The Press-Enterprise analyzed state Department of Justice data on officer-involved shootings from every California law-enforcement agency from 2001 to 2005 as well as 2006 data from Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The state Justice Department will not release statewide 2006 numbers until next month.

Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle said his agency does not have an excessive number of officer-involved shootings when considering the growth in population, which has increased the number of calls for service.

"We don't have a bunch of trigger-happy deputy sheriffs," he said. "They're using their weapons appropriately when they're in those shootings. We're not seeing any kind of trend that would lead us to believe that we've had a breakdown in training."

The newspaper's analysis shows that the county's fatal shootings have increased at a greater rate than service calls have. From 2002 to 2006, calls for service rose 36 percent, but fatal officer-involved shootings increased more than 100 percent.

"If they shoot more people than LA (Sheriff's Department), that raises a red flag with me," said Samuel Walker, a national expert on officer-involved shootings.

Today, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on Doyle's request to outfit deputies with less-lethal stun guns. Each Taser-brand stun gun has a pair of probes that shoot as far as 20 feet and deliver a 50,000-volt shock. The device is meant to incapacitate rather than kill.

The sheriff said he thinks Tasers will help reduce fatalities and cut the amount of money spent on claims and lawsuits filed after fatal deputy-involved shootings.

"Those are tragic situations that usually end up in high-dollar settlements whether you're in the right or the wrong," Doyle said.

Officials from the Sheriff's Department and Riverside County administrators said they did not have total amounts available on how much the county has paid in recent years.

In 2003, more than $2 million was paid in a settlement to the family of Dante Meniefield, a 23-year-old Moreno Valley man who was shot and killed by deputies in July 2001.

San Bernardino County paid $2.4 million in shooting cases from 1999 to 2005.

Doyle wants to spend $2 million to purchase 1,420 Taser-brand stun guns. If the spending is approved, this would add to a deputy's current less-lethal options of pepper spray, baton, restraint hold and PepperBall guns, Doyle said.

But Tasers aren't a perfect solution.

Around the country, some law-enforcement agencies have found that the electronic devices have not changed the number of fatal shootings and have raised other questions about police use of force. Other departments have seen a reduction in shootings.

Riverside's Leslie Braden says "something has to change."

Her brother Charles Hill was fatally shot by Riverside County sheriff's deputies in 1992, and another brother, Joseph Hill, was fatally shot by Riverside city police in 2005.

"There is a problem, if they want to admit to it or not. Every time I see an officer, I get uneasy," she said.

Shootings Fluctuate

In the past 15 years, fatal and nonfatal shootings by Riverside County sheriff's deputies have fluctuated from a high of 21 in 1993 to a low of six in 1997. But there has been a steady increase since 2003.

In 2003, deputies shot nine people, three fatally, and in 2004, 16 people were shot, seven fatally. In 2005, deputies shot 17 people, killing nine. In 2006, deputies shot 17 people, killing 12.

So far this year, deputies have shot at eight people, killing one.

Riverside County sheriff's officials said shootings by deputies have increased at the same time that criminals in the county have become more violent and the area's homicide rate has increased.

Deputy-involved shootings usually correspond with increases in homicides, said sheriff's Lt. James McElvain, who has studied the data. But that was not that case in the most recent upswing. The number of homicides was mostly flat in 2002, 2003 and 2004, but it spiked in 2005 and dropped slightly in 2006.

Several other factors can contribute, said Tom Aveni with the Police Policy Studies Council, a corporation that researches police use of force and trains law-enforcement officers. Those can include substance abuse by residents and increases in shootings by the populace.

There are social or economic currents that people don't think about until they see the number of police shootings begin to spike, Aveni said.

Tasers

Some departments have seen their use-of-force incidents decrease 60 percent to 80 percent after they obtain Tasers, said Steve Ashley, a retired police officer who now trains officers throughout Michigan on less-lethal options.

The devices also have brought down the number of injuries to officers at some departments, he said. In addition, a person who receives a shock from a Taser does not require the types of medical treatment needed by someone who has been sprayed with pepper spray or hit with a baton, Ashley said.

But Tasers have been linked to several deaths and injuries, according to the company that makes them, Arizona-based Taser International.

"Nothing that the police have is absolutely risk-free," Ashley said. "It's the very nature of the job."

Training and policies remain key in lessening that risk with Taser use and other types of force, said George Kirkham, a criminologist and professor emeritus at Florida State University who has studied stun guns and officer-involved shootings.

The devices can be beneficial when, for example, a person has a knife. One deputy can hold out a Taser, and another can have a gun for backup, Kirkham said.

However, the device should be used only on aggressive persons, and some departments have not put restrictions on the number of times it can be used, Kirkham said. In one Florida case he dealt with, a mentally ill man who had been shocked and a deputy kept ordering him to turn over, but the shock had left the man unable to move.

"The problem we're seeing is that some departments are not adequately training the officers," Kirkham said. "It should never be used gratuitously."

Tasers have been controversial since agencies first began using them in the 1990s. Groups such as Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union have opposed the devices, contending that policies should limit their use and that more research needs to be done on the shock's effects on the body. Studies by those groups have tied more than 150 deaths across the country to the Taser.

But according to the Taser company, there have been 12 deaths nationwide in which a forensic pathologist has listed Taser shock as a contributing factor.

Amnesty International recommends that agencies wait until more medical testing has been completed, said Dalia Hashad, director of the group's USA Program. The organization is awaiting testing on the effects the shocks have on people who use drugs or are young, elderly or mentally ill.

"We need to know what this weapon does when it hits different types of human bodies," Hashad said.

Samuel Walker, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, has written several books on police shootings and use of force.

He said there is not enough data to show whether equipping deputies with Tasers reduces the number of officer-involved shootings.

Nationwide, about 11,000 out of more than 17,000 law-enforcement agencies have Tasers, according to the Taser International.

Doyle said the Sheriff's Department will closely track all use of Tasers to see whether the weapon alters the number of times a deputy has to shoot. The device records each time it is used and the duration of each shock.

Deputies will first have to learn to trust the Taser as an option for dealing with unruly suspects, he said.

"You need to be confident that you can use it if you have to," Doyle said.

Staff writer Paige Austin contributed to this report.