Demand Up for Less-Deadly Force : Police: Innovative non-lethal weapons help officers avoid fatalities. But each device has a drawback.

Norman Wiley made his big mistake lunging not once but twice at police with a butcher knife.

When he charged a third time, one of the Burbank officers opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun, the blast hitting Wiley squarely in the chest and hurling him to the ground.

Lucky for Wiley, his lapse in judgment last month didn’t cost him his life. The shotgun rounds were filled with beanbags--one of several new police weapons designed to stop suspects without killing them that are starting to be used by local departments.

In nearby Montrose, Aaron Cease was not so fortunate. Waving a broken crutch, he charged two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies carrying guns with real bullets. A field supervisor was on the way with a Taser--which might have knocked Cease down without killing him--but he arrived too late.

The deputies shot Cease more than a dozen times, killing him. The district attorney’s office is investigating the shooting.

Use of the so-called less-than-lethal weapons, such as the beanbag shotgun round, can mean the difference between life and death for those who challenge police. But most San Fernando Valley law enforcement agencies only authorize supervisors or special units to carry the newest of the high-tech armaments--so named because there is only a small chance the weapons will kill someone.

So why aren’t all police armed with these life-saving devices?

Local officials say that would be impractical and expensive. But some critics say saving even one or two lives would be worth the effort.

“The notion that you kill someone unless a supervisor can get there with a non-lethal weapon is preposterous,” said Carol Watson, a board member of the watchdog group Police Watch.

Police departments operate on the principle that an officer uses the minimal amount of force necessary to subdue a suspect. Most are trained to follow what is called a “continuum of force,” which instructs officers to first give verbal commands. If those fail, officers are told to use physical force, such as a wrist hold or a less-than-lethal weapon--such as a baton--and, as a last resort, lethal force.

The less-than-lethal weapons broaden the options, they say.

“What we’re trying to do is provide stopgaps in that escalation of force,” said San Fernando Police Detective Mark Jacobs, whose department recently purchased several SL6s--guns that fire tiny rubber batons. “It gives us options if a baton doesn’t work, if physical force is unsafe. . . . What do you have between that and lethal force? The more options you have, the safer the officers will be, and the more the suspects will benefit as well.”

All officers already carry some less-than-lethal weapons. The most customary is the baton. A recent addition is Oleo resin cupiscum, better known as pepper spray, carried by all Los Angeles Police Department officers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

In recent years, more varieties of less-than-lethal weapons have come into use, such as Tasers, the beanbag rounds and the SL6 guns.

Manufacturers of the new weapons say business has risen dramatically since the videotaped beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers.

“The demand for less-than-lethal alternatives has definitely been on the rise for the past two years,” said Bill Moles, vice president of the law-enforcement division of DEFTECH, a Caspar, Wyo., company that makes the beanbag rounds. “Ten years ago, the use-of-force continuum was not as scrutinized as it is now.”

That is one of the reasons police are hoping new technologies will give them better ways of subduing suspects without putting themselves at risk.

“If we can send people to the moon, we can sure make something that allows police officers to (control suspects) without having them injured,” said Cliff Ruff, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “It would sure make our job easier. It would sure make the public more confident in police.”

But experts caution that even the newest technology available to police is far from perfect.

“There is no magic bullet,” said John Klein, president of Sage Control Ordnance Inc., a Pontiac, Mich., company that makes less-than-lethal weapons. “There is no one thing you can go out with and say, ‘OK, I’m going to disable the guy, and nothing bad is going to happen.’ ”

LAPD Lt. Michael Hillmann said that’s why officers are limited in the use of the less-than-lethal weapons.

“There is no singular device or munition I have found yet that can be applicable to all situations,” said Hillmann, a 29-year veteran who is an expert in the use of less-than-lethal weapons.

Each of the new devices has its drawbacks, he said. The Taser has a range of only 12 feet. Pepper spray also has a limited range and does not work well on people who are on drugs or mentally disturbed. And in strong winds, the spray can blow back in the officer’s face.

The beanbag round and the SL6 have far greater ranges, but they don’t always disable the target, Hillmann said. Use them on a man charging you with a knife and an officer may end up slashed, he said.

“They should not be available to everyone,” Hillmann said. “That would mean every police officer would have to maintain proficiency and training in every one of those weapons.”

Such training would require time, specialized expertise and greater expense, he said, because “it would be absolutely inappropriate to take all those weapons and put them in the hands of people who are not necessarily trained or qualified to use them.”

That explanation does not persuade Miguel Cortez. “It’s worth it for them to carry those other weapons. It would save lives.”

His stepson, Efrain Lopez, was shot and killed by LAPD officers as he charged them, swinging a broomstick, in November, 1992. Lopez, 18, of Pacoima, was on PCP at the time.

The officer who fired on Lopez was cleared of wrongdoing by a district attorney’s investigation and was not disciplined by the Police Commission. But Police Chief Willie L. Williams at the time noted that the officer erred in dropping his baton when confronted by Lopez, “effectively limit(ing) his options to either hand-to-hand combat or possible use of his gun.”

The shooting death could have been avoided if the officer had better used the weapons he had, said Allan Parachini, a spokesman for the Los Angeles branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It seemed to us to be an incident where the nightstick should have been used,” Parachini said. Or, he added, officers should have waited for backup.

Parachini said officers generally carry adequate less-than-lethal weapons--although he is working with the National Institute of Justice to help develop more effective ones. Generally, officers just need to make better use of what they already carry, Parachini said.

“Talk is the ultimate less-than-lethal technology,” said Parachini, who advocates better training in conflict resolution for police officers. “There is no risk of killing the subject with talk. There is a risk of killing the subject with every less- than-lethal weapon out there right now.”

But even talk does not work all the time, Parachini said. He acknowledged it would have been futile to try and reason further with Lopez, while he was under the influence of PCP.

“There’s no one perfect weapon,” said Jacobs of the San Fernando Police Department, “or else we’d all be carrying it.”

* VALLEY BRIEFING: A graphic look at non-lethal weapons. B2