The Englewood incident illustrates how deployment of stun guns could be overused
A Taser brand stun gun is shown in a file photo. There are 362 more stun guns being used by police in New Jersey than there were a year ago.
That's mostly a positive development: Many times, a suspect must be stopped in his tracks, and Tasers can give officers a less-lethal option than his sidearm.
But changes in the "Conducted Energy Device" guidelines just three weeks ago will undoubtedly lead to escalating deployment, which underscores the need for further training. We had a vivid reminder of this Sunday night in Englewood, where the tasing of a man was caught on video and sparked a debate about how the police interpret resistance and danger itself.
It also provides the starting point to assess the conditions under which these weapons should be used.
The old stun gun directives were so restrictive that most departments had ceased using them. That's unfortunate: They are a life-saving alternative, as we surmised after the series of police shootings of mentally ill suspects in 2013, when stun guns were still rare and costly.
MORE: NJ should get stun guns to cops | Editorial
Former Attorney General John J. Hoffman relaxed the guidelines because of such cases. He added that officers used stun guns only 70 times in the last four years, and that there was no evidence of abuse or major injury in those cases.
Still, odds are that we'll have more events like the one in Englewood, which was disturbing, even if the video may not have captured the whole story. What we see is a man on all fours in the street, surrounded by three cops - still resistant but overmatched - and only then getting struck by the stun gun.
The sequence was a red flag for Ari Rosmarin of the ACLU: "Resisting arrest is a crime," he concedes, "but the idea that being on your knees is an appropriate time to be tased - when tasing can kill - raises serious questions as to whether it's necessary to use it."
(The ACLU has documented 547 taser deaths from 2001 to 2014.)
The Englewood police said the man had thrown a punch minutes earlier, which was not caught on camera. Either way, they can say this action was protected by the new regulations.
The new policy allows the CED to be used when someone actively resists arrest or poses substantial risk - fair clarifications, because the previous policy allowed use only if the officer believed he faced death or serious injury.
The officer can also fire if "the person resists a lawful arrest by using or threatening to use physical force." So that "threat" can actually be verbal, if the officer believes it to be a "substantial risk."
That leaves room for interpretation, perhaps the toughest part of his job.
But it also leaves room for overuse.
Cops need all the protection they can get, and relaxing the CED rules is one way to provide it. But this is a case of more power requiring more responsibility, and it's good that the new guidelines include a greater emphasis on training.
The state must assure that these weapons of self-protection - which we know can be used as weapons of abuse and torture - stay in the hands of well-trained cops.
More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.
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