The use of Tasers "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture," the UN's Committee Against Torture said. "In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events." Three men — all in their early 20s — died from after tasering in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being tasered by Canadian police. There have been 17 deaths in Canada following the use of Tasers since they were approved for use, and 275 deaths in the US. "According to Amnesty International, coroners have listed the Taser jolt as a contributing factor in more than 30 of those deaths."
Wtf is Excited Delirium? The Taser company and police department seem to be always quick to blame any deaths associated with tasers on this supposed condition, while APA nor any other medical body recognizes this as any type of medical condition.
What usually happens is that these people are in such an agitated state that when approached by law enforcement (or a security guard, or some shopkeeper who is trying to get them out of the store, or some passerby trying to get them out of running down the middle of the road in heavy traffic) tend to get even more aggressive and attack, and don't respond to the usual methods of being subdued like pepper spray or threat of arrest or being shot or anything. It can and and often does take 4 or 5 heavily trained policemen to get these guys out of danger. What has happened in the past is that these people continue to fight even when restrained in handcuffs, and then die of a sudden cardiac event most likely due to all the excitement and inability to calm down due to whatever drugs they are on. Over the years this has been well recognized and most sensible jurisdictions have rules such as "once handcuffed do not place in prone position" due to higher chances of these people dying from positional asphyxia.
Anyways, back to the Taser thing. Taser for years and years have been saying that since these deaths can happen WITHOUT the use of a Taser, then it's reasonable to assume that their use had no bearing on whether or not the guy lived or died and he probably woulda died anyways because documented causes of people with excited delirium have and will continue to die under these circumstances. And what they are saying is true to a certain extent: If people die without it, then why would you expect its use specifically to be the sole cause of their death? This guy in this most recent case most certainly was in a crazed state and very well could have died without the use of the Taser: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/11/24/custody-death.html [www.cbc.ca]. But that doesn't mean that the use of the Taser even in these cases wasn't contributory in some way. That recent Vancouver airport case had negative toxicology as far as I know, so we can't blame drugs on that guy's death, though he was clearly agitated. But it's just very difficult to prove, even with this video evidence, that the death was caused directly by the taser. It's electrical current. It doesn't leave any pathology.
Two jurisdictions in the States (Ohio and Chicago) have both attempted to certify deaths with "due to Taser" in the death certificate and both have been sued into submission. Taser has a huge lobby and has hired a number of physicists (not doctors) including this guy http://www.andcor.com/page/1/news_032206.jsp [andcor.com] to go around the country giving lectures on how Tasers won't cause death and certifying them otherwise will land you a big fat lawsuit.
Anyways, it's a complicated issue, but in reference to your original question, excitation delirium is a state of agitation and occasionally extreme violence and paranoia usually brought on by stimulants and can commonly cause death in a mechanism not yet completely understood. Taser has been using it as an explanation for why people who have been Tasered go on to die for years. Hope that helps. The issue is extremely contentious and and very political at the moment.
The issue is extremely contentious and and very political at the moment.
You are right, but in this case it is not a bad thing for the discussion to be political. The question at hand is that, given we have seen several deadly uses of Tasers (i.e. uses where the subject died subsequently, without any other obvious causes, such as a drug overdose), and given the numerous leaked videos showing Tasers being used on already restrained victims, many people (including me) start to think that it was and is a bad idea to give Police the right to use Tasers.
I think it's a psychological thing. There's no strong negative feedback to the person using the taser, there are no obvious marks being left on the victim, it is difficult for the victim to communicate just how painful the taser drive was to him, and the policemen consider the taser to be non-lethal. All that makes them highly likely to use tasers in situations where their use is entirely unnecessary.
Working as an EMT several years ago, I have personally had to restrain people suffering from hypoglycaemia -- a state very similar to what might be called "excited delirium". In one case, it took five men to hold down a homeless woman so that we could give her the live-saving glucose injection. Nevertheless, we managed to do so without hurting or even bruising her. For us her behaviour was easily explained by her blood-sugar levels, but I imagine a policeman without medical training would have taken her to be aggressive and might have thought it a good idea to taser her -- which certainly wouldn't have helped, given that she was already horribly agitated. The situations where I think Tasers are justified get fewer every day. I think it's about time we take this things out of our police officers' hands.
Originally, tasers as used in law enforcement were conceived as an alternative to lethal force--why shoot someone when you can use nonlethal weaponry?
Yet it has been proven over and over throughout history that whenever you give someone a nonlethal weapon, they're more likely to use them than a lethal weapon, even though its supposed to be a replacement for the lethal weapon.
And not surprisingly, this has happened with tasers, too; police are using them in absurd circumstances, even in some cases when the subject did nothing beyond verbal defiance, and worse, in cases where someone was "acting suspicious", such as in a recent case where an Egyptian man was tasered on a bus without any provocation--yet these were supposed to be used as replacements for guns, not as general-purpose weapons to put down anyone who looks suspicious!
This will continue until tasers are given the same respect firearms have.
Power is power, no matter the instrument. If you gave the same people nightsticks, they'd be just as likely to bludgeon someone to death. Give these people training, and they'll only bludgeon their victims to near-death or to whatever limits they're given within the law.
What makes tasers particularly bad is that its range of effects are politicized; the desirable effects are emphasized, and the undesirable ones get swept under the rug. We know what a gun can do, and will likely do. We know what a club or knife or sword of flail can and will likely do. But not everyone knows that tasers can kill. This results in lax regulation of its use and the circumstances under which it can be used, which results in overuse, to sometimes very bad results.
Regardless, even if tasers are acknowledged to be potentially fatal (though less so than a firearm), the human element of recklessly using power remains.
Just today, I saw someone attack a few police officers on TV. He was pretty strong, but he was hold to the ground by three police officers and was already starting to be out of breath. The fourth officer did not hold him back but got a taser. After tasering the guy everybody stood back, while the mad man was clearly reacting to the taser in a rather awfull way. Okay, so maybe at that time the police would have gotten away with it.
Then before getting him in the vehicle, while he was still on the ground, the police tasered him *again*. Now that's just right of the scale. Completely unnecessary, just a knee-jerk rejection from somebody who is supposed to be a professional. Guys (and girls), don't get suckered into believing things like these do not constitute torture. Leaving somebody in the sun of 35C or more for longer periods of time is torture. Sleep derivation is torture. Loud music for long periods of time is torture.
In the Netherlands, the guy who killed Pim Fortuin was kept into a cell with very bright lights and continuous camera surveillance. It was pretty clear what he had done, and he was in custody already. Of course he needed to get punished. But, as there was no intent by himself to commit suicide, and since he was not convicted yet, this simply amounts to torture. Unfortunately the current government likes to copy the US, so we are already waiting for the introduction of the taser. This in a country that has a rather low crime ratio compared to other western countries.
>There is some truth to this sentiment, which is why police officers in most districts are required to be both >tasered and pepper-sprayed during training - so that they realise just how effective a tool they are.
The trouble is - the officer gets a single jolt from the taser. When they actually *use* the damn thing the administer continuous or repeated shocks. I've been watching this situation develop for quite some time and wondered when it was going to come to a head. Maybe the time is now.
I won't bother denying that it doesn't get abused, but I do think that it is important to recognize that somebody that is tazered is far less likely to come to permanent harm than one that has been shot.
Yes but a person who is tasered is often a lot more likely to come to harm than a person who would never have been shot. The cops who tasered Mr. Gaubert while he was incapacitated by a diabetic coma, would be in jail if they had just shot him. Ditto for the officer who tasered the 87 year old woman in a wheelchair who yelled at her.
Abuse would likely also happen if officers just had firearms as well. I don't personally think that that would be a better situation. At least with tazers, mace and pepper spray the likelihood of having somebody to apologize to is far higher than with a firearm.
Sometimes that is true and sometimes it isn't. You assume the alternative to tasering someone is to pull a gun on them. In truth, the alternative is often just to stand back and talk to them, or simply walk away from them.
It is quite another to actually have to deal with both sides of the story and try to reconcile them in a way that suits the public interest rather than inflaming tensions between different groups of people.
I know quite a few cops. My brother used to be one and a friend of mine sells tasers as part of his law enforcement equipment business. I have heard the stories of punishing some "punk kid" or "nigger" or "hippy" and shutting their smart mouth up with a taser. Those same cops would never have fired their weapon in the same situation because they'd be held accountable, probably for murder.
I'm not arguing tasers don't have their uses and should not be used, but hopefully this classification by the UN will get police departments to look seriously at their rules for using them and start to help curb their overuse and use in inappropriate situations, as well as provide support for private lawsuits that will help do the same thing.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 24 2007, @10:03PM (#21467553)
I would say all of you need to take a ride in a hard suburb where cops risk theirs lives every day, and maybe we might less retarded cop hate on the internet.
I don't care a whit for the temporal safety of police officers. They knew they were risking their lives when they signed up. What I do care about is citizens being free to go about their business without having to explain themselves or get searched because they look a little odd. The police will take things from your person without your consent, beat you, search your car, then lie on the report, just because they're paying child support to their two ex-wives and are angry at the world. That tape from the hood of the car? There's no reason it can't get lost. The judge will always rule in their cops' favour because they had a reasonable suspicion, and if you spend a few thousand dollars to go to appellate court, you MIGHT get some recourse. Hope you have a witness, and try not to ever jaywalk again.
My opinion is that there should be no protected class of people in whose presence your hands must be visible at all times, and whom it is a great offense to even touch. I take great exception to the idea that anyone should be allowed to stop me on the street at night and demand my wallet and weapons, as to let the peasants have weapons would create a threat to the social order. I have known cops to give law-abiding people a hard time because they had long hair, because they were skateboarding, because they were carrying a bag, and, yes, because they were black. Some of the cops who get away with this stuff are my personal friends. Many Americans have perfectly legitimate reasons to hate cops, and while my experiences have not led me to conclude that there should be no law enforcement, current police authority is overreaching. Those with power will always be insensitive to the humanity of those "below" them, but we shouldn't have this powerful, completely corrupt system backing them up.
That's a form of torture too and the kind of "non-lethal force" the police used to turn to. The only difference between beating someone with a baton and tasering them is that the officer using a taser doesn't have to be physically stronger than the victim (err, suspect), and suspects don't think they can fight back like they do against police using batons.
That's a form of torture too and the kind of "non-lethal force" the police used to turn to. The only difference between beating someone with a baton and tasering them is that the officer using a taser doesn't have to be physically stronger than the victim (err, suspect), and suspects don't think they can fight back like they do against police using batons.
The critical difference is that when you beat someone with a baton, you leave bruises and other evidence of abuse. The reason police and militaries love tasers (and microwave radiation, electrical shocks, waterboarding, etc) is that they can go to town on anyone and it is the suspects' word against the cops' about how harshly they were treated. Perfectly healthy looking people are a lot less interesting to show on the news than folks with black eyes and broken arms.
For a start, don't call me kid. If you did a tiny (itsy bitsy) bit of research you would see how old I am.
I've actually been beaten by police in a "peaceful protest". Our sit down was broken up by police and someone I didn't know hit one of them. That was all they needed to beat down all of us. I tell you, the only thing I was thinking was that if I could get one of the batons off them I could have an even shot at taking a few of them out.
They don't call it "fight or flight" for nothing. Some people run, some people fight.
In retrospect the whole thing (included the reasons why we were protesting) seems kind of stupid.
Good now maybe it will affect police department policy reguarding them. Remember back when tasers were first issued they were praised as being a non lethal way to stop a dangerous person. Instead of having to shoot a rake wielding drunk you could tase them instead. Now look at it's use today, if you even look at a cop wrong his hand travels towards it. So far removed from its initial purpose I hope this helps bring it back toward it's proper applications.
It seems that police use it as a extra form or untraceable corporal punishment. It's meant to be used as a next to lethal last resort but increasingly it's just replaced "couple punches to the face with a phone book in between". Stories vary but often after a person has put up a fight the police subdue him and then taser them. or use the taser to subdue him but then give a couple of extra shock to show whose boss etc... I find the people to gravitate to or are allowed to be policemen in my city aren't much different then the thugs that watch the exit at bars nor the bullies on the play ground. Anecdotally, a athletic friend of mine who had a black belt was turned down for enrollment into the police academy because he "lack life experience" while an acquaintance who spent a year as a bouncer at a strip club got accepted.
I find it very interesting that Taser International claims that the 150+ deaths that have occurred immediately after the person is shot with the Taser are not caused by the Taser. At the same time their website has pages (see below) of warnings about all the medical risks associated with being shot by a Taser (such as an increased risk of heart attack).
As other posters have already commented, it is not the Taser itself that is the problem, it is the use of it. If these were being used only in cases where a firearm would normally be used it is one thing. In that situation a small risk of death by Taser is acceptable when compared to the near certainty after being shot multiple times. But that is not what we are seeing. People are dying in situations where without the Taser they would not be seriously harmed....and that is what I have a problem with.
Things are going downhill with the UN calling tasering "torture". Because we don't torture, therefore, we don't taser. So let's call it something cooler, hipper, like "waterboarding". I'm waiting for suggestions.
While I think that using tasers can be a better idea than guns or nightsticks, you've only got to watch youtube videos and TV shows like Cops to see how much American police abuse their use. They seem far too quick to reach for the taser, and often use it as an immediate punishment for verbal non-compliance rather than to disable someone who is actually a physical threat. So much for free speech. They also regularly seem to shock the target continuously or multiple times sometimes rather than just administer enough to disable them. I think the US cops could learn a lot by working with the UK cops who often don't even carry weapons. They know how to deal with the same problems the US cops deal with, but by talking and using their heads instead of escalating the violence by attacking first.
a former deputy sheriff. Don't point a gun at something you don't mean to kill. In this case, a Taser is a GUN. The lack of regulation and procedures regarding their use is troubling. If the paperwork involved was half of what was needed after pulling a gun then the incidents of their use would go down.
I believe a Taser is a safer and effective weapon, but should be respected just as much as a firearm when its drawn.
More like:
"I say, old chap, don't taser me." [Zzzzt]
"I say, that was rather rude. [Zzzzt]
"Bloody hell, please stop tasering me. [Zzzzt]
"Sod off, you wanker!"
Eh... I don't care how many meth-addicts you come across during a typical day. If you can't learn the difference between them and a kid that's being held on the ground by 6 cops at a John Kerry speech or a guy going 10 over the limit, then you are not fit to protect or serve anything. Period.
I've heard the "crazy meth'd up homeless guy" argument several times in every taser discussion.
Yet I've known several cops, and none of them have had to take down any crazy meth'd up homeless guys who were impossible to restrain using normal force, in their entire careers. I've never seen one outside of sensationalist websites or TV shows.
It's gotten to the point that Canadian police are trained that certain subjects suffer from a health condition called "excited delirium," where they do not feel pain, cannot communicate, and are in imminent danger of hyperthermia and death. It is in their interest, therefore, to be tased as many times as necessary to get them to a doctor and save their life. This is the belief that killed the Polish immigrant who couldn't speak English and was frustrated enough at Customs' ineptitude to try to break through the glass wall separating him from his mother. "Excited delirium" is then blamed for deaths that result from multiple taserings.
The coroner and medical community have another word for it - custody death.
--------
I'm in favor of simply completely removing "drive stun" mode, making tasers projectile only, and having cops fill out all the same paperwork and undergo the same investigation as firearm discharge entails. In order to safely use one as a stun gun, you have to have the prisoner basically within the scope of your physical control. THIS is torture - using pain compliance to subdue a subject who has been rendered harmless by the situation, or who was always harmless, but resisting arrest as best they are able (if that). It's the same as having cops hold down someone to pepper-spray their eyes.
I think it might also be wise to reform the doctrine to make further tasering after the first successful application, a substitute ONLY for lethal force.
This is what's required, in my eyes, to bring the taser back to the level of humanitarian weapon.
This is the belief that killed the Polish immigrant who couldn't speak English and was frustrated enough at Customs' ineptitude to try to break through the glass wall separating him from his mother.
To clarify: the glass wall that did not directly separate him from his mother at any time, and which, at the time of his frustrated outburst, did not separate him from her at all, since she had gone home several hours earlier after being told repeatedly by airport staff that her son was not in the airport.
Also, the man had already passed through customs; in fact, he was waiting on the far side of the door between the arrival area (where his mother had told him to wait) and the main part of the airport (where his mother waited for him).
I'm not trying to say that his tasering was a good (or even reasonable) course of action, but people seem to be screaming bloody murder because the police just waltzed on into the airport, looked for the first foreigner they could find, and tased him at the first excuse; in reality, he had been waiting there for eight hours because his mother told him to wait in the wrong place and airport staff were too lazy/incompetent to find him. By the time the police arrived and enacted their screwup, everyone else had done theirs already; if they hadn't, he'd still be alive.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 24 2007, @09:19PM (#21467167)
Apparently you missed the point, making your statement a strawman, no sane person would say the gun.
The issue is unnecessary use of tasers (OR GUNS!), thats have a more realistic situation, hysteric/angry and seemingly unbalanced man is arguing with police after they question him. They know he is unarmed and while alarming, has no tried to attack anything living. What do they do:
1) taser him, and possibly kill him. 2) be polite and ask him to calm down. (then pick another option when that dont work) 3) ask for backup and have several officers arrest him with conventional means. (stick, pepper spray, and hands/body) 4) try to restrain him yourself with conventional means. 5) try to lure him somewhere where he cant hurt anything. (then picking another option) 6) wait and talk, hoping he calms down. (then picking another option)
Police are supposed to be trained in restraining people, yet far to many simply jump to the taser, a less-lethal-then-a-gun type of weapon, but still one that is VERY dangerous, and dosent always work (leaving the person VERY angry, and rightly afraid for their life). For that matter, cops seem to have a way of killing people with methods that shouldent be that lethal, suggesting that they do lack the serious training of restraining people without hurting them, and the knowledge of basic medical care to assist after a serious injury they inflicted.
Weapon involved? Tasers are good in this case. Unfortunately, tasers are not used in that manner exclusively. They are also used to "calm people down", saving the cop from having to communicate with the individual. This is unacceptable. Pulling your arm away from a cop who is trying to grab you is not immediate justification to tase (see "don't tase me, bro!") since it might very well be considered a natural reaction. And "don't let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch" has been considered. When 80 year old, wheelchair-bound schizophrenic women are being tased (and subsequently, end up dead) because the cops are too scared to handle the situation as they were trained, then tasers are obviously too much responsibility for them to handle.
Seriously, that's the choice in many situations - crazy meth'd-up homeless guy charges cop with knife...cop tases or cop shoots. Which do you prefer?
OK, how about "guy starts arguing about a speeding ticket" [liveleak.com]. Now is this situation worth risking the person's life using the potentially lethal taser? How about this guy [liveleak.com], who was rude and stole a microphone? Yes, let's risk his life too. Or how [liveleak.com] about [liveleak.com] these [liveleak.com] incidents?
Police need to be aware that every time they use a taser there is a small but REAL chance that they will kill the person they are shooting. Therefore they should be a lot more hesitant before using them than they are today. If as a doctor I perform a procedure on a patient without considering (and informing him of) the risks involved, I am liable for murder if the patient dies. The police should also be accountable, just like when draw their weapons - they need a VERY good reason to do that.
this guy [liveleak.com], who was rude and stole a microphone?
He didn't steal a microphone, he insisted on asking his question even though the event was running long. In Hollywood they play muzac over your feed, in Florida you get tasered and arrested for inciting a riot.
To be serious it's not a matter of which weapon is more lethal. It's a matter of which weapon is BELIEVED to be more lethal. Cops believe wrongfully that tasers are safe and are willing to use them in the wrong situations.
If your life is in danger, USE A GUN. There is still a chance that shooting them won't kill them, but there is nothing more horrible than a good person using a taser in the wrong situation and killing someone who was not a threat and becoming a monster.
Cops aren't supposed to use weapons where nonlethal force is advised. If nonlethal force is advised, that means negotiate. It does not mean shoot.
I've always viewed the U.N as a corrupt orginization and an enemy of the US. I'm sure many agree.
Actually, the UN is pretty mild in what it does, mostly because the US set it up that way. If the UN actually were a democratic organization, the US and Europe would fare far worse. That's not "corruption", it's reality.
The best thing the US can do is listen to what the UN has to say, because sooner or later those impoverished and powerless people that make up the majority of the world's population are going to be not so impoverished and powerless anymore.
That's absolutely true. What people seem to miss, however, is the following:
1. If the US and Western Europe aren't making the rules, somebody else is. After all, for rules to exist, somebody has to make them, right? So, of the alternatives, who do we want making the rules for us? China? Russia? Saudi Arabia? Fiji? (I kid about the last one.)
2. It's easy to forget here in the US and in other similarly run countries (Canada, Australia, Western Europe, etc.), but, contrary to what Thomas Paine thought, not all governments derive their power by the consent of their people. You think the North Koreans are happy about their government? How about Iran, which actually has an open dissident movement and numerous student demonstrations? It's true that some Western countries have governments that aren't representing the majority of their citizens' interests - the difference, though, is that, in a relatively short amount of time (usually within ten years), mechanisms put into place many years ago go into play that do something about that. The same cannot be said for, say, Iran or North Korea. Consequently, when other governments make objections or make declarations about the treatment of Canada's indigenous people, many of those other governments do not do so with the interests of their own people in mind (or even the veneer of such interests) - they're doing so blatantly for the purposes of the group in power of that country.
Wrong. Even today, the Fraser Institute (which is by no means a left-wing thinktank) calls the situation "Canada's Aparteid". I suppose your rosy outlook on our native reserves conveniently ignores the fact that the poverty comes out of the poor treatment of 30 years ago. Even today we can't be bothered to make sure that they have sanitary drinking water.
You are referring to the situations on some reservations. Most are self administered and are funded just as well or better as a municipality of the same size. It isn't for lack of money or good intentions from the government side that induces these situations. It's lack of demand for fiscal responsibility and a lack of interest in reform from the government that causes this to continues. The difference from apartheid in Africa so many years ago and the situation in Canada is Canada is not actively trying to exclude the native population from opportunities. Perhaps you'd have a case 30 years ago but right now it's just the inertia from being down for so long keeping them down. In general there have been a lot done to help them pull out of that but it will take time.
Part of the problem is people see only two options, bullets or a taser. There are many more options. What on earth must police have done before guns, tasers, and even pepper spray?
If you have to use a gun, why not a net gun [busytrade.com]? If you can hit someone with a taser, you can hit them with a net gun, too.
As much as Taser International might like you to believe it, tasers are not the only non-lethal alternative. Unfortunately, my (perhaps biased) perception seems to be that because law-enforcement buys into the "non-lethal" part of the story, they feel they are justified to use it in all kinds of circumstances where a real gun would never have been employed. We've all seen the numerous videos of people being tasered after three officers have already taken them to the ground, or being tasered simply for yelling or shouting and waving their arms around. Strap on a pair of balls and tackle the guy why don't you? It's not like cops aren't armed with a long reach baton.
Don't break the law and you won't risk your life to a taser.
Bullshit. Because tasers are supposed to be nonlethal they are often abused and used on people who have broken no laws at all. See the recent case of the man who went into a diabetic coma and was subsequently tasered while lying helpless. See the case of the 87 year old woman who was tasered at her rest home for yelling at a police officer from her wheelchair. Neither broke the law, but both were put in danger.
I fail to see how something that is painful and has a non-zero chance of death is automatically torture and should be outlawed. By that measure we should outlaw the average daily commute.
Have you ever been tasered? I volunteered to try it. It really hurts, a lot more than a punch to the face even. Have you ever seen the TV show Cops, where they'll hit a guy multiple times while they're laying on the floor. Tasers make muscles contract, and you fall down. That's great, since then they can subdue and cuff a violent offender. Hitting someone more than once, however, is simply torturing someone into compliance. That is torture, unlike a daily commute. Don't believe me, go to a store that sells them and ask for a test shot, a regular 500K stun gun is pretty similar, if tasers are not available to civilians in your state.
You're damn lucky the cops have less-lethal weapons as an option (lead beanbags, tasers, paintball pepper spray, etc etc etc), rather than just "do I shoot this guy or not".
I think the main problem is that tasers are not being used only as an alternative to a gun. If police were to think "I will only use the taser in the circumstance that otherwise I would be firing my gun," then your point is valid. However, it seems that in many situations, police are using tasers as a way to simply make their job of arresting someone easier.
The videotape of the guy in Vancouver shows pretty clearly that he was not in the process of attacking the police when they tased him. I seriously doubt that the police would have shot him had they arrived without a taser in that circumstance. Without a taser, they probably would have tried to slowly convey to him their intent to arrest him (he didn't speak English), and if unsuccessful they would have had to tackle him and struggle to restrain him. Both processes would be lengthy, difficult, and stressful for the police. Instead, it appears that they took an easy shortcut and just tased him so they could get the cuffs on him quickly. The man paid for this with his life. Without a taser, I submit he would likely be alive today.
So you're right: a taser used as a substitute for a gun (when the use of a gun is warranted) is fine. Using a taser when use of a gun is not warranted is the problem!
It's not really an issue of lethal rounds or nothing, it's the lower barrier of entry and lower accountability of using a taser. Would this Polish guy at Vancouver airport have been shot in the heart? Unlikely. Would he even have been clubbed? Again, unlikely. Tasers seem to take on this extra appeal. There's no accountability to using them. You don't feel the force of your impact, you're detached from the fact that your volts very well could be killing this person. In essence, you've got no negative feedback for tasering them, and thus a taser becomes an acceptable weapon at a time when weapons are not needed.
Pepper Spray, clubs, Handguns, and even hand to hand all have different negative feedbacks which inhibit their abuse, at least a little bit. A taser has none. Look at the guy that tasered a handcuffed 17 year old girl. They dropped the case, citing there wasn't enough evidence. The police force's current taser policy is clearly pretty unacceptable.
One of many abuses with no accountability forthcoming, the ability for the normal patrol car to lookup information of licenses places for purposes of stalking, abusing, and harassing people has been around for years. The patrolling near a bar, finding a vehicle with an owner low on points, then as they leave give them an ticket for leverage or excuse them from a ticket for leverage has been well documented.
Efforts for oversight (i know get ready for this)... pre-911... we forthcoming, but now would obviously be impossible. Nobody is going to have oversight on what people are querying outside a bar, near a beach or out on the highway.
This is the major problem with "non-lethal" weapons. When you have a pistol, the consequences of using it in any situation other than "he's charging at me with a knife and going to stab me" are rather dire. The penalties for misusing a taser are far less serious. If there are any penalties at all. A taser becomes a one-shot fix to any situation. Any "non-lethal" device can have serious side-effects or become lethal when done to the wrong individual, but I think tasers are being shown to be too dangerous. Rather than a last resort when you can't even wrestle someone to the ground, it's a first-resort.
How many lives have been saved by the use of Tasers? For instance, without a taser it may indeed be much more likely for cops to have to resort to guns and/or other less predictable violent means to protect themselves.
I would speculate that a very, very small number of lives have been saved by tasers. I would assume, in a country like the US where the cops routinely carry guns, that when a police officer thinks they are in serious danger, they'll reach for their gun. Just like they did before tasers.
I would imagine the cops only reach for the taser when they know they are safe. It would be interesting to see whether there was a reduction in accidental/mistaken police shootings after tasers were issued to cops. Certainly, here in the New York area, the cops seem to mistakenly shoot someone every 3 months or so.
First, my reaction to the UN's declaration was that yes, a Taser can be used as a torture device. So can't a gun, knife, lead pipe, car battery, bamboo splinters, fire, torches, soldering irons, rubber shirts, spoons, etc...
Heck, even bare hands and feet can be used.
Used properly(1), a taser is not only supposed to be a substitute for a gun, it's also a substitute for pepper spray(2), baton(3), and various forms of barehanded submission techniques like beating the subject on the head until he's too disoriented to resist being handcuffed while three or four officers put their weight on him.
As for risk of death - people die suddenly all the time; for reasons that make you go 'huh'. It's kinda like how sex can kill somebody with a heart problem. The trick is, the sex was frequently just the 'last straw'. It could have been the flight of stairs a few days later, that slammed door resulting in a shock and adrenaline burst, or just going to wake up, or even just out of the blue. Heck, nominally healthy people like highschool football players have a nonzero chance of dying of heart attack. A simple hit, merely bruising could dislodge a clot or something and result in a lethal stroke. There's 300 million people in the USA. I can't find the number of arrests other than '800k' for weed. Marijuana arrests are a big chunk, but I don't think that's the majority. Most arrests are non-violent on the other hand. Let's go with 500k-1M physical force arrests - that's enough that you'll have some weird stuff pop up.
At least some tasers have recording devices in them - the police can tell how many shocks were delivered, the length of each, how far apart, etc... In at least one of the cases it WAS used as a torture device - how else can you explain 30 shocks over a 5 minute period? Still, go after that officer for torture, not ban the device. Make sure there's good training as well.
Interesting post [blogspot.com] by Lawdog on the subject of tasers and force usage.
My conclusion? Taser usage needs to be monitored; should not be used alone, should be used for it's purpose: disrupt the individual enough that other physical controls such as handcuffs can be emplaced. Should definitely not be used as a torture device. As you're using a taser, you should be arresting somebody - have the details of the usage, along with justification, be in the report.
(1)As we've already determined that improper usage can turn more devices into torture implements than can't be. (2)Still a nonzero risk of death; asthma, patients with breathing problems, and pain is longer than necessary (3)You're clubbing the person into submission - risk of death is very real, as is lasting injuries.
it's possible that the cops that have killed with them were not properly educated
That may be true. And exactly what leeway do we want to give to people who kill because they are "not properly educated "? Should a cop (who is supposed to be so educated) get more leeway than any other bozo (who may not have such occupational credentials)? Or should "I was not properly educated" be a fitting defense for everyone?
Cops get tased in very controlled circumstances (spotters, padded floor with ems on hand) and only for extremely short durations and only once. They then feel like they can tase people who are standing on concrete, in poor health, for as long as they want, and as many times as they want. Just once I'd like to do some real world testing on cops like they do on citizens routinely. If they got pissed at how much I was enjoying it, well I'd just give em another jolt to calm them down. This would continue until they saw my the logic of my superior reasoning.
The problem is it pretty apparent (at least to me) that the taser is quickly becoming the 21st century version of the rubber hose. We have seen time after time that in situations where in times past they simply would have restrained the individual or attempted to diffuse the tension they now reach for the taser as the FIRST choice, instead of what it should be, which is a last choice before drawing their weapon.
In fact, that is the standard I think should apply to taser use-Would you have used your gun in that situation? The whole point of the taser was to give a cop the a less lethal alternative to lethal force. But as we have seen all over the Internet lately, it has become either a "He/She was looking at me funny" tool of intimidation or a "Don't tase me bro!" tool of torture. I think until a higher standard of conduct can be written in regards to tasers a moratorium should be in place. It has just become another torture device as it is now.
Wreck beach [wreckbeach.org] is a popular clothing optional ("nude") beach near Vancouver (and almost within sight of the airport where Dziekanski was tasered to death. [www.cbc.ca] It's also a beach where the RCMP tend to be very pedantic about the law -- one of which is that the beach closes at sunset [flickr.com]...
So, as they're often want to do, they started clearing the beach mere minutes after the sun had set.
One of the people they came across was someone who had fallen asleep. When they woke him up and told him to leave the beach, he was a bit groggy, and slow to gather his stuff, get dressed and leave.... so they tasered him.
Now, I don't think that a groggy (nearly) naked guy is the kind of situation where use of a baton would be considered reasonable force. I don't even think it would be considered reasonable to use a half-nelson on the guy. Hell, the only thing that they could do for him being too late on the beach was to give him a ticket.
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But he was tasered.
My only explanation is that they intended the tasering exactly as torture -- and an exemplary action to other beach users that you quickly comply with orders to get off the beach at the stroke of sunset or else!
To offer another, similar example: police in England tasered a man in a diabetic coma [bbc.co.uk] because they thought he was a security threat and he wasn't responding to them. They shocked him because he wasn't responding - he was unconscious - how could that possibly be use of the taser in order protect the officers?
"Excited Delirium" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Excited Delirium" (Score:5, Informative)
What usually happens is that these people are in such an agitated state that when approached by law enforcement (or a security guard, or some shopkeeper who is trying to get them out of the store, or some passerby trying to get them out of running down the middle of the road in heavy traffic) tend to get even more aggressive and attack, and don't respond to the usual methods of being subdued like pepper spray or threat of arrest or being shot or anything. It can and and often does take 4 or 5 heavily trained policemen to get these guys out of danger. What has happened in the past is that these people continue to fight even when restrained in handcuffs, and then die of a sudden cardiac event most likely due to all the excitement and inability to calm down due to whatever drugs they are on. Over the years this has been well recognized and most sensible jurisdictions have rules such as "once handcuffed do not place in prone position" due to higher chances of these people dying from positional asphyxia.
Anyways, back to the Taser thing. Taser for years and years have been saying that since these deaths can happen WITHOUT the use of a Taser, then it's reasonable to assume that their use had no bearing on whether or not the guy lived or died and he probably woulda died anyways because documented causes of people with excited delirium have and will continue to die under these circumstances. And what they are saying is true to a certain extent: If people die without it, then why would you expect its use specifically to be the sole cause of their death? This guy in this most recent case most certainly was in a crazed state and very well could have died without the use of the Taser: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/11/24/custody-death.html [www.cbc.ca]. But that doesn't mean that the use of the Taser even in these cases wasn't contributory in some way. That recent Vancouver airport case had negative toxicology as far as I know, so we can't blame drugs on that guy's death, though he was clearly agitated. But it's just very difficult to prove, even with this video evidence, that the death was caused directly by the taser. It's electrical current. It doesn't leave any pathology.
Two jurisdictions in the States (Ohio and Chicago) have both attempted to certify deaths with "due to Taser" in the death certificate and both have been sued into submission. Taser has a huge lobby and has hired a number of physicists (not doctors) including this guy http://www.andcor.com/page/1/news_032206.jsp [andcor.com] to go around the country giving lectures on how Tasers won't cause death and certifying them otherwise will land you a big fat lawsuit.
Anyways, it's a complicated issue, but in reference to your original question, excitation delirium is a state of agitation and occasionally extreme violence and paranoia usually brought on by stimulants and can commonly cause death in a mechanism not yet completely understood. Taser has been using it as an explanation for why people who have been Tasered go on to die for years. Hope that helps. The issue is extremely contentious and and very political at the moment.
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Re:"Excited Delirium" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's a psychological thing. There's no strong negative feedback to the person using the taser, there are no obvious marks being left on the victim, it is difficult for the victim to communicate just how painful the taser drive was to him, and the policemen consider the taser to be non-lethal. All that makes them highly likely to use tasers in situations where their use is entirely unnecessary.
Working as an EMT several years ago, I have personally had to restrain people suffering from hypoglycaemia -- a state very similar to what might be called "excited delirium". In one case, it took five men to hold down a homeless woman so that we could give her the live-saving glucose injection. Nevertheless, we managed to do so without hurting or even bruising her. For us her behaviour was easily explained by her blood-sugar levels, but I imagine a policeman without medical training would have taken her to be aggressive and might have thought it a good idea to taser her -- which certainly wouldn't have helped, given that she was already horribly agitated. The situations where I think Tasers are justified get fewer every day. I think it's about time we take this things out of our police officers' hands.
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Why tasers are bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet it has been proven over and over throughout history that whenever you give someone a nonlethal weapon, they're more likely to use them than a lethal weapon, even though its supposed to be a replacement for the lethal weapon.
And not surprisingly, this has happened with tasers, too; police are using them in absurd circumstances, even in some cases when the subject did nothing beyond verbal defiance, and worse, in cases where someone was "acting suspicious", such as in a recent case where an Egyptian man was tasered on a bus without any provocation--yet these were supposed to be used as replacements for guns, not as general-purpose weapons to put down anyone who looks suspicious!
Re:Why tasers are bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
Power is power, no matter the instrument. If you gave the same people nightsticks, they'd be just as likely to bludgeon someone to death. Give these people training, and they'll only bludgeon their victims to near-death or to whatever limits they're given within the law.
What makes tasers particularly bad is that its range of effects are politicized; the desirable effects are emphasized, and the undesirable ones get swept under the rug. We know what a gun can do, and will likely do. We know what a club or knife or sword of flail can and will likely do. But not everyone knows that tasers can kill. This results in lax regulation of its use and the circumstances under which it can be used, which results in overuse, to sometimes very bad results.
Regardless, even if tasers are acknowledged to be potentially fatal (though less so than a firearm), the human element of recklessly using power remains.
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Re:Why tasers are bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then before getting him in the vehicle, while he was still on the ground, the police tasered him *again*. Now that's just right of the scale. Completely unnecessary, just a knee-jerk rejection from somebody who is supposed to be a professional. Guys (and girls), don't get suckered into believing things like these do not constitute torture. Leaving somebody in the sun of 35C or more for longer periods of time is torture. Sleep derivation is torture. Loud music for long periods of time is torture.
In the Netherlands, the guy who killed Pim Fortuin was kept into a cell with very bright lights and continuous camera surveillance. It was pretty clear what he had done, and he was in custody already. Of course he needed to get punished. But, as there was no intent by himself to commit suicide, and since he was not convicted yet, this simply amounts to torture. Unfortunately the current government likes to copy the US, so we are already waiting for the introduction of the taser. This in a country that has a rather low crime ratio compared to other western countries.
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Re:Why tasers are bad. (Score:5, Informative)
>tasered and pepper-sprayed during training - so that they realise just how effective a tool they are.
The trouble is - the officer gets a single jolt from the taser. When they actually *use* the damn thing the administer continuous or repeated shocks. I've been watching this situation develop for quite some time and wondered when it was going to come to a head. Maybe the time is now.
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Re:Why tasers are bad. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes but a person who is tasered is often a lot more likely to come to harm than a person who would never have been shot. The cops who tasered Mr. Gaubert while he was incapacitated by a diabetic coma, would be in jail if they had just shot him. Ditto for the officer who tasered the 87 year old woman in a wheelchair who yelled at her.
Sometimes that is true and sometimes it isn't. You assume the alternative to tasering someone is to pull a gun on them. In truth, the alternative is often just to stand back and talk to them, or simply walk away from them.
I know quite a few cops. My brother used to be one and a friend of mine sells tasers as part of his law enforcement equipment business. I have heard the stories of punishing some "punk kid" or "nigger" or "hippy" and shutting their smart mouth up with a taser. Those same cops would never have fired their weapon in the same situation because they'd be held accountable, probably for murder.
I'm not arguing tasers don't have their uses and should not be used, but hopefully this classification by the UN will get police departments to look seriously at their rules for using them and start to help curb their overuse and use in inappropriate situations, as well as provide support for private lawsuits that will help do the same thing.
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Papers, please (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care a whit for the temporal safety of police officers. They knew they were risking their lives when they signed up. What I do care about is citizens being free to go about their business without having to explain themselves or get searched because they look a little odd. The police will take things from your person without your consent, beat you, search your car, then lie on the report, just because they're paying child support to their two ex-wives and are angry at the world. That tape from the hood of the car? There's no reason it can't get lost. The judge will always rule in their cops' favour because they had a reasonable suspicion, and if you spend a few thousand dollars to go to appellate court, you MIGHT get some recourse. Hope you have a witness, and try not to ever jaywalk again.
My opinion is that there should be no protected class of people in whose presence your hands must be visible at all times, and whom it is a great offense to even touch. I take great exception to the idea that anyone should be allowed to stop me on the street at night and demand my wallet and weapons, as to let the peasants have weapons would create a threat to the social order. I have known cops to give law-abiding people a hard time because they had long hair, because they were skateboarding, because they were carrying a bag, and, yes, because they were black. Some of the cops who get away with this stuff are my personal friends. Many Americans have perfectly legitimate reasons to hate cops, and while my experiences have not led me to conclude that there should be no law enforcement, current police authority is overreaching. Those with power will always be insensitive to the humanity of those "below" them, but we shouldn't have this powerful, completely corrupt system backing them up.
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Much like beating people with batons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Much like beating people with batons (Score:5, Insightful)
The critical difference is that when you beat someone with a baton, you leave bruises and other evidence of abuse. The reason police and militaries love tasers (and microwave radiation, electrical shocks, waterboarding, etc) is that they can go to town on anyone and it is the suspects' word against the cops' about how harshly they were treated. Perfectly healthy looking people are a lot less interesting to show on the news than folks with black eyes and broken arms.
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Re:Much like beating people with batons (Score:5, Interesting)
I've actually been beaten by police in a "peaceful protest". Our sit down was broken up by police and someone I didn't know hit one of them. That was all they needed to beat down all of us. I tell you, the only thing I was thinking was that if I could get one of the batons off them I could have an even shot at taking a few of them out.
They don't call it "fight or flight" for nothing. Some people run, some people fight.
In retrospect the whole thing (included the reasons why we were protesting) seems kind of stupid.
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Tin foil (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tin foil (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
The Neighbors
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Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Corpral Punishment (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting situation (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.taser.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Controlled%20Documents/Warnings/LG-INST-CTZWARN-001%20REV%20E%20Citizen%20Warnings.pdf [taser.com]
As other posters have already commented, it is not the Taser itself that is the problem, it is the use of it. If these were being used only in cases where a firearm would normally be used it is one thing. In that situation a small risk of death by Taser is acceptable when compared to the near certainty after being shot multiple times. But that is not what we are seeing. People are dying in situations where without the Taser they would not be seriously harmed....and that is what I have a problem with.
Quick, redefine! (Score:4, Funny)
Things are going downhill with the UN calling tasering "torture". Because we don't torture, therefore, we don't taser. So let's call it something cooler, hipper, like "waterboarding". I'm waiting for suggestions.
275? (Score:4, Informative)
Taser abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
They seem far too quick to reach for the taser, and often use it as an immediate punishment for verbal non-compliance rather than to disable someone who is actually a physical threat.
So much for free speech.
They also regularly seem to shock the target continuously or multiple times sometimes rather than just administer enough to disable them.
I think the US cops could learn a lot by working with the UK cops who often don't even carry weapons. They know how to deal with the same problems the US cops deal with, but by talking and using their heads instead of escalating the violence by attacking first.
Good Rule from My Uncle Ken (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe a Taser is a safer and effective weapon, but should be respected just as much as a firearm when its drawn.
Re:gah. (Score:5, Funny)
More like:
"I say, old chap, don't taser me."
[Zzzzt]
"I say, that was rather rude.
[Zzzzt]
"Bloody hell, please stop tasering me.
[Zzzzt]
"Sod off, you wanker!"
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet I've known several cops, and none of them have had to take down any crazy meth'd up homeless guys who were impossible to restrain using normal force, in their entire careers. I've never seen one outside of sensationalist websites or TV shows.
It's gotten to the point that Canadian police are trained that certain subjects suffer from a health condition called "excited delirium," where they do not feel pain, cannot communicate, and are in imminent danger of hyperthermia and death. It is in their interest, therefore, to be tased as many times as necessary to get them to a doctor and save their life. This is the belief that killed the Polish immigrant who couldn't speak English and was frustrated enough at Customs' ineptitude to try to break through the glass wall separating him from his mother. "Excited delirium" is then blamed for deaths that result from multiple taserings.
The coroner and medical community have another word for it - custody death.
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I'm in favor of simply completely removing "drive stun" mode, making tasers projectile only, and having cops fill out all the same paperwork and undergo the same investigation as firearm discharge entails. In order to safely use one as a stun gun, you have to have the prisoner basically within the scope of your physical control. THIS is torture - using pain compliance to subdue a subject who has been rendered harmless by the situation, or who was always harmless, but resisting arrest as best they are able (if that). It's the same as having cops hold down someone to pepper-spray their eyes.
I think it might also be wise to reform the doctrine to make further tasering after the first successful application, a substitute ONLY for lethal force.
This is what's required, in my eyes, to bring the taser back to the level of humanitarian weapon.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
To clarify: the glass wall that did not directly separate him from his mother at any time, and which, at the time of his frustrated outburst, did not separate him from her at all, since she had gone home several hours earlier after being told repeatedly by airport staff that her son was not in the airport.
Also, the man had already passed through customs; in fact, he was waiting on the far side of the door between the arrival area (where his mother had told him to wait) and the main part of the airport (where his mother waited for him).
I'm not trying to say that his tasering was a good (or even reasonable) course of action, but people seem to be screaming bloody murder because the police just waltzed on into the airport, looked for the first foreigner they could find, and tased him at the first excuse; in reality, he had been waiting there for eight hours because his mother told him to wait in the wrong place and airport staff were too lazy/incompetent to find him. By the time the police arrived and enacted their screwup, everyone else had done theirs already; if they hadn't, he'd still be alive.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is unnecessary use of tasers (OR GUNS!), thats have a more realistic situation, hysteric/angry and seemingly unbalanced man is arguing with police after they question him. They know he is unarmed and while alarming, has no tried to attack anything living. What do they do:
1) taser him, and possibly kill him.
2) be polite and ask him to calm down. (then pick another option when that dont work)
3) ask for backup and have several officers arrest him with conventional means. (stick, pepper spray, and hands/body)
4) try to restrain him yourself with conventional means.
5) try to lure him somewhere where he cant hurt anything. (then picking another option)
6) wait and talk, hoping he calms down. (then picking another option)
Police are supposed to be trained in restraining people, yet far to many simply jump to the taser, a less-lethal-then-a-gun type of weapon, but still one that is VERY dangerous, and dosent always work (leaving the person VERY angry, and rightly afraid for their life). For that matter, cops seem to have a way of killing people with methods that shouldent be that lethal, suggesting that they do lack the serious training of restraining people without hurting them, and the knowledge of basic medical care to assist after a serious injury they inflicted.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
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Remember WHY tasers were introduced. (Score:4, Insightful)
They WERE being pushed as "cop is in a dangerous situation, he can shoot or he can use a taser".
Now the tasers are the FIRST option. If the person is not IMMEDIATELY respectful and obedient, it's taser (defined: "torture") time!
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, how about "guy starts arguing about a speeding ticket" [liveleak.com]. Now is this situation worth risking the person's life using the potentially lethal taser? How about this guy [liveleak.com], who was rude and stole a microphone? Yes, let's risk his life too. Or how [liveleak.com] about [liveleak.com] these [liveleak.com] incidents?
Police need to be aware that every time they use a taser there is a small but REAL chance that they will kill the person they are shooting. Therefore they should be a lot more hesitant before using them than they are today. If as a doctor I perform a procedure on a patient without considering (and informing him of) the risks involved, I am liable for murder if the patient dies. The police should also be accountable, just like when draw their weapons - they need a VERY good reason to do that.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:4, Informative)
In Hollywood they play muzac over your feed, in Florida you get tasered and arrested for inciting a riot.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:4, Insightful)
To be serious it's not a matter of which weapon is more lethal. It's a matter of which weapon is BELIEVED to be more lethal. Cops believe wrongfully that tasers are safe and are willing to use them in the wrong situations.
If your life is in danger, USE A GUN. There is still a chance that shooting them won't kill them, but there is nothing more horrible than a good person using a taser in the wrong situation and killing someone who was not a threat and becoming a monster.
Cops aren't supposed to use weapons where nonlethal force is advised. If nonlethal force is advised, that means negotiate. It does not mean shoot.
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reality check (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the UN is pretty mild in what it does, mostly because the US set it up that way. If the UN actually were a democratic organization, the US and Europe would fare far worse. That's not "corruption", it's reality.
The best thing the US can do is listen to what the UN has to say, because sooner or later those impoverished and powerless people that make up the majority of the world's population are going to be not so impoverished and powerless anymore.
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Re:reality check (Score:5, Insightful)
1. If the US and Western Europe aren't making the rules, somebody else is. After all, for rules to exist, somebody has to make them, right? So, of the alternatives, who do we want making the rules for us? China? Russia? Saudi Arabia? Fiji? (I kid about the last one.)
2. It's easy to forget here in the US and in other similarly run countries (Canada, Australia, Western Europe, etc.), but, contrary to what Thomas Paine thought, not all governments derive their power by the consent of their people. You think the North Koreans are happy about their government? How about Iran, which actually has an open dissident movement and numerous student demonstrations? It's true that some Western countries have governments that aren't representing the majority of their citizens' interests - the difference, though, is that, in a relatively short amount of time (usually within ten years), mechanisms put into place many years ago go into play that do something about that. The same cannot be said for, say, Iran or North Korea. Consequently, when other governments make objections or make declarations about the treatment of Canada's indigenous people, many of those other governments do not do so with the interests of their own people in mind (or even the veneer of such interests) - they're doing so blatantly for the purposes of the group in power of that country.
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Fortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to use a gun, why not a net gun [busytrade.com]? If you can hit someone with a taser, you can hit them with a net gun, too.
As much as Taser International might like you to believe it, tasers are not the only non-lethal alternative. Unfortunately, my (perhaps biased) perception seems to be that because law-enforcement buys into the "non-lethal" part of the story, they feel they are justified to use it in all kinds of circumstances where a real gun would never have been employed. We've all seen the numerous videos of people being tasered after three officers have already taken them to the ground, or being tasered simply for yelling or shouting and waving their arms around. Strap on a pair of balls and tackle the guy why don't you? It's not like cops aren't armed with a long reach baton.
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Re:Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
And don't raise your voice around an undercover police officer.
And don't protest against anything.
And don't "act suspiciously" on a bus.
As long as you remain a complete sheep and don't do anything that might resemble, you know, being a free person, you'll be OK.
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Re:Alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit. Because tasers are supposed to be nonlethal they are often abused and used on people who have broken no laws at all. See the recent case of the man who went into a diabetic coma and was subsequently tasered while lying helpless. See the case of the 87 year old woman who was tasered at her rest home for yelling at a police officer from her wheelchair. Neither broke the law, but both were put in danger.
Have you ever been tasered? I volunteered to try it. It really hurts, a lot more than a punch to the face even. Have you ever seen the TV show Cops, where they'll hit a guy multiple times while they're laying on the floor. Tasers make muscles contract, and you fall down. That's great, since then they can subdue and cuff a violent offender. Hitting someone more than once, however, is simply torturing someone into compliance. That is torture, unlike a daily commute. Don't believe me, go to a store that sells them and ask for a test shot, a regular 500K stun gun is pretty similar, if tasers are not available to civilians in your state.
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Re:Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's called "less lethal force" for a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the main problem is that tasers are not being used only as an alternative to a gun. If police were to think "I will only use the taser in the circumstance that otherwise I would be firing my gun," then your point is valid. However, it seems that in many situations, police are using tasers as a way to simply make their job of arresting someone easier.
The videotape of the guy in Vancouver shows pretty clearly that he was not in the process of attacking the police when they tased him. I seriously doubt that the police would have shot him had they arrived without a taser in that circumstance. Without a taser, they probably would have tried to slowly convey to him their intent to arrest him (he didn't speak English), and if unsuccessful they would have had to tackle him and struggle to restrain him. Both processes would be lengthy, difficult, and stressful for the police. Instead, it appears that they took an easy shortcut and just tased him so they could get the cuffs on him quickly. The man paid for this with his life. Without a taser, I submit he would likely be alive today.
So you're right: a taser used as a substitute for a gun (when the use of a gun is warranted) is fine. Using a taser when use of a gun is not warranted is the problem!
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pepper Spray, clubs, Handguns, and even hand to hand all have different negative feedbacks which inhibit their abuse, at least a little bit. A taser has none. Look at the guy that tasered a handcuffed 17 year old girl. They dropped the case, citing there wasn't enough evidence. The police force's current taser policy is clearly pretty unacceptable.
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Efforts for oversight (i know get ready for this)
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would imagine the cops only reach for the taser when they know they are safe. It would be interesting to see whether there was a reduction in accidental/mistaken police shootings after tasers were issued to cops. Certainly, here in the New York area, the cops seem to mistakenly shoot someone every 3 months or so.
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, even bare hands and feet can be used.
Used properly(1), a taser is not only supposed to be a substitute for a gun, it's also a substitute for pepper spray(2), baton(3), and various forms of barehanded submission techniques like beating the subject on the head until he's too disoriented to resist being handcuffed while three or four officers put their weight on him.
As for risk of death - people die suddenly all the time; for reasons that make you go 'huh'. It's kinda like how sex can kill somebody with a heart problem. The trick is, the sex was frequently just the 'last straw'. It could have been the flight of stairs a few days later, that slammed door resulting in a shock and adrenaline burst, or just going to wake up, or even just out of the blue. Heck, nominally healthy people like highschool football players have a nonzero chance of dying of heart attack. A simple hit, merely bruising could dislodge a clot or something and result in a lethal stroke. There's 300 million people in the USA. I can't find the number of arrests other than '800k' for weed. Marijuana arrests are a big chunk, but I don't think that's the majority. Most arrests are non-violent on the other hand. Let's go with 500k-1M physical force arrests - that's enough that you'll have some weird stuff pop up.
At least some tasers have recording devices in them - the police can tell how many shocks were delivered, the length of each, how far apart, etc... In at least one of the cases it WAS used as a torture device - how else can you explain 30 shocks over a 5 minute period? Still, go after that officer for torture, not ban the device. Make sure there's good training as well.
Interesting post [blogspot.com] by Lawdog on the subject of tasers and force usage.
My conclusion? Taser usage needs to be monitored; should not be used alone, should be used for it's purpose: disrupt the individual enough that other physical controls such as handcuffs can be emplaced. Should definitely not be used as a torture device. As you're using a taser, you should be arresting somebody - have the details of the usage, along with justification, be in the report.
(1)As we've already determined that improper usage can turn more devices into torture implements than can't be.
(2)Still a nonzero risk of death; asthma, patients with breathing problems, and pain is longer than necessary
(3)You're clubbing the person into submission - risk of death is very real, as is lasting injuries.
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be true. And exactly what leeway do we want to give to people who kill because they are "not properly educated "? Should a cop (who is supposed to be so educated) get more leeway than any other bozo (who may not have such occupational credentials)? Or should "I was not properly educated" be a fitting defense for everyone?
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:So remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, that is the standard I think should apply to taser use-Would you have used your gun in that situation? The whole point of the taser was to give a cop the a less lethal alternative to lethal force. But as we have seen all over the Internet lately, it has become either a "He/She was looking at me funny" tool of intimidation or a "Don't tase me bro!" tool of torture. I think until a higher standard of conduct can be written in regards to tasers a moratorium should be in place. It has just become another torture device as it is now.
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Example of trivial taser use (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the people they came across was someone who had fallen asleep. When they woke him up and told him to leave the beach, he was a bit groggy, and slow to gather his stuff, get dressed and leave. ... so they tasered him.
Now, I don't think that a groggy (nearly) naked guy is the kind of situation where use of a baton would be considered reasonable force. I don't even think it would be considered reasonable to use a half-nelson on the guy. Hell, the only thing that they could do for him being too late on the beach was to give him a ticket.
| But he was tasered.
My only explanation is that they intended the tasering exactly as torture -- and an exemplary action to other beach users that you quickly comply with orders to get off the beach at the stroke of sunset or else!
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Re:Example of trivial taser use (Score:5, Informative)
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