[Peace] taser proposal withdrawn

[rohloff at uiuc.edu]

Champaign Police Withdraw Request for Tasers 
After Community Speaks Up 

One day after the public turned out en masse at Tuesday's Champaign City Council meeting to oppose the purchase of Taser electroshock guns for the police force, the police chief and city manager decided to withdraw their request and work on strengthening relationships between community and police. Chief of Police, RT Finney, was hired to lead the department only four months ago.  

Tasers were first brought before City Council in January of this year but tabled after  aldermen La Due and Rosales expressed concerns that they did not have enough information to make an informed decision nor was the public given time to respond. 

The Council vote deadlocked at 4-4 Tuesday night with the ninth member of city council absent. Council members Giraldo Rosales, Kathy Ennen, JW Pirtle and Michael LaDue voted against Tasers.  Council members Ken Pirok, Vic McIntosh, Jim Green and Mayor Schweighart voted for them. Tom Bruno was absent from the meeting.

Below is the full text of an email sent by city manager Steve Carter explaining the decision. 

"After speaking with Chief Finney about the discussion last night, we are withdrawing our request to purchase the tasers at this time in order to focus our efforts on building a better relationship with the minority community.  We were encouraged last night by the interest expressed by the ministerial alliance and others to work to build a better relationship and feel we need to respond to this interest right away.  

"In addition, the Chief is still getting to know the community and feels that moving ahead with the tasers would make it more difficult for him to do that effectively.  In the meantime we can continue to monitor the use of tasers in other departments and the medical research.  We still think there might be merit in considering tasers in the future, but working to build trust is most important now.

"Our plans are to make this public on Thursday and thus relieve the pressure on the issue.  If you have any suggestions or thoughts to share, please let me know.  Thanks!"

Steve Carter 
City Manager 
steve.carter at ci.champaign.il.us 

_______________________________________

Peter Rohloff, PhD
Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology
Medical Scholars Program
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
217-333-4766