- Police Brutality Watch

Amnesty International, and other human rights groups, are urging law enforcement agencies to suspend usage of the non-lethal weapon.More than half the suspects fired upon with Taser stun guns are Latino, according to a report commissioned by the police chief. The finding prompted civil rights groups to claim the city's police department is unfairly targeting minorities. Police chief Rob Davis said the figure makes sense because it matches the rate at which Latinos are investigated for crimes. Latinos accounted for 52 percent of the arrests and citations issued by police during the period studied and 53 percent of the 110 stun gun uses. The police department on Friday released its first comprehensive report on Taser use, studying when officers employed the device and under what circumstances from May to October. Taser stun guns use darts to deliver electrical pulses that can incapacitate a person in a quarter of a second. Human rights groups have criticized the devices, saying officers often use them unnecessarily and blaming them for dozens of deaths. Amnesty International released a report this week linking the stun guns to more than 70 deaths in the past four years and urging law enforcement agencies to suspend their use. The local leader of the NAACP said the San Jose Taser study shows a problem with the police department's approach to minorities. [more]