Houston police officers used Tasers on minorities in almost 90 percent of the incidents in which they shocked people in recent months, prompting civil rights groups Wednesday to call for tighter controls on the use of the stun guns. Leaders from the ACLU, LULAC and NAACP requested a meeting with Police Chief Harold Hurtt to express concern about officers' use of the 50,000-volt alternative weapons since the police department bought 3,700 of them last year. Officers stunned people with Tasers in 144 incidents between Dec. 3 and March 10, according to the department, shocking blacks or Hispanics in 125 cases, or 87 percent. "It always seems that the minorities are the first to get a taste of something like this," said Sylvia Gonzalez, director of the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "We are very concerned." Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland said, however, that the racial breakdown on Taser use mirrors statistics of other police interaction with minorities. "The Taser itself is not a racial device," he said. "Officers' decision to deploy the Taser is based on the suspects' behavior and the officers' training." In police shootings throughout the county, however, about 70 percent of people shot from 1999 through August 2004 were minorities, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis.