The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office has spent much of the past month implementing a new generation of Taser devices, a transition Chief Deputy Mitch Brantingham described to the Fernley City Council as costly, time-consuming and unavoidable.
During his update to the council at its Feb. 18 meeting, Brantingham said LCSO is rolling out the Taser 10, the latest model produced by Axon Enterprise Inc., the company that controls nearly the entire national market for conducted-energy weapons. Brantingham said Axon discontinues support for older models every five years, forcing agencies to upgrade whether they are ready or not.
“The unfortunate part about working with Axon is every five years, they shut down all of the old devices, they quit supporting them, and we get new technology that we're pretty much forced to have to do implementation of,” he said.
The new devices are already in use in Fernley. Brantingham said the Taser 10 does offer improvements over the previous model.
“It is a better system than what we were working with before. It does come with its advantages,” he said. “The unfortunate part is we really just don't have an option.”
While deputies worked through the Taser rollout, the Sheriff’s Office also continued its winter training cycle, when all sworn staff complete their required POST certification, ensuring their credentials remain current.
The Sheriff’s Office also sent several deputies to a major legal update conference in Carson City, which focused specifically on Ninth Circuit Court case law.
“A lot of that stuff centered around use of force, escalation and de-escalation tactics, and some of the national trends we're seeing there,” Brantingham said.
He said the department tries to complete its training in the winter before warmer weather brings more community events and calls for law enforcement service.
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