The Department of Public Safety has received its tasers, and officers will soon be armed.

DPS Captain Gene Deisinger said the department already has the tasers, but are waiting for the officers to complete their training before the tasers will be carried by officers on duty.

“There is a standardized training that each sworn officer will go through, and that is part of a broader training of items that require the use of force,” he said.

Deisinger said not all employees will carry tasers on duty.

“All of our state-certified officers will carry the tasers, but that doesn’t include parking division and student officers working for [DPS],” he said.

Campus police at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa are already carrying tasers.

Director of the Iowa Department of Public Safety Chuck Green said Iowa enforcement officials have been carrying them since the end of April when the officers finished their training.

“Each officer completed the 16 hours of training that is required or recommended by the manufacturers of the tasers coupled with our own use-of-force training,” he said.

Green said each officer fired the taser and was shot with it as part of the training.

“It is a powerful sensation that is overwhelming; it drops you to your knees or drops you to the floor,” he said. “I had a makeshift knife, and I was acting like I was going to hit someone with it and, of course, I dropped the knife.”

Green said there has not yet been an incident where a taser has been used, and he hopes that there will not be one in the future.

Deisinger said the policies associated with the use of a taser fall in line with the expandable baton and the pepper spray, in that they can only be used when there is active resistance.

“The taser is appropriate to use with an actively combative subject – someone who already has a weapon or someone who is resisting arrest,” Deisinger said.

Deisinger said the purpose of the taser was to increase the range of situations officers could respond to effectively without causing long-term physical damage.

“The overall foundation [of the taser purchases] was to deal with certain situations officers already have been dealing with – not an increase in crime,” he said.

Deisinger doesn’t believe the taser will be used often, but when used, it should be safer for officers and suspects.

Green said it is hard to know what effect the tasers have already had on campus.

“The effect of the taser is hard to gauge,” he said. “The students have acted differently, but that is also in part to the change of name on our police cars.”

Deisinger said the tasers are part of a proposal that also will change DPS’ name to Campus Police.