IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Taser International, the stun-gun maker emerging as a leading supplier of body cameras for police, has cultivated financial ties to police chiefs whose departments have bought the recording devices, raising a host of conflict-of-interest questions.
>>WATCH: CBS 11 Investigative Reporter Mireya Villareal has been digging into this issue for weeks. Click here to read her report<<
A review of records and interviews by The Associated Press show Taser is covering airfare and hotel stays for police chiefs who speak at promotional conferences. It is also hiring recently retired chiefs as consultants, sometimes just months after their cities signed contracts with Taser.
Over the past 18 months, Taser has reached consulting agreements with two such chiefs weeks after they retired, and it is in talks with a third who also backed the purchase of its products, the AP has learned. Taser is planning to send two of them to speak at luxury hotels in Australia and the United Arab Emirates in March at events where they will address other law enforcement officers considering body cameras.
The relationships raise questions of whether chiefs are acting in the best interests of the taxpayers in their dealings with Scottsdale, Arizona-based Taser, whose contracts for cameras and storage systems for the video can run into the millions of dollars.
As the police chief in Fort Worth, Texas, successfully pushed for the signing of a major contract with Taser before a company quarterly sales deadline, he wrote a Taser representative in an email, “Someone should give me a raise.”
The market for wearable cameras that can record arrests, shootings and other encounters has been growing fast since the killing last August of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. President Barack Obama has proposed a $75 million program for departments to buy the cameras to reduce tensions between officers and the communities they serve.
City officials and rival companies are raising concerns about police chiefs’ ties to Taser, not only in Fort Worth but in such cities as Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Salt Lake City.
“Department heads need to be very careful to avoid that type of appearance of an endorsement in a for-profit setting,” said Charlie Luke, a Salt Lake City councilman. “It opens up the opportunity for competitors of these companies to essentially do what we’re seeing here — complaining about that public process.”
He said he was surprised when he learned last year that the city’s police department had purchased Taser cameras using surplus money, bypassing the standard bidding process and City Council approval. The department declined to say how much it has spent acquiring 295 body cameras and Taser’s Evidence.com video storage program and hasn’t responded to a month-old public records request.
The city’s police chief, Chris Burbank, said that his relationship with Taser, which includes company-paid travel to Taser-sponsored conferences, is appropriate. He recently recorded at the company’s request a promotional video in which he praised Evidence.com.
Burbank said he does not receive speaking fees and believes he hasn’t violated a city code prohibiting paid product endorsements on public time. He said he accepts Taser’s speaking invitations to promote the best ways of using body cameras. But Luke, the city councilman, questioned what value Salt Lake City gets from Burbank’s trips.
A Taser spokesman said the company has no control over how cities decide to award contracts. Taser says early adopters of technology are the best ones to discuss its benefits and drawbacks and share their experiences with colleagues.
“This is a pretty normal practice for police chiefs and other recently retired individuals to speak on behalf of the industry,” Taser chief marketing officer Luke Larson said.
Taser’s competitors say its cozy relationships are hurting their ability to seek contracts. They complain they have been shut out by cities awarding no-bid contracts to Taser and are being put at a disadvantage by requests for proposals that appear tailored to Taser’s products.
“Every time I do a presentation, as I’m standing there looking through the room, I wonder, ‘Who is tainted by Taser?'” said Peter Onruang, president of Wolfcom Enterprises, a California body camera maker.
Taser reported Thursday that orders for body cameras and Evidence.com soared to $24.6 million in the final three months of 2014 — a nearly fivefold increase from the same quarter in 2013. The company said it had contracts with 13 major cities and is in discussions or trials with 28 more.
A no-bid contract in Albuquerque and Taser’s relationship with the police chief prompted an investigation by the city’s inspector general.
City Council members demanded the inquiry after learning that Chief Ray Schultz, who had supported the $1.9 million contract for Taser cameras and storage, became a company consultant shortly after stepping down. A U.S. Justice Department investigation last year blasted Albuquerque’s rollout of the body cameras, saying it had been so hasty that officers had not been properly trained.
Today, Schultz speaks in an online promotional video about Albuquerque’s experience with Evidence.com. Although he has recently been hired as assistant chief in the Houston suburb of Memorial Villages, Schultz said he will be paid by Taser to speak at the international conferences in March.
Former New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas confirmed he signed a Taser consulting agreement after he stepped down in August and has spoken at company-sponsored events in Canada and Arizona. Less than a year earlier, in December 2013, the city agreed to a $1.4 million contract with Taser for 420 cameras and storage.
In an interview with the AP, Serpas declined to detail how the consulting deal came about but said it did not violate a state ethics law because he is not lobbying his former employer. He also said he was not on the committee that recommended Taser for the contract.
Serpas said his role is to speak about how technology affects policing and not to promote products. Taser marketing materials reviewed by AP, however, quote him as calling the company’s Axon cameras and Evidence.com “a game changer for police departments here and around the world.”
In Fort Worth, emails obtained by the AP under Texas’ open records law show that then-Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead was seeking 400 more body cameras for officers last year and that Taser promised a discount if the deal could be approved before the end of the company’s sales quarter.
“Close of the month? I do not wear a cape or have x-ray vision you know,” Halstead wrote a Taser representative.
But over the next three weeks, Halstead successfully pushed the city to approve a no-bid contract worth up to $2.7 million. He kept Taser representatives aware of his progress, adding at one point that he deserved a raise.
In the following months, Taser had Halstead speak at events in Phoenix, Miami and Boston, covering his airfare and lodging, records show. The four-day Boston trip for Halstead and a companion cost Taser $2,445.
Halstead said he reached an oral agreement during the contract negotiations to travel to three other cities at Fort Worth’s expense to talk about his experience with Taser cameras. In one email, he told a Taser representative he believed he could persuade San Antonio to buy its cameras, “but my fee is not cheap! LOL.”
Halstead, who retired from the department in January, said he hopes to become an official consultant before he travels to speak at overseas events in March. He said he discussed such an arrangement during the end of his city employment, but had nothing promised.
He defended his ties to Taser as a “good business relationship” with a company that supports law enforcement.
Fort Worth City Manager David Cooke said he does not believe Halstead violated rules that prohibit employees from accepting job offers or other benefits that might influence the performance of their official duties. But he said the episode might reveal “gaps that we need to fill” in the code.
(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) **for educational purposes, fully credited
BONUSES:
Mr. Barnes said I think this might answer it; in an earlier slide, either the Chief or Mr. Harrington
noted an intent by the Manager and by CMPD to make asset forfeiture contributions as possible and I
think to Ms. Lyles question our historical experience has been that we get much more than $100,000
per year in asset forfeiture funds. For the sake of simplifying this exercise tonight and getting through
this process I think if we leave it the way it is, if the Council is comfortable with it, I was trying to get
us to actually draw down the capital contribution and increase the amount of money coming from
another source, but if you want to leave it the way it is and take their word for it that they will
contribute the asset forfeiture funds as allowed and as possible I’m fine with that as well. But I think
the Chief was confident that he could contribute $100,000 per year for those three years throughout
this process.
Mr. Phipps said I was wondering would we apply that same thing if we happen to get grants that we
would apply for; would we apply those as a reduction from the capital if we did that?
Mr. Barnes said if I might Mr. Mayor, Mr. Phipps I think no grants are listed here as an opportunity so
I don’t know if the Manager would be thinking that. I think we are operating strictly within what the
staff laid out for us and the potential for contributions within those sources.
Ms. Kinsey said I might be able to hold my nose and vote for this with $100,000 in there; I don’t know
why we wouldn’t be able to leave it in there if you can look at $324,880 in the year 2019 and project
that why not $100,000 each year?
Mr. Carlee said would you repeat the question?
Ms. Kinsey said I said I could probably hold my nose and support this with $100,000 from asset
forfeiture in the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 and I did raise the question if we could project $324,880 in
year 2019 why not $100,000 each year?
Mr. Carlee said we don’t have a problem with that.
Mayor Clodfelter said I think the Manager has endorsed the restructured motion.
Ms. Lyles said I just want to say sometimes I’m really hesitant because my memory is not what it used
to be, but I recall that asset forfeiture funds are governed strictly by a set of regulations that are
federally imposed upon us to protect local communities from estimating revenues and causing police
actions to go and purpose those revenues because it is projected in a future year. I don’t remember if
that has changed or not but I’m just curious if that intent of estimating future revenues for asset
forfeiture is really compliant with the intent or the regulations stated, and if it is not then I would agree,
but my recall is that there was a great deal of caution about that so that communities wouldn’t go out
and seize assets from citizens so that they could meet their project that year. That has been by concern
and I don’t know if anyone can address that and if the rules have changed or the intent has changed,
I’m very comfortable with the motion. If it hasn’t I would make a substitute motion to accept the
recommendation as it is.
Motion was made by Councilmember Barnes, seconded by Councilmember Howard, to (A)
Approve a five year contract with Taser International in an amount not to exceed $5,491,186 for
hardware, software license, services, storage, and ongoing maintenance for the implementation and
support of Body Worn Cameras; (B) Authorize the City Manager to approve contracts for additional
purchases in an amount not to exceed $1,551,058 for ancillary hardware, software, and services for
the implementation and configuration of Body Worn Cameras; (C) Accept a donation form the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Foundation, in the amount of $250,000, to be used for the Body
Worn Camera project, and (D) Adopt Budget Ordinance No. 5563-X appropriating $6,724,880 as
follows: $5,900,000 from capital fund reserves, $574,880 from assets forfeiture funds and $250,000
from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Foundation. The remaining balance of $317,364 will be
funded within the future operating budgets with an amendment to include the $100,000 per year for
FY16, FY17 and FY18 from asset forfeiture and reducing the capital contribution by a
corresponding amount to take the capital down to $5.6 million and the asset forfeiture contribution
would go up to $874,880 as available.
January 26, 2015
Business Meeting
Minute Book 137, Page 878
mpl
Mayor Clodfelter said Chief you heard the question from Ms. Lyles; are we allowed to appropriate
future asset forfeiture funds that we don’t yet know whether we are going to have or not?
Chief Monroe said that is correct.
Mayor Clodfelter said we are or we are not allowed to do that?
Chief Monroe said we are not.
Mayor Clodfelter said we are not allowed to do that, by Federal law?
Chief Monroe said yes sir.
Ms. Kinsey said then why can they put in $324,880?
Mayor Clodfelter said Ms. Kinsey asked the quite appropriate question that in the out year of 2019 you
have $324,880.
Chief Monroe said that should be appropriated now.
Mayor Clodfelter said from currently available funds?
Chief Monroe said correct.
Mayor Clodfelter said so Chief are you saying that the item before us really should have $574,880 of
currently available asset forfeiture funds in the present fiscal year appropriated.
Chief Monroe said in order to comply that needs to be loaded now or committed now.
Mayor Clodfelter said Mr. Harrington, do we have that?
Mr. Harrington said yes, and that is reflected in your budget ordinance under Section 4, the $574,880.
Mayor Clodfelter said so that is exactly right so Councilmember Lyles needs to speak up so everybody
understands what the point is and why everybody is getting confused by this chart.
Ms. Lyles said the chart on Page 6 is a schedule of expense; you must appropriate the entire amount to
encumber this. All you are seeing in this chart is when it is going to be scheduled. That is why I’m
very reluctant to add money where it is not shown; what we are actually doing is appropriating
$7,042,000 plus today; the chart shows when it will be expensed, but you have to by law encumber the
amount of the contract and you must show that those revenues are there. It will show up in the asset
forfeiture account of encumbrance of $574,000 which I am sure is in the account now.
Mayor Clodfelter said otherwise you would not be requesting the action, correct?
Ms. Kinsey said this is exactly why we should be doing this through the budgeting process or have
more time to talk about it and to understand it. This is very confusing; I am not the dumbest person in
the world and not the smartest either, but it is just very confusing and we are spending a lot of money
in the overall scheme of things; $7 million is not like some we have spent but we really have not
studied this as a Council and I hope we never do this again because it makes us look stupid and I don’t
like looking stupid even if I am. I hope we don’t do this again because it is not pretty.
Mr. Barnes said may I amend my motion?
Mayor Clodfelter said I think it might be in order.
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