Taser policies in Iowa are stated as being inadequate and widely varied across all 99 county sheriff departments, according to a two-year study recently released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

The ACLU report outlines what they conclude should be written in a comprehensive policy. It includes restricting multiple and extended charges on the same person, requiring law enforcement to verbally warn an individual before deploying a Taser and limiting the use of Tasers on vulnerable individuals, such as pregnant women, the elderly, persons with mental health problems and young children.

Darin Van Ryswyk, the investigations captain for the Iowa State Police, said he did not disagree with the ACLU’s concerns and that people should not misuse any level of force. However, Van Ryswyk classified the report as being “idealistic” and lacking in “reality.”

“It’s easy to sit in an office and try to draft beautiful policy, until you get on the street and try to use it,” Van Ryswyk said. “There are things that you can’t consider because you aren’t in the context of needing to use it.”

Van Ryswyk said the ACLU report paints a myopic view of the totality of training that takes place in Iowa. However, while many agencies’ policies are narrow in scope, their training is broad.

“We have a Taser training program that addresses every issue in [the study], but our departmental policy doesn’t address the issues,” Van Ryswyk said.

The ISU Police Department requires Tasers to be carried when in full patrol uniform. Although there is no state law requiring Taser training, ISU Police officers receive training on Taser deployment at least twice a year.

They also do scenario-based training frequently throughout the year. Van Ryswyk said that is well beyond what most agencies do, but because of the dynamic nature of a campus, it is important for them to create scenarios.

Training programs can also be amended more easily than policies on a free-flowing basis, Van Ryswyk said.

ISU Police’s current general use of force policy was written in December of 2011, and the Ames Police Department is in the process of making minor modifications to their Taser policy from 2006. One change eliminated a statement that said officers must first receive supervisor approval before using a Taser.

“We’ve never had one instance where an officer was able to get permission from his supervisor,” said Geoff Huff, the Ames Police investigations commander. “When you’re using a Taser, it’s usually when something just went wrong, and to ask for permission first made no sense.”

In cases that have surfaced where people have been tased multiple times, Van Ryswyk said those are examples of inappropriate use through inappropriate training.

“Knowledge is one thing, but skill is something else, and that comes through training,” Van Ryswyk said.

According to the report, “Tasers should not be deployed on vulnerable populations unless absolutely necessary for safety of officers, others or the subject.” Rather than making an exception for vulnerable persons, Van Ryswyk feels Tasers should not be deployed on anyone unless it’s necessary.

“The problem with the term ‘necessary’ is it’s speculative,” Van Ryswyk said. “Necessary includes a hindsight evaluation of what just happened; I prefer the term ‘reasonable.’”

Regarding who the ACLU considers vulnerable, the report recommends limiting Taser use on young children or the elderly. However, the ISU Police Department’s policy states they won’t make a distinction to age.

Instead, Van Ryswyk said they look at what the actions of suspects are and if they have risen to a level where using a Taser to gain control is reasonable.

“You have to put this into context of a person who has a choice to not fight with us, to be compliant, to not break the law—but they’ve chosen to,” Van Ryswyk said. “The point of the Taser is for the officer to be able to get somebody who’s dangerous to themselves or others into custody to prevent them from harming somebody else.

“Without the Taser, the number of officers and suspects that are injured goes up because we have to use other means of force, and they lead to higher rates of injury.”

When writing policy, Huff said it is important to leave officers room for both their discretion and their training.

“When you see stuff in the media, you have the benefit of perfect hindsight on it,” Huff said. “You have lots of time to sit there and think about how you might have handled something—but our officers don’t. They have split seconds to make sometimes life and death decisions.”

These split-second decisions are a part of why Van Ryswyk said writing policy is crucial. If officers don’t know what is expected and there are no clear policies to guide them, it leaves them insecure about what’s expected of them in the field.

He said the ACLU is accurate in that agencies need clear guidelines for their officers, but he added that they should be established through a combination of training doctrine and training protocols along with departmental policies.

Van Ryswyk said Tasers have been used responsibly throughout the ISU Police Department, and they don’t have any concerns right now.

“I think that this report brought up some really good state-wide discussions,” Van Ryswyk said. “I think we have to wade through the realm between ideology and reality and find the proper place where the Taser fits and where it’s appropriate to use it.”