PELHAM, Ga. (WALB) - The Pelham Police Department (PPD) is now using a new model taser. Throughout this week and next, PPD will be training their officers on how to use these upgraded weapons.

Unlike the old Model X26 Taser, this new Model 10 Taser allows the officer to give a visual and audible warning to the suspect before firing the taser, but that’s not all.

The old model only allowed the officers to fire at a suspect once. After that, if the suspect was not brought down or the officer missed their target, the taser was rendered useless. The new upgraded Model 10 Taser has ten times the effectiveness of the old one.

“The new tasers have ten cartridges instead of one. It gives you ten opportunities to gain control of the suspect without having to go to another use of force and escalate that situation even more,” said Rod Williams, PPD’s assistant chief of police.

The Model 10 Taser can also be fired from a distance of 40 feet. That is almost double the effective range of the old version.

“It would generally give you time if the taser failed to transition to another use of force, as opposed to the old taser which gave you at the most 21 feet. And that’s a way too close of a distance to try to de-escalate and deal with some of the design with a knife,” continued Williams.

Williams tells WALB that the department hopes these new upgraded tasers will cut their gun use in half.

“With this new device, we’ve got a lot more opportunity for a better outcome when dealing with a person who may be having a mental crisis is non-compliant, maybe even combative versus escalating to possibly a deadly force encounter,” said Williams.

Each Pelham officer will be given a Model 10 Taser once they complete the necessary training. Assistant Chief Williams tells WALB that the training takes all day. The first half of the day takes place in the classroom, while the other half focuses on hands-on training and using the taser is various scenarios.

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