Thread: Taser Controversy

I was looking for the old thread regarding the death of Robert Dziekanski who was Tasered repeatedly by the RCMP at Vancouver International Airport, but I suspect the recent server crash erased it. Anyhow, I wanted to update everyone on a CBC special report I saw this evening. Apparently Taser International has been doing their best to subvert all studies which contradict their tale that tasers are safer than Tylenol. A physician from Chicago (sorry I don't have the data handy) who is also a SWAT team member did studies on pigs and discovered that if the electrical stream crosses the heart, that heart starts beating VERY irregularly instantly and can remain that way for many minutes afterward including complete cardiac failure. Taser's people keep trying to promote the idea of "excited delirium" as the actual cause of these deaths and say all of their executives have been Tasered themselves! of course, the clips they show are all of their people being Tasered in the back.

My feeling at this point is that Taser International should simply state that any electrical impulse running through the heart muscle, including that of the Taser, may result in cardiac arrest or death. This appears to be the truth and I'm sure that most police officers, when armed with that truth, will be able to act in an appropriate manner. Currently cops are under the misconception that Tasers are perfectly harmless. None of those cops are under the misapprehension that their pistols are perfectly harmless I'm sure.

X

Originally Posted by xman

My feeling at this point is that Taser International should simply state that any electrical impulse running through the heart muscle, including that of the Taser, may result in cardiac arrest or death. This appears to be the truth...

You don't have a marketing degree, do you?
If tasers lose their harmlessness, they will also lose a good chunck of sales. Or at least have to work harder to make those sales.

Originally Posted by xman

Currently cops are under the misconception that Tasers are perfectly harmless.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but all police officers in Oklahoma City who carry a taser have to be shot with a taser before they are allowed to carry it. Same rules apply for pepper spray. With that being said, we have had one taser death in Oklahoma City. The deceased would not comply with officer's demands, and was combative and therefore was repeatedly tasered. I'm not sure if the toxicology reports are in on the person or not.

I don't know if police should have tasers. The use of them is getting way out of hand and in many cases I think they are getting used far too quickly by police. You can read all about these cases on the net. Many times police have tasered people wrongly and without the person being able to explain anything to the cops. Many people have been killed by the use/misuse of tasers even though, if you watch the video of the man at the airport, he did not appear to look threatening in any way. He looked like he was relieved to see police there, maybe his problem would be taken care of now. But, the RCMP murdered him. For nothing. He was lost, didn't know where he was, didn't speak the language. These cops should be up on charges. They never gave the man a chance to explain the problems he was having. To me, it looks like it's getting to a point where it will be "Tase first, if they survive, ask questions".

Originally Posted by sensei_kyle

I don't know about the rest of the world, but all police officers in Oklahoma City who carry a taser have to be shot with a taser before they are allowed to carry it. Same rules apply for pepper spray.

I believe newly trained policemen in certain regions of Canada have to undergo the same procedure, but I believe it was only recently implemented. The fact remains that electrical impulses form the basis of our inner workings and if it manages to affect critical areas, you can easily end up dead.

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.

f 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.

Now I agree with this, the problem is, even with the use of excessive force sometimes they simply get off with a proverbial slap in the wrists, nothing more than for show.

In Toronto for example, there have been cases with overly excessive force, resulting in MULTIPLE deaths, where the officers have gotten off scot free, mostly due to coverups. I mean how do officers justify emptying nearly a hundred rounds at point blank range into a suspect's car who appears to be pulling out a gun?

In this case one officer thought he saw the African-American reach for a gun, whether this was true or not - he fired. That shot ricocheted and hit another officer's vest. The end result was total mayham as several officers emptied into the car. Now there's no question about it, if he truly thought that man was reaching for an gun that he should be shot.

In the tazer incident in Vancouver, thus far the officers in question have simply been relocated. I don't think they've actually been reprimanded severely for the death.

Quite right Ziggy, those officers were reassigned to different front lines and remain on duty.

w12code3; I hear you loud and clear and couldn't agree with you more. Equip good officers with good information and good tools and we can expect good results. If you or anyone out there is inferring from me that the Taser is an inappropriate tool, then I must apologise. I support the proper use of this non lethal weapon. I am against its physical abuse by officers and its intellectual abuse by executives. Let's have the truth of it and we'll all be better off, is my opinion.

X

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

Originally Posted by ScottS

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

Well when ya get right down to it, I'd much rather be tased than shot with a sidearm...