a county, city, village or town police department or sheriff's department.

Justification

The program envisioned in the bill would allow law enforcement agencies around the state to obtain stun guns at a reasonable price through partial state subsidy. Stun guns have become a significant tool in the arsenal available to police when non-lethal use of force is necessary to temporarily incapacitate a suspect. They are now used by more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada.

A stun gun fires two barb-tipped wires up to twenty feet and can penetrate 2-3 inches of clothing. It produces a 26-watt charge that temporarily stuns the nervous system but will not affect the heart or a pacemaker. A stun gun delivers non-lethal stopping power with no harmful side effects and is effective when other non-lethal options, such as pepper spray, are impractical. To guard against abuse, a computer chip in the stun gun records each use of the weapon. Stun guns range in cost from $400 to $750 per unit.

There are several examples over the past few years where lethal force was used when police were unable to disarm suspects. The availability of a stun gun in those situations could have enabled the police to temporarily incapacitate and apprehend the suspect without having to resort to the use of deadly force. Just a few recent examples in New York State of how stun guns were used effectively illustrates this point -- Nassau County Police incapacitate a knife wielding Valley Stream man who had just stabbed his grandmother; New York City Police incapacitate a Staten Island man who had assaulted his girlfriend and barricaded himself in her apartment; Clarkstown police disarm two knife wielding suspects who were both suicidal. Contrarily, Albany police officers who did not have access to stun guns were stabbed and bitten while subduing a woman with a knife.

Aside from the obvious benefit of reducing injuries to suspects and police officers, a secondary benefit will be a concomitant reduction in worker's compensation claims by officers and lawsuits by suspects against municipalities. One recent study in Orange County, Florida, where the sheriff's department began using stun guns in 2000, showed a decline by 80% of workers compensation claims. In addition, there was a 100% decline in the use of firearms in apprehending suspects. Overall stun guns accounted for 68% of all use-of-force situations by the Orange County Sheriff dramatically reducing canine bites, baton strikes, beanbag rounds and firearms use. In a similar study done in Phoenix, Arizona, injuries to suspects dropped by 72% after the department began using stun guns.

Fiscal implications

To be determined.

Prior legislative history

2003-04: Senate Finance Cmte/Assembly Ways & Means Cmte. 2005-06: Senate Finance Cmte. 2007-08: Senate Finance Cmte.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after it shall have become a law.