Local law enforcement share policies used to prevent gun from being mistaken for taser

"The police chief designating it as an accidental discharge -- it's not. It's a negligent discharge. It's a training failure where the officer drew the wrong tool and used it," said Roy Taylor, a law enforcement consultant and chief of Capitol Special Police, which provides security for businesses and residential areas.

WRAL News looked into training that local officers undergo to prevent similar situations from happening in central North Carolina.

Several departments, including the Fayetteville Police Department, said they require the Taser to be in a distinct location on the body, particularly an area where an officer can cross draw, and also use Tasers with a distinctive color.

"Training should be sufficient so they understand the way they carry their less lethal weapons and lethal weapons," said Taylor, who has more than 25 years of experience as a chief of police in federal, state and local agencies and works with police departments across the country on training efforts. "The less lethal weapon should have been carried on their non-dominant side."

Taylor said that many law enforcement agencies have stopped using Tasers or are limiting their use.

"There was a federal case where a person having a psychiatric crisis was tasered a number of times by the police and ending up dying," he explained. "Because of that, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Taser can only be used when there's active physical resistance against the police. They can't use it for simply fleeing or passively resisting arrest."

Officers attempted to arrest Wright over an outstanding warrant. He pulled away, got back in his car, and the officer shot him.

"It's hard for me to accept that as an excuse,'" said Raleigh-Apex National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president Gerald Givens Jr.

"These things happen in milliseconds. It doesn't give you the time to fully, rationally discern what you're doing, and you need to go? through training and practice get your muscle memory down, so you know where you're drawing from and what you're actually grabbing," said Taylor.

Givens said these mistakes end up costing Black and brown people their lives.

"Maybe, these police departments are just hiring the wrong people. Maybe, it's the wrong people in uniform, and that may be the real issue," he added.