The Ventura County Sheriff's Department released a study this week showing a big decline in injuries to deputies since they began arming themselves with Taser guns more than a year ago.

The study showed a 72 percent reduction in injuries to deputies in 2007, the first full year in which the department used the electrical stun guns, when compared to the average annual number of injuries for 2003, 2004 and 2005. The department began using Tasers in September 2006.

The handguns use compressed nitrogen to fire two dartlike probes, with metal wires attached, into the body. The probes produce up to a five-second electrical surge, causing the suspect to temporarily lose muscular control.

"It's unlike anything I've ever felt," said Cmdr. Marty Rouse, who volunteered to be shot with a Taser. "It felt like I'd been hit with a two-by-four."

Rouse and a group of others from the Sheriff's Department, including Sheriff Bob Brooks, met with the members of The Star's editorial board Tuesday to review Taser-related statistics for the department.

Sheriff's officials had promised to provide these statistics when they decided to adopt the Taser in 2006.

They saw the Taser as providing deputies with a less- lethal alternative to bullet-firing weapons.

Brooks recalled how the Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement agencies had seen numerous "suicide-by-cop" incidents in which someone deliberately acted in a threatening way hoping to be shot dead by a law enforcement officer.

"There were an alarming number of these incidents," he said.

The majority of those shot by deputies were mentally ill, Brooks said.

Deputies used the Taser 123 times in 2007, said Chief Deputy Chris Godfrey. Of these, deputies were able to subdue someone 107 times. In the 16 times they were not, it was either because they'd failed to get both probes into the subject or they used the Taser only to stun the suspect who did not respond to the pain.

Even though the pain is intense, the subjects likely were either enraged enough or intoxicated to the point where the pain was not enough to stop them, Godfrey said.

Some of those who were shot with a Taser were injured. "The most significant injury was a laceration to the back of a detainee's head," said Godfrey, adding the injury was caused when the person fell to the ground.

Amnesty International estimates hundreds of people have died after being shot with Tasers.

But sheriff's officials disputed this assertion, saying they know of no local death that has been specifically linked to the use of Tasers.

Ratan Bhavnani, president of the Ventura County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said his organization welcomes any nondeadly restraint that deputies can use.

"It is appreciated when compared to something that will kill," Bhavnani said.

Bhavnani added that a Taser should be used as a last resort.

In fact, sheriff's officials say, deputies are trained to first try to de-escalate a situation by talking with the subject.

The training is offered through the Ventura County Law Enforcement Crisis Intervention Team program, which began in 2001.

Ken Rose, a 62-year-old Ventura man who suffers from a bipolar disorder, has participated in the training, playing the role of a mental-health client hunkered down in a manic state.

"It's really worthwhile work," Rose said.

Unlike many others, Rose can speak from personal experience.

He said a police officer shot him in the stomach with a rubber bullet in July 2000. He said the incident occurred because the police had mistakenly been told that he was trying to kill himself through "suicide-by-cop."

"Thank God they didn't use lethal force on me," said Rose, who remembers the pain that came from being shot.

Contrary to the perception of some, Rose said, all the police officers he's worked with are saddened and often traumatized by having to use lethal force.

"I've seen tears well up in the eyes of officers who talk about what it was like to shoot someone," he said.

Brooks agrees.

He said replacing guns with Tasers when possible will also lead to a decline in staff turnover at his department.

Sheriff's representatives will meet with community groups in the coming weeks sharing with them the results of the department's first 18 months of using Tasers.