WASHINGTON — Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and the county council’s public safety committee will meet Monday morning to discuss the use of Tasers by his police force.
Neil Greenberger, a county council spokesman, said it is a follow-up meeting. “They asked the police to come back with a report, which will be on Monday,” Greenberger said.
A prior meeting on the use of Tasers was held in April.
The public safety committee wanted to know more about the department’s use of Tasers following an investigation published by The Baltimore Sun in March. The newspaper reported that Montgomery County police were involved in four of 11 fatal Taser cases in Maryland since 2009.
Greenberger said the main question on Monday will be whether there have been any changes since the last meeting in areas such as police training. He said the committee will want to know what the police department has done since they last met.
“Is there anything new, have the Montgomery County Police changed their tactics, changed their training, changed when they will be using Tasers?” Greenberg asked.
Greenberger said that the county police department has an excellent record in nearly all areas, especially for a jurisdiction that has a million people. He said about the committee that it will want to know, “Was this an anomaly that several people died when the police used Tasers, were there complications, it there a way to make it better.”
Also on Monday, Manger and the committee will discuss the procedures regarding sex assault investigations. The issue is front and center after BuzzFeed reported that many police departments classify cases as “unfounded” without investigating them.
The FBI defines an “unfounded” crime as one that is either false or is baseless. Baseless means it does not meet the elements of a crime in the person’s jurisdiction.
