In 1998 when Taser International first began marketing its products to law enforcement, the company was embarrassed by several incidents during demonstrations of its 7-watt Air Taser 3400. The last straw came at a police training demo featuring Hans Marrero, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and unarmed combat instructor. "I shot him with it, and he turned around and looked at me," says Stephen Tuttle, Taser International's director of government affairs. "He said, 'That's a pretty good weapon. If you'd shot me by surprise, you might have had a chance of taking me down.'"
The raucous laughter of police ringing in his ears, Tuttle went back to his office and met with the owners of the company. "We'd learned that someone really focused could fight through a 7-watt system. We had a field success of 86 percent [with the Air Taser], but we had just seen one of the top 14 percenters. We knew we had to find something to stop guys like that."
Long story short, TASER went back to the drawing board and produced the M26. And people stopped laughing at this weapon. Subsequently, the company produced the next generation the X26, which is now nearly as commonplace on the belts of officers as a handgun. The X26 delivers 26 watts.
Back on March 3, 1991, when LAPD officers confronted the then very large and resistive Rodney King, one of the first tools they tried to use on him was a TASER. They shot him twice with it. To very little effect. And things went downhill and got out of control.
Today, those officers would likely be able to end this incident with one TASER shot. Think what that would have meant in 1991. There may not have been a Rodney King riot and all the associated death and destruction. The people of Los Angeles might not have been forced to pay a chronic substance abuser and petty criminal $3.8 million in damages. And four cops might not have been prosecuted and lost their careers.
