SAN DIEGO — San Diego Police officers will soon be using lower voltage tasers as a less-lethal weapon in the field. Officers said the new tasers use 1,000 volts and are just as effective than the old tasers that used 50,000 volts.
SDPD demonstrated the new tasers Tuesday by shooting at an officer wearing protective clothing.
Currently, SDPD officers use a model that can only fire a single shot deploying two darts. Both darts have to hit the suspect.
“There are 10 darts in this device instead of two, so the officers will have essentially 10 chances to use this device. Not only that, the distance of this device is up to 45 feet, versus 21 feet for the old device,” said Lt. Michael Ramsay with the department’s training division.
The new model, Taser 10, uses 1,000 volts to temporarily immobilize a suspect, fifty times less voltage than the old taser. Police said Taser 10 is just as effective in knocking someone down, who may be posing a threat to an officer.
“It would take somebody who is actively resisting an officer, which means they're doing some sort of physical action that limits the officer's ability to control them, and believed to be armed or within close proximity to a deadly weapon,” said Sgt. Michael Rhoten, an SDPD training officer.
The department will purchase 2,000 of the new tasers, costing $9.75 million over the next five years.
Taser 10's also have the ability to automatically start an officer's body-worn camera using Bluetooth technology.
“We're not completely there yet as far as how that's going to work, but that is an option with this device,” said Lt. Ramsay.
While tasers are considered less lethal, there is still a risk in using them. Keenan Anderson, 31, died in 2023 after being tased and stunned six times by Los Angeles Police officers.
Still, in general, tasers are intended to reduce the use of lethal force.
“There are risk factors with certain groups of people, obviously pregnant women, elderly, medical concerns, those are all going to be addressed within our policy and the use of the taser,” said Lt. Ramsay.
SDPD expects widespread deployment of the new tasers by the fall.
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