2 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, June 14, 2004
NEWS
AAPD purchases Tasers, aims.
for better equipped officers
By Donn M. Fresard
Daily Staff Reporter
:v The Ann Arbor Police Depart-
ment, after placing an order totaling
nearly $100,000, will equip each of
its uniformed officers with Taser
guns before next fall.
Sgt. Jim Baird, the officer in
charge of the Taser program, said
the devices are intended to help
police officers subdue uncoopera-
tive suspects who are too dangerous
to be restrained without a weapon,
but who do not warrant use of dead-
ly force.
Before the Taser, officers could
use either Mace or a baton on such
T suspects.
Baird said the new device is both
safer and more effective than either
of the old weapons. Mace, he said,
is dependent on pain tolerance - a
suspect who is able to ignore the
pain can continue fighting, unaf-
fected save for temporary blindness
SLEXtZlhOSZ/taily - and the baton, while more effec-
Ann Arbor Police Department sergeant Jim Baird displays one of the Tasers tive than Mace, is likely to cause
recently purchased by the AAPD. The total cost of the guns was nearly $100,000. injury.
"With the Taser, it's the best of
Court decision removes MCRI bari er
"With the Taser, it's the best of both worlds.
It's more incapacitating than the baton, and
even a sidearm in some cases. It allows you to
take control of someone without hurting them
at all"
a
-Jim Baird
Ann Arbor Police Seargent
both worlds," Baird said. "It's more
incapacitating than the baton and
even a sidearm in some cases. It
allows you to take control of some-
one without hurting them at all."
The device, which weighs seven
ounces and resembles a plastic toy
gun, administers a 50,000-volt
shock by firing two probes onto a
subject's skin or clothing.
Unlike traditional stun devices,
which use painful shocks to subdue
a person, the newer Tasers tem-
porarily disrupt the electrical sig-
nals between the brain and the
nerves, causing a subject to lose
muscular control and collapse.
"They tried to use a Taser on
Rodney King, and it was terriblyM
ineffective. It wasn't the device
that's in use today," said Baird of
the older model that police used in
the 1991 car chase with suspect
King, ultimately using a baton to
stop him.
The older model, which relied on
pain compliance to stop suspects
from resisting arrest, used seven to
11 watts of electricity - and, as*
with Mace, a sufficiently deter-
mined suspect can continue fighting
See TASERS Page 9
MCRI
Continued from Page 1
Connerly from the Board of Regents.
The Court of Appeals heard argu-
ments earlier this month on whether
supporters of the petition drive must
change how the proposal is written.
The panel reviewed recent lower court
rulings, including the Ingham County
ruling that the form of the petitions
should not have been approved by the
Board of State Canvassers.
Circuit Court Judge Paula Mander-
field had said in that ruling that the
petitions don't say the proposal would
alter existing provisions in the state
constitution related to equal protection
The University of Michigan
Department of Dermatology
is currently offering a research
study for facial acne.
If you are age 12 or older and are in good
general health, you may be eligible to participate
in a research program for facial acne.
Office visits and study agent are provided free of charge to eligible
participants. You may also receive compensation for your participation.
For more information, please call:
(734) 764-DERM
University of Michigan
Hospitals and
Health Centers
under the law and anti-discrimination.
MCRI needs to collect a minimum
of 317,757 petition signatures by early
July to gain a spot on the fall statewide
ballot. The ballot proposal would ban
public schools and agencies from
granting preferential treatment based
on race, sex, color, ethnicity or nation-
al origin.
The petition effort comes after the
U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decided last
June that the University of Michigan
Law School could consider race to cre-
ate a diverse population.
The court struck down the universi-
ty's undergraduate policy for ensuring
a mix of students as too formulaic, and
university officials revised the policy
last fall to include a more comprehen-
sive review of each application.
-Compiled from Daily staff and wire
reports
TII, Se 20, Spm SWHT[AWS!
Su', June 20, 3pm SWEETHEARlTS
Adults- $10.00 Students/children $5.00
M-763-9537 & At The Door
Res$identIil {olle0 Auditorium
701 East University (betwceen Willard and Will)
Park~ing in the rorest Street Structure
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Corrections:
A news article (Memorial Day crash claims life of student, former prof.,
6/7/04) should have said that the crash occurred on Memorial Day.
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