Thread: Taser Controversy

Originally Posted by w12code3

Since I am new here I will tread lightly on this issue as it seems that my post will be running against the grain of popular opinion in this thread. I am a police sergeant in Washington State. I have been shot with the tazer several times and have deployed it many times against non-compliant suspects. I know just how very painful the tazer is and do not deploy it lightheartedly.

I my own experience, the tazer has saved me from having to shoot two people in the four years that we have used it. None of the people who have forced me to deploy the tazer against them have suffered anything more than transient pain and minor dart puncture wounds. The only “injury” beyond this in my deployments was a man who was hit in the lip with the tazer dart and had to be taken to the hospital to have it removed. That being said, that same man was mere seconds away from being shot in the chest with my M14 and only my cover officer's quick action with the tazer saved him as he advanced on our position with an axe. Think about that for a moment will you? In four years the tazer made it possible for me to take two disturbed human beings to court rather than to the hospital or the morgue.

These kind of saves happens every day all across the nation and it progresses well beyond just averted lethal force. In our department before we procured the tazer, each year we averaged 8 officers (from a patrol staff of 20) having to receive medical attention at the hospital for wounds received in physical altercations with suspects for injuries such as broken fingers, lacerations, dislocations, strained joints, torn muscles, ligaments and tendons, back injury etc. In the four years since we have had just two officers with assault related injuries. The number of suspects attending hospital for injuries that they have suffered in altercations with us has dropped by a very significant amount (I do not have the numbers available to quote though). A suspect that would have otherwise had to have been controlled with counter joint, blunt force, chemical agents and other forms of force are now incapacitated and handcuffed before it comes to that.

Suspects die in altercations involving less-than-lethal force, it is a fact of life and was an issue long before tazers came on the scene. Often times it is easy to attribute a secondary case to that fatality. Often it is a cardiac arrest issue or intoxication... sometimes it is (if you will pardon the term and not meaning to sound flippant) a head scratcher. That these tertiary fatalities should occur in conjunction with tazer deployment should come as a surprise to no one. Fighting with the police is a strenuous activity weather it is with hand and feet or one is shot with a tazer.

It is interesting to note that not one of the tens of thousands of officers who are tazed have ever died. To counter the argument that officers are only tazed from the back, this is just not the case. I, for instance, was tazed in the front with the top dart just below my right clavicle and the lower dart just above my belt on the left side. Most officers are tazed with one electrode on the foot and one on the collar although many who care actually shot are shot in the back to avoid uncomfortable nipple shots.

To condemn the tazer due to a several “tazer related” fatalities is akin to throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. This a fabulous tool that saves hundreds of lives and countless injuries. There is a risk to almost anything that we do... we are in a straight razor forum so who know better than we... but we are not looking to ban airbags because on the rarest of occasions they cause injury or even death. If there is an issue with an officer applying force inappropriate to the circumstances of the situation then the officer should be retrained, disciplined, terminated or prosecuted as the case may be but to take this amazing, lifesaving tool out of every officer's “tool kit” would be a shame.

Very true. Having worked the streets of Baltimore, many was the time I wished that I had something to bridge the gap between a baton and my sidearm.

The incident in question was caught on tape...the time between the officers arriving on the scene and the suspect ending up on the floor was less than a minute...the officers did not appear to make any effort to diffuse the situation or to calm the man - he was lost, had been given the runaround by the airport, had to deal with airport rent-a-cops, and didn't speak English (he was from Poland). He did not appear to be armed and was backed against a wall. Granted, having only the video to view does not give 100% of the facts, but viewing it using logic and following the timeline, you can see there was improper use of force.

I think the vid is still on YouTube.

Originally Posted by ScottS

It's not about whether tasers are harmless-- It's about whether they're less dangerous than their alternatives.

I think that the answer to this question is an unequivocal "yes." The majority of tazer related injuries are associated with the fall. The incidents of fatalities associated with a tazer deployment are statistically insignificant. I know that sounds cold, but it's true. There are thousands and thousands of tazer deployments every day and one or two suspect deaths that occur each month. Almost every one of these deaths are found at autopsy to have been related to some other issue such as a pre-existing heart condition or extreme drug/alcohol intoxication. Now compare this to the fatalities associated with hand to hand confrontations and the rate of fatalities is significantly higher.

In other words, if given the same set of circumstances, the tazer was not used and the suspect had to be "wrestled" into custody, the evidence seems to indicate that a fatal result would have been the outcome in either event and is more likely in physical combat.

Lets set aside fatalities for a moment and just talk about injuries in general. If I am faced with a extremely agitated suspect who has failed to comply with my lawful commands to cease his or her aggressive behavior I could taze them in which case they would seize up for five seconds and topple over to the ground then I can move in and place them in handcuffs, once the five second cycle is over they are no longer in pain and there are no lasting effects aside from two bloodless punctures in their skin. Without the tazer I would have to move in and engage them in had to had combat. We have more politically correct terms for it, but lets call a duck a duck... its hand to hand combat. I'm going to do anything and everything (short of biting not for reasons of nobility, rather hygene) to wind that fight. I am 6'2" tall and about 250 lbs. The likelihood that the suspect is going to sustain an injury skyrocket not to mention the likelihood that I will get hurt. If I poorly aim an elbow strike for instance, or the suspect 'jukes' and my strike hits them in the throat or the solar plexus or the temple or base of the skull... well, we have real problems. Thats not to mention the routine injuries to joints such as dislocated shoulders, broken wrists, forearms, noses, hyperextended knees and elbows, laceration, abrasions... the list goes on and on.

I HATE hurting people... that probably sounds strange coming from someone who has to do it professionally but it's true. I despise causing other people injury but sometimes I have no choice. The best that I can do for someone who had decided that they are going to force me to hurt them is to mitigate the damage as best I can, but when it moves beyond noncompliance to assault I fight to win every time and that means that the suspect is going to get hurt.

The taser changes all that, now I can stop them with little to no injury... ask yourself, would you rather have 50,000 volts, temporary partial paralysis, and extreme pain for five seconds or a broken orbit, broke nose, and dislocated elbow. What is more dangerous? Not just for the suspect but for the officers.

As far as these officers in B.C. are concerned... I have not seen the video or read any official reports. One thing that I have learned about these videos is that you usually get a small fraction of a larger event that is frequently not representative of the situation in its totality so draw your conclusion with caution. If there was anything I would ask civilians to keep in mind about cops is that fact that we are just like you in every way except that you have asked us to be exceptional and we have accepted. Your demands are many but everyone seems to forget that we are you... just like you. We get scared, we make mistakes, we get angry, but the public isn't willing to accept any of this from us. We aren't willing to accept it from ourselves either. Its hard to do. When I was a project manager for a tech logistics firm and I made a mistake, 15 laptops went to Topeka instead of Buffalo and everyone was pissed off. Now when I make a mistake Davey Dumbass winds up with a smoking hole in his chest, I have to live with that for the rest of my life, the public labels me a murderer, and I will loose my job, my house and possibly my freedom. All this for $35,000 a year... yeehaw.

I'm all for the tazers. Yeah, some police misuse them, but I feel like there comes a point where you just have to realize that no matter what they have, whether it's a tazer or something else, they'll still misuse it. That's a failure in HR, not a faulty choice of weaponry. Just imagine all the needless deaths because someone decided to be stupid. Instead of trying to pull off a good, non-lethal shot, the policeman can temporarily paralyze the person and subdue them without risk to either party. Yeah, it can be risky due to pre-existing conditions, but the good heavily outweighs the bad I think.

Yes so given the option of a sidearm or tazer, I'll go for the latter, my odds of survival are better. BUT for the tazer people to play the "harmless" card is weak. The tazer is not harmless, if it was, it wouldn't work. Electricity is powerful stuff that can do really good/bad things to a person. On the good side think of all the people who are basically brought back to life by those paddles in hospital and ambulances after cardiac arrest. It's no accident that they shout "CLEAR" before firing them, the electricity that jolts a stopped heart and gets it beating can really bugger up a heart beating with proper rhythm.
With that said I think officers should have the tazer, I think shooting someone is hard on both people, victim and shooter. Modern sidearms turn most peoples innards into soup upon impact, especially under say 50 feet, combine this with marksmanship (officers are trained) the odds of fatality are very high for the victim. You cant take that back, the instant the trigger is pulled, most people are dead. That can be a very high price to pay for both parties.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by gomez

Yes so given the option of a sidearm or tazer, I'll go for the latter, my odds of survival are better. BUT for the tazer people to play the "harmless" card is weak.

"Less than lethal" doesn't quite sound enough like "harmless" that people should confuse them.

the Canadian Border Services Agency has released their official report on the Dziekanski affair. I haven't read it, but I'll bet it doesn't say much more than this article reveals.

15 seconds after appearing on the scene the RCMP address Mr. Dziekanski who is non-violent and appears to be trying to explain something, perhaps why he broke a computer. Within 30 seconds of their contact with him the RCMP surround and Taser him. After 15 seconds of shock the offices descend on him. It is unclear how long the Taser shocking continued. 2 minutes after the RCMP arrive, Mr. Dziekanski appears to be dead. No fight on his part. No attempt to solve the problem verbally by the RCMP. This is very bad for the RCMP indeed.

X

In this case it sounds like the taser version of a Rodney King type beating.

One thing I wonder is if the psychological effect of having a "less than lethal" option makes it more likely that the police are going to be willing to escalate a situation to that level rather than keep it on a lower level for longer and talk their way out of a situation. I also wonder how many officers have been hurt while in indecision about the level of force appropriate to the given situation they used to have only one after talk but before kill now many officers have three.

w12code3

I think you would have done us all a favor if you had shot the guy with the ax coming at you attacking a guy with a rifle when carrying and ax deserves to be fatal stupidity whether or not he did anything else wrong.

Of course I'm of the mind that anyone who does not comply with the directions of the guy who is holding a gun pointed at him really doesn't deserve much consideration. Survival of the fittest and all that.

I suppose I can put my .02 in here.

First I would like to say that I appreciate the job that is done by law enforcement. I know it is not easy and hardly worth the money. I also think that officers should be allowed to carry tasers so they are better able to defend themselves. But when should it be used. I have seen a video of a guy who is trying to explain something standing ten feet from a cop and making no moves toward the officer get tazed. The guy was just talking and hardly combative. It seemed that the officer just did not want to hear the guy say anything else so he tazed him. I doubt this is the norm but I would not be surprised if this cop is abusive of his power more often. Abuse of power happens.

If a person charges you of course its time to take out the tazer, but this guy did not appear to fight. To me it seemed like an officer thought he had the easiest way to handle the situation.

im sorry but I can not resist

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I dont spend a lot of time in the off-topic forum but i found this particular discussion interesting.

I dont know all of the facts surrounding this event but I would suggest that the problem here is training. Police in australia have are in a similar situation in that there is never enough time or money to train them for every situation they are likely to encounter.

Mental health particularly... there have been a number fo incidents where force has been used to subdue individuals there were having some kind of "episode" and the responding officers were either not trained or not equiped to deal with such a situation.

At the end of the day, I guess, my opinion is this... Our police do a difficult and thankless job.. they work round the clock and everything they do comes under enormous scrutiny... it's not a job I could do.

Every police officer deserves to be able to do his/her tour and go home in the same condition they went to work in... i believe they have the same entitlement to safety in the workplace that you and I have come to expect in ours.

The wider public need to be re-trained in the idea that if you come at a police officer with violent intentions (i'm not talking about the canadian incident here) then things are likely to end badly for you. Maybe over time the message will get through and people will be less inclined to "have a go" at a cop.

Look at it this way... if we take the taser away from officers... it leaves room on their belt for another mag of 9mm ammo

Greg Frazer