Three and a half months after a University exchange student from China was shocked with a Taser in his own apartment, Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns announced his adjudication decision.
Concluding a 60-day internal investigation, Kerns issued a statement Tuesday declaring an officer’s use of a Taser on the student was “within policy.”
Kerns’ adjudication approved every action police took in response to the Sept. 22, 2009
trespassing call at the student’s West 11th Avenue townhouse, including the act of entering and searching the apartment, conducting a trespassing investigation and using force with
a Taser.
According to police reports, Officer Judd Warden entered the apartment where police were dispatched to find a young man lying under a blanket. After the man was unresponsive to requests that he remove his hand from under the blanket, Warden fell to the ground for an
unknown reason.
In the incident report, Warden said when the man continued to move after he was asked not to, Warden shocked him with his Taser.
Shortly thereafter, Warden learned that the apartment complex manager made a mistake and that the 19-year-old man was not a trespasser, but a new tenant of the complex. He also discovered that the student spoke very little English and hadn’t understood any of Warden’s commands.
Eugene Police Auditor Mark Gissiner said he took little issue with Kerns’ decision. He had only one qualm.
“I concur with him on all the issues except the use of the Taser — I thought it was inconsistent with policy,” Gissiner said. Based on the police report of the incident released in the fall, “I just didn’t see the same level of threat the office said he saw.”
The City of Eugene’s Taser policy currently authorizes the use of stun guns against a person who “displays the intent” to engage in aggressive physical resistance to police.
Kerns said in the report that the case’s end does not signify the end of its impact on EPD as an organization. The department, he said, has much to learn from the incident.
“We do not have a comprehensive policy on warrantless entries into homes, as some departments across the country do,” Kerns wrote. “We will work with the Police
Commission and Police Auditor to significantly enhance both policy and training on this very important issue.”
Kerns also mentioned that the point at which police use a Taser should be clarified in the department’s Taser policy, and police must also work on their “cultural competence” to
decrease language barrier issues.
Gissiner agreed. “We need to gain understanding of the different cultures that exist in our community,” he said.
Gissiner also suggested that property managers send their employees a text message when a property is rented so that in the future, no other property manager will mistake new
tenants for trespassers.
News editor Jill Kimball contributed to this report
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Police chief rules Taser use on student was justified
Daily Emerald
January 6, 2010
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