CITY COUNCIL MEMBER WANDA ADAMS AND CONTROLLER ANNISE PARKER TO HOLD TOWN HALL SEPT. 16 ON TASER AUDIT
City Council Member Wanda Adams and City Controller Annise Parker will host a town hall meeting September 16, at 6 p.m., at Miracleland Church, so the public can discuss the results of Controller Parker's audit of the Houston Police Department's Taser use, which revealed much higher Taser usage in District D.
"I could not agree more with Controller Parker that these findings call for public dialogue," said Adams, who represents District D. "Our community needs to make itself heard about what this report implicates."
The audit found that, of 1,249 Taser deployment locations between November 2004 and June 2007, nearly 21 percent occurred in District D. District D had the most deployments of all nine Council districts.
The report found that Tasers are deployed disproportionately against African American suspects. About 67 percent of suspects on whom Tasers are used are African American, while only 46 percent of police encounters involve African American suspects.
Miracleland Church is at 7427 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Members of the public will be granted two minutes to speak on a first come, first served basis. The meeting will end at 8 p.m.
