Shares of TASER International, Inc. TASR are flying high on Monday on the back of an announcement from Mayor Eric Garcetti that 7,000 on-body cameras will be purchased for the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department).
Oppenheimer also initiated coverage on the stock with a price target of $28.
In the report, analyst Andrew Uerkwitz wrote, “Conducted electrical weapons (CEW) success has shaped Taser into a trusted name in the police technology industry. We believe Taser will now be able to push its Axon camera line and new CEW products in front of established connections within 95 percent of U.S. police departments.”
Tony Farrar, chief of the Rialto (CA) Police Department, and sergeant Josh Lindsay were interviewed by CNBC on the subject of on-body cameras. Police officers in Rialto have been wearing the gear for nearly three years.
“The whole experiment wasn’t based on figuring out whether the camera was the right camera, although we did need to take a look at that. It was really more to evaluate the impact that the cameras would have on law enforcement,” Farrar said.
Farrar used grant money to pay for the system that was bought from Taser at a price of $180,000.
After the Rialto police started using on-body cameras, there was an 80 percent drop in complaints [against the officers] and a 60 percent drop in use of force [by the officers].
“The couple of people that I have mentioned it to...[I] said, ‘hey, just so you know, I am recording everything’
"Even though they might have been a little bit angry at the time...it seems like it just calmed them down a little bit and gained a little bit of compliance from them,” he added.
Image credit: Scott Davidson, Flickr
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