After acquiring statewide statistics regarding officers' use of electronic control weapons, The Associated Press last week came to the following conclusion: "Connecticut officers who drew their stun guns on the job last year were more likely to fire when the suspect was black or Hispanic."

Issues surrounding the use of raw data without context notwithstanding, some local departments don't seem to fit into the larger trend shown by the data, which was collected in Connecticut for the first time last year and hasn't been collected in any other state.

In Norwich, where there were 15 Taser deployments, eight on the receiving end were white and seven were black. Groton Town's two firings were split — one white, one black — and Waterford's one deployment was on a white person.

But to add meaning to the numbers, local police department leaders say, one needs to know what was happening in each situation.

For starters, Norwich Police Deputy Chief Patrick Daley said, "stun gun" isn't an all-encompassing term — traditionally, a stun gun is a weapon that only is effective when physically touched to someone's body.

Many of the Tasers and other electronic control weapons that departments use have not only that capability — called a "drive-stun" — but also a probe mode, where the devices can shoot prongs into someone from more than 15 feet away.

The data Norwich police provided to the state — 15 deployments, two nondeployments — includes six uses in probe mode and nine drive-stuns, Daley explained.

"We had 2,289 people arrested last year," he said. "Looking at six probes, that's a pretty low percentage."

Still, he noted, it's hard to glean much from one year of data.

"We'll be monitoring the data to see if there's a trend or if there's something we should be concerned about," Daley said.

Waterford Police Chief Brett Mahoney echoed those sentiments, but added that Waterford's numbers have not alarmed him.

In five of the department's six reported incidents, the electronic control weapons were pulled, but not deployed.

In the data, "not deployed" can refer to instances in which an officer pulled a Taser and pointed its laser light at a subject.

"Five out of six times that these items were used on someone, the officer pointed the laser at them and said, 'Don't do this,' and that encouraged the behavior the officer wanted," Mahoney explained.

Reading through the short list of incidents, he described the situations: a fight at a motel, a possible burglary, someone who was wielding a knife, a stolen car pursuit that ended in a crash and two suspected DUIs.

He said the only time an officer deployed the device was during one of the DUI cases. The driver began fighting with the officer, Mahoney said, leading the officer to drive-stun the driver.

"With any of these things that I see, I always try and put myself in the place of the officer at the scene," he said. "I would have done what these men and women did in all of these cases."

For Groton Town police — as with most, if not all, others — very specific rules are in place for when officers should and shouldn't consider using the devices, Groton Town Police Lt. John Varone said.

Is an emotionally disturbed person displaying violent behavior? Is a person who appears to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs acting violently? Does someone expressing intent to harm himself or others have the means to do so? Will lesser force options be ineffective, and greater force options too much?

If so, consider using the electronic control device, then, the rules say.

"We would never say go from hands to Taser to pepper spray, then only after all that doesn't work, use your gun," Mahoney said, adding that officers often have only seconds to act. "If somebody is there with a gun and shooting, they're not going to go through those steps."

The most important thing, he said, is to continue to train officers properly.

"Everything that I've ever read or been educated on myself shows that a properly trained, educated officer uses less force in dealing with people," Mahoney said.

Varone said the electronic control weapon has been a "very effective tool" for Groton Town police.

"Over the past four or five years, we've dealt with individuals that, if we did not have the Taser, most likely it would have resulted in a use of deadly force," Varone said.

Percentages drawn from a small sample size can be misleading, he added.

If somewhere like Groton Long Point had only five arrests in a year, he said, one Taser use there would mean a Taser was used in 20 percent of arrests, and the race of the affected person would be the race that was affected 100 percent of the time.

Regarding New London, where police — handling a population of just more than 27,000 and presumably far fewer calls for service than the departments in Bridgeport and New Haven — reported more Taser incidents (19) than Bridgeport (16) and New Haven (15), Varone said the numbers still don't tell the whole story.

"In New London, unfortunately, their staffing levels are horrible," Varone said. "The officer might be more apt to go up that force continuum knowing, 'I'm by myself.'"

"I like these studies," he continued. "My concern with them is just that, when you give me raw numbers like that and you're not adding in any variables, you're not doing anyone any favors because now you're misleading everybody. It might not be intentionally, but that's what you're doing."

l.boyle@theday.com

Twitter: @LindsayABoyle