Ferguson shooting generates interest in Taser's cameras

In the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, interest in body-worn cameras for police officers has put one Scottsdale company in the national spotlight.

Taser International Inc., one of the largest makers of the technology, has seen a surge in inquiries about the devices since the officer-involved shooting set off protests and riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and captured the attention of the rest of the country. In the two weeks since the incident, the nation has witnessed the resulting unrest in Ferguson and that community's loss of trust in its police department. At the same time, interest in the camaras has grown.

Page views on the parts of Taser's website devoted to the cameras have been 10 times higher than average, according to the company.

Paul Coster, a J.P. Morgan analyst, said Taser is well-positioned to be a market leader for body-worn cameras because of the recent events in Ferguson. Some police agencies across the country are already using the technology, and the company could see more orders increase in the following year, he said.

Shares of Taser have climbed nearly 27 percent over the past two weeks to close at $15.71 per share on Friday.

Taser currently supplies AXON cameras to 1,200 police departments nationwide. The Fort Worth Police Department, which has purchased 600 cameras, is Taser's largest customer, said Steve Tuttle, a company spokesman. The city earlier this year approved the purchase of 400 additional cameras.

Taser also sells stun-guns, but the company's body cameras, which start at $399, have garnered most of the attention since the Ferguson incident. Departments that purchase those cameras also usually subscribe to a related Taser service called Evidence.com that allows police agencies to collect and share digital evidence on a cloud technology system. Subscriptions to that service start at $10 and can go up to $55 per officer, per month.

Implementing the camera technology takes time and usually involves purchase authorizations by local governments and the development of policies on how the devices will be used and worn.

But several recent studies of law enforcement agencies using the cameras show that use of the technology can result in a decline in complaints against officers for misconduct or use of force. One of those studies was done in 2013 by Arizona State University, which examined use of the cameras at the Mesa Police Department.

In Mesa, body-worn cameras resulted in a 48 percent reduction in citizen complaints against officers and a 75 percent decline in use of force complaints, according to the study.

The most widely reported study is on the Rialto Police Department in California, which showed an 88 percent drop in complaints against officers and a 60 percent reduction in use of force, according to Barak Ariel at the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology, who conducted the year-long study.

No footage of the shooting in Ferguson has been reported. But Tuttle suggests that use of body-worn cameras even after the fact could help Ferguson and other communities re-establish trust in the local police department.

"That community has lost its faith. And a way to get that back is to certainly look at the technology -- and that's the cameras," Tuttle said.

Even before the fatal shooting in Ferguson, Taser reported an uptick in sales during the second quarter as law-enforcement agencies purchased more cameras. Revenue for the company was $37.2 million for the quarter, a 16 percent increase over the same quarter in 2013.

"We hit another milestone this quarter by nearly doubling Evidence.com and AXON bookings sequentially to $11.3 million," Taser CEO Rick Smith, said in the company's second-quarter earnings statement. "The positive momentum in the law enforcement market towards wearable technologies and cloud solutions is continuing to build, further encouraging our investment in and passion to grow the business."

The International Association of Chiefs of Police in Virginia is also an advocate of body-worn cameras. In June the group assembled a compendium of policy resources for agencies implementing the cameras.

"The IACP recognizes that technology plays a critical and increasingly important role in the daily work of law enforcement officers in the field, equipping them with enforcement and investigative tools that have the potential to make them safer, better informed, and more effective and efficient." President Chief Yousry Zakhary said in June a statement. He added that "it is imperative that law enforcement agencies create and enforce comprehensive policies governing the deployment and use of BWCs and other technologies and the data they provide."

The reporter can be reached at angelique.soenarie@arizonarepublic.com

Taser International Inc.

Line of business: The company is a leading provider of stun guns, body-worn cameras, and cloud technology that allows police agencies to collect and share digital evidence.

Headquarters: Scottsdale

CEO: Rick Smith

Founded: 1991

Annual sales*: $137.8 million

Annual income*: $19.8 million

* Fiscal 2013

TASER ORDERS

Over the past year, Taser has supplied a range of police departments with body-worn video cameras and subscriptions to a cloud technology system that allows agencies to collect and share digital evidence.

Orders placed by Arizona law enforcement:

Flagstaff Police Department, 50 Axon Flex cameras with five years of Evidence.com agreement

Gilbert Police Department, 33Axon Body cameras with three years of Evidence.com agreement

Peoria Police Department, 54 Axon Body cameras with a three-month Evidence.com agreement

Mesa Police Department, 100 Axon Body cameras with five-year Evidence.com agreement

Largest orders over the past year:

Albuquerque Police Department, New Mexico, 525 Axon Flex with a five-year agreement

Metropolitan Police Service, London, United Kingdon, 500 Axon Body with one-year agreement

Fort Worth Police Department, Texas, 400 Axon Flex, with five-year agreement

Birmingham Police Department, Alabama, 319 Axon Body

Spokane Police Department, Washington, 220 Axon Flex, with a three-year agreement

New Orleans Police Department, Lousiana, 320 Axon Flex, with a five-year agreement

San Diego Police Department, California, 250 Axon Flex, 50 Axon Body with five-year agreement

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Nevada, 200, with a five-year agreement

Winston-Salem Police Department, North Carolina, 194 Axon Flex and 99 Axon Body cameras with a three-year agreement

Salt Lake City Police Department, Utah, 200 Axon Flex with a five-year agreement

City of Escondido Police and Fire, California, 201 with a one-year agreement

Source: J.P. Morgan Markets