The Mountain View Police Department is proud to announce that on May 17th, 2024, we were notified that a grant application for $66,000 from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program has been approved. The grant, which Cpl. Brian Ranck and myself applied for several months back, will be used to outfit all of the MVPD officers with brand new Taser 10s. This is an achievement in keeping with our department goals to use de-escalation as the primary means of enforcement.
Mountain View sends our officers and command staff to as much training as possible, and back in December of 2023 I attended a Taser Training to consider what equipment would be best for our officers. The current tasers we were using were outdated to the point that we recently learned they would no longer be serviced.
TASER 10s are a significant step forward for the goals of de-escalation. New advancements include:
Additional de-escalation features (lights, audible alerts, and a laser painting to warn a subject to comply);
A longer range of up to 45 feet (as opposed to 25 feet with our current equipment);
The ability to deploy up to ten probes versus the prior four, improving the likelihood of good contact with the suspect;
Reduced voltage that only delivers a current to no more than four probes, regardless of how many make contact with the suspect;
An audible tone when a good connection is made, alerting the officer.
Considering the different options currently available on the market, I was impressed with all of the significant upgrades of the TASER 10s. They will truly be an improvement for de-escalation and will help maintain the safety for all suspects and officers alike. De-escalation is the goal, and less lethal options are always better if they are effective. Putting TASER 10s in the hands of each of our officers is another step in achieving the goals of our department.
The only downside of the new and better equipment was the expense. The Mountain View Police Department is grateful for the generous assistance of the JAG program which is the leading federal source of criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. It is administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and named after Edward “Eddie” R. Byrne, an officer in the New York City Police Department who was murdered while protecting a witness in a drug case.
