CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When it comes to

, Cleveland police have a record of perfection that some law enforcement experts believe is too good to be true.

Between October 2005 and March 2011, officers chose the electrical-shock devices to gain control of struggling suspects 969 times, according to city data analyzed by The Plain Dealer.

And during that period, Chief Michael McGrath and other police supervisors under his command found the use of a Taser to be appropriate in all but five of the cases they reviewed.

The 99.5 percent clearance rate "strains credibility," said Samuel Walker, a criminal justice professor emeritus at University of Nebraska at Omaha who focuses on police accountability.

"None of us," Walker added, "is perfect."

Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology and criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina, believes the figure suggests a "rubber-stamp process" by police administrators.

"Any action, such as use of force, that has an approval rate of nearly 100 percent is a bit concerning," said Alpert, whose research has been used by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In an interview last week, police officials, including McGrath, stressed that Tasers have been involved in less than a half-percent of more than 300,000 arrests since 2005. McGrath and others attribute the minuscule number of inappropriate Taser incidents to extensive training.

"We require two full days of training for an officer to get a Taser," said Sgt. Paul Zagaria, who teaches the classes for Cleveland police. "Our training is double what is recommended."

More about Cleveland officers facing force-related charges

But Cleveland's police supervisors have a history of clearing officers who resort to any type of nondeadly force, not just the use of Tasers. A Plain Dealer analysis in 2007 found that supervisors reviewed 4,427 uses of force over four years and justified the force in every case.

The newspaper looked at Taser use this year as part of its ongoing examination of Cleveland's police procedures, which have come under fire in response to several recent brutality claims.

Six officers stand accused of assaulting suspects in two high-profile incidents, one of which is the subject of a federal civil-rights probe. Separate from that case, a federal lawsuit filed this month contends that Rodney Brown, 40, died last year after officers used unwarranted and excessive force, including a Taser, to arrest him during a New Year's Eve traffic stop.

The city provided the newspaper with numbers for Taser use going back nearly six years, covering most of the time that officers have carried the devices.

Aside from the immaculate approval rate, the Taser data and other records offered few surprises to experts. Black men, in a city where blacks account for more than half the population and nearly three-quarters of the arrests, accounted for an overwhelming majority of those shocked. Most were between the ages of 18 and 35. Officers reported alcohol or drugs were involved in more than 30 percent of the incidents.

Police say Tasers mean fewer injuries

Tasers are stun guns that deliver an immobilizing electrical charge when fired from a distance or when applied directly to the body. A Taser jolt is intense, but the pain subsides quickly. City leaders began ordering the devices and issuing them to officers in 2005.

Police officials say that a decline in officer and suspect injuries is one sign that Tasers have been a success. And after peaking at about 250 in 2009, the number of Taser zaps dropped to about 230 in 2010, records show.

Criminals have a heightened sense of what the device is capable of and are now less likely to challenge officers, said Sgt. Sammy Morris, a police spokesman.

"When they see that Taser, they're like, 'Whoa,' " Morris said.

Written police orders suggest appropriate types of force that officers can use to respond to particular threats. The orders list a Taser as one of several tactics to subdue a suspect who has wrestled, pushed or demonstrated "active physical resistance." The department's nondeadly force policy also lists punches, kicks and pepper spray among appropriate responses in such scenarios.

There are two higher and two lower levels of force, the higher called for in more extreme situations, such as when an officer has been struck or kicked or has a weapon pulled on him. In such cases, an officer would be justified using a baton or even a gun.

A Taser is seen by some as an alternative to more severe or lethal uses of force.

"The problem is the public is looking for the perfect tool, other than the gun, and there isn't one," said Jim Simone, a recently retired Cleveland patrolman who earned the nickname "Supercop" over 38 colorful and controversial years. "These decisions are made in a heartbeat. The suspect is usually drunk or high on drugs. He will make your wife a widow if you let him."

Simone, who shot and killed five suspects in the line of duty, was sued last fall in U.S. District Court over an incident involving his Taser. The plaintiff, Rafael Correa, contends that Simone used the device to arrest him even though he was on his knees and cooperating.

Correa was suspected of causing trouble at a nearby bar. Simone acknowledges that Correa was on his knees but said the man ignored commands to lie face down on the ground.

"I'm by myself, he supposedly has a gun," Simone said. "I don't want to kill him, just arrest him. He's drunk, he's high. If he had gotten on the ground, he wouldn't have been Tased."

The May 2009 incident was captured, without audio, on a video camera in Simone's car. Correa's lawyer, Nick DiCello, maintains Correa had no gun and was sober at the time.

"The video says it all," DiCello said. "The video shows my client doing anything and everything that was asked of him. This use of force was totally unwarranted."

Police sometimes use force beyond what's recommended

In about 7 percent of the incidents documented between October 2005 and March 2011, officers reported shocking suspects whose actions had not escalated to the corresponding threat level. In other cases, officers fired Tasers longer than the 5 seconds that policy recommends.

The Plain Dealer discovered and reported on some of these cases in recent months, after reviewing forms that officers and their supervisors are required to complete after each use of force.

In July 2009, Patrolwoman Eugina Gray shocked Jerry Beatty, whom she said had been trying to escape. Her response went one step beyond what's generally prescribed for such actions.

Beatty, after being arrested and accused of disorderly conduct while intoxicated, ignored orders to stop banging his head on a screen in the police cruiser, according to reports. Department policy recommends less forceful measures, such as striking muscle groups.

McGrath and his deputies have stressed that department policy only suggests tactics to control combative suspects. They believe other factors, such as the size or gender of the officer and suspect, sometimes justifies the use of a Taser in an otherwise less-threatening situation.

In Gray's case, Beatty, a younger male suspect, outweighed her by 30 pounds and was suspected of being drunk or high on drugs. He also was considered a threat to himself if not the officers. But Gray was working with a male partner roughly the same age and build as Beatty.

City officials have yet to provide detailed records from internal investigations of the five Taser incidents that police administrators determined did not meet department guidelines.

Initial police reports from two of the cases indicate that Tasers struck a suspect in the back as he was running from officers. It's not clear whether either suspect was armed, though the officer in one of the cases said he feared the man he was chasing was reaching for a weapon.

"Typically, using the Taser to shoot a person in the back for fleeing unarmed is unnecessary and excessive force," Paul McCauley, a former police officer and criminology professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, told The Plain Dealer in a May interview.

Two of the other unapproved Taser incidents were described as accidents in initial police reports. In one, the officer said the suspect hit the Taser while placing his hands behind his back, causing it to discharge. In the other, Patrolman James Hummel said he displayed his Taser and inadvertently fired it at a gas station employee in late 2008, during a friendly conversation.

"Charlie Beckett had thrown two packs of cigarettes at me after I had stated: 'Hit me with two packs of smokes.' Knowing that he was only playing, I responded with some playful banter," Hummel said in his report. "I told him that if he continued after me, I would Tase him."

Hummel did and later was convicted of negligent assault.

He remains a patrolman.