Taser International Wins Lawsuit to Change Cause of Death 577
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Taser International recently started a legal campaign against medical examiners who claimed tasers contributed to the cause of death for several people. On Friday, an Ohio judge ruled in favor of the stun gun manufacturer (free registration may be required). While they do have a number of scientific studies on which they establish their claims, it's interesting that the alternate cause of death they champion — excited delirium — appears only in police reports on the deaths of difficult or drug-addled inmates, not in medical textbooks. Of course, that may change soon — Taser is funding and promoting research on the subject. Coroner reports such as the ones in this case contributed to the UN's opinion that taser use is torture."
Excited delirium (Score:5, Insightful)
Still torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Undoubtedly, pulling someone's teeth out is torture, yet it's not going to kill you. The relevant part is the wanton quantities of pain involved.
Missing something... (Score:3, Insightful)
In America... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure this is a step up from the Catholic Church getting to decide, but I hear your President has God whisper advice directly into his ear, so...
WONDERFUL! (Score:5, Insightful)
*Sniff* *Sniff* I smell bullshit....
Excited delerium? (Score:2, Insightful)
Right.
You can always find a dumb judge in America.
Re:Still torture (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still torture (Score:3, Insightful)
I would *certainly* rather be handcuffed and pushed outside rather then risk death by taser for spending too long on my question at a political speech.
Anyway, the GP was trying to say that if a device can cause death is irrelevant to if it is torture... so yes, if you use a bullet and gun to try to inflict pain, it can be torture. For example, kneecapping.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, given that most of us here are NOT mentally handicap, at least I should hope, then we should be able to reason that things that are not as intelligent as we are still deserving of respect and our moral consideration.
When a child misbehaves, you reprimand him verbally. You don't beat him. I would hope the same would go for animals as well. They may not now (or ever) become fully capable of understanding morality, but that doesn't make it right for those who do understand to be IMMORAL to them.
A mentally handicapped person is not able to understand the consequences of his actions and, as such, should not be considered entirely responsible for his actions. However, the price for that is the restriction of freedom to make your own decisions. In this case, he needs to be sent someplace where his actions can be monitored and maybe improved over time.
Of course, this is all coming from someone who is adamantly anti-capital punishment in general.
And back to the topic of the article, in the cases of these people, even if they are obviously incapable of showing moral consideration for others (assuming the criminals they arrest are ALL guilty, which is another can of worms in and of itself) tazering is torture. I fail to see how anyone having enough electricity shot through them at such a high voltage that they collapse, spasm, and occasionally DIE can be considered anything LESS.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still torture (Score:5, Insightful)
If cop uses a tazer once to subdue an unruly suspect long enough to get handcuffs on him/her that is not torture. Once again the intent would to incapacitate you long enough to get control of a dangerous situation. If that Officer continues to use the tazer on you after you are already handcuffed laying face down in the dirt I would say that is torture. There is no more need in that case to be inflicting agony on you. The intent is now just cause you pain and that is well wrong.
Re:Better than being shot (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I think everyone agrees that cops need to be able to subdue violent people with as little lethal force used as possible. To the extent that tasers, stun guns, etc. contribute to that goal, fine. The point is that Taser International's commercial interests may not necessarily coincide with that goal (i.e. the product can be abused, or should not be used in some circumstances), and Taser International may not be interested in owning up to that fact for marketing reasons.
Coroners, who are obligated to determine cause of death as accurately as possible, should be able to opine that the use of a taser contributed to cause of death when that is in fact the case, end of story. That is, assuming you want cops to be accountable. It was interesting to scroll down the comments in TFA to note the number of people who apparently think cops should just be able to pull people off the street and kill them in custody.
FUD on both sides (Score:5, Insightful)
To say that a Taser didn't *contribute* to the deaths is probably wrong. To say that a Taser *caused* the deaths is almost certainly wrong.
The amperage on a Taser is too low by a few orders of magnitude to cause death by electrocution. It will cause central nervous system disruption, which is very uncomfortable, and causes some unusual side effects.
I've been shot with a Taser. Not a stun-gun, a full-fledged Taser with the barbed prongs and ranged shot. I took a five second burst of 50,000 volts. It isn't fun, but I'd prefer it to pepper spray (which I've also been hit with). At least it's over in five seconds, instead of three hours.
During the shot, the Taser causes you to literally scream out all the air in your body in about two seconds. You spend three seconds trying to force out air that isn't there. In someone full of drugs or with pre-existing medical problems, this can definitely pose a risk.
As a police officer, I've had six situations where using the Taser has saved me from serious bodily injury. In all but one case, the defendant was immediately back on his feet after I helped him up, and quickly back in good spirits. In two cases, they spent the ride to jail joking with me. In one case, the defendant had to go to the hospital due to a cocaine overdose. He lived due to timely medical intervention, but we expected him to be in bad shape and had an ambulance standing by to assist the minute we had him secure.
As for calling the Taser torture, let me put it this way: I would willingly be shot with a Taser again in a training exercise. I've willingly subjected other people to it after feeling its effects. I would *not* willingly be shot with pepper spray/mace again. I have not and will not willingly subject other people to it after feeling its effects. The Taser is a valuable, but dangerous weapon that must be treated with caution and only used appropriately. Pepper spray is torture.
Re:Better than being shot (Score:1, Insightful)
Tasers should be outlawed; they do not do anything you couldn't do before with a gun or a truncheon, other than give the you the opportunity to torture your victim on the spot in order to masturbate your poor ego, without risking any punishment for it.
Re:still (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't work that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Off the top of my head, I remember such gems as:
- guy with a medical emergency calls 911, cops show up first and tase him in his bed. Apparently they thought he lunged at them. While lying on a bed across the room.
- student doesn't have his library card at the library, and is already leaving (so wtf of a danger did he pose?), campus security guards tase him repeatedly.
- some idiot decides to streak naked, gets tased. I can think of at least two of these.
- schoolkid threatens to cut himself with a piece of broken glass, gets tased.
- 12 year old schoolgirl is found skipping school, gets tased.
- 75 year old grandma insists too much to visit an old friend in another nursing home, a cop gets called and tases her.
- guy gets agitated after being kept IIRC for 12 hours without access to food, water or his medicine in an airport, cops tase him to death. Literally: tased repeatedly, until he dies of heart attack.
Etc, etc, etc.
Here's my question for all the "well, it's better than being shot" gang: exactly which of those would have warranted a bullet instead? No, seriously, I'm curious.
AFAIK not even in Stalin's USSR or Mao's China would they shoot a sick guy for just calling an ambulance. And no country in the world takes school _that_ seriously as to shoot a 12 year old for skipping school.
No, it's already used in _addition_ to the gun, not instead of.
And here's a funnier thought: we already have plenty of evidence that it's used repeatedly. Some even on camera. In some cases it seems to be police stupidity: they see a guy spasming after the jolt, and they think it's some kind of resisting arest, so they do it again. In some cases it seems genuine torture. They've been given free hand to use the taser, so they'll cause you some more pain just because they don't like you.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't tell the UK H&S executive that (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago I was responsible for designing a safety interlock system on a piece of high voltage test equipment, and I worked with an officer of the UK H&S executive to achieve compliance.
H&SE have evidence of people being killed by shocks of as little as 2.5mA, and have reason to believe that there is no lower limit. The actual cause is heart fibrillation which can be set off by a very small current in the wrong place.
The standard set for equipment like electric fences for cattle is based on this research, but it is statistical - that is to say, the overall likelihood of deaths from this cause is very small bot non-zero. People fit and active enough to walk across fields are unlikely to die as a result of contacting an electric fence, but people with heart conditions need to be very careful.
In the case of the taser, the electric shock is deliberately caused and the victim has no opportunity to avoid it. This is a different situation . The law needs to reflect the scientific evidence that electric shocks can cause death because otherwise a police officer may be tempted to use on in a non-threatening situation. It must be possible to prosecute police who behave recklessly, and legislating that certain technology is not dangerous removes this protection from the citizen. Unless you are one of those judges who believe that all policemen are totally honest and always have the best interests of society at heart, in which case I have a job for you in China.
Consensual Acts ARE torture in other contexts. (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because YOU are willing to consent to something doesn't mean it still isn't an act of TORTURE.
Go over to some of the BDSM websites on the 'net, and you will find people who consent to, and actually enjoy being tied up and hit with a cattle prod.
That doesn't mean it isn't torture.
I feel so safe (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FUD on both sides (Score:1, Insightful)
The whole "tasers had nothing to do at all whatsoever with the deaths at hand" spiel that the company's perpetrating is dangerous because it downplays the risks involved with tasers. For that matter, the same can be said about your anecdotes; even though you probably didn't really intend them to come across this way, what you say ("immediately back on his feet", "spent the ride to jail joking with me", "I would willingly be shot with a taser again" etc.) also belittles what tasers actually do, and contributes to the idea that it's OK to easily taser people.
It's not, though.
Use a taser like you would a firearm - as a last esort, but nothing else. When you taser someone, keep in mind that you might very well kill or seriously injure them, and don't do so unless this is a necessary risk. There's too many cops out there who don't understand this, unfortunately, and who will routinely taser people much more easily than they would shoot them with a firearm.
(On a side note, I also dispute that you really know what a taser feels like. A training exercise is one thing, but you will not be subject to the same stress and the same adrenaline rush and all that. You'll also know that your "opponents" don't actually want to do anything to you, and you'll also know that qualified medical help is right there should it be necessary, and you'll know that you're healthy and in good shape. None of these are true for someone at the receiving end of your own taser.)
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
BZZT. One of the very first things you learn in gun safety courses is that you don't point the gun at some(one/thing) unless you plan on shooting that person / thing.
Once you point the gun at someone you have immediately escalated into deadly force. If the perp doesn't back down - you have to shoot him. That's the entire idea behind a taser - non lethal force. This isn't like TV where people hold guns at each other and talk rationally, defuse the situation and move on to a commercial.
This is a real problem in our society ... (Score:4, Insightful)
FUD from your side too (Score:3, Insightful)
Pull the other one.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you've never dealt with a human toddler in the 2-3.5 earth year category.
It's said the the mental capacity of most non human mammals fall in intelligence category of a human 'animal' toddler; you can't reason with them, they react on instinct, and the fact that they can't communicate their thoughts exactly makes it extremely difficult to have a meaningful dialog with them.
A single taser shot is okay (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with Tasers is that it is hard to detect when the bad cops use them like this. But when the cause of death is "excited delirium" (yeah, its not like hospitals wouldn't have noticed this if it really existed) you can be pretty sure that a bad cop used some inappropriate method of coercion or restraint.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:4, Insightful)
Tasers and death? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always been a bit ambivalent on this. I think it's quite silly for the causes of death to be changed, as we all know well enough that getting hit by a pretty healthy jolt of electricity certainly could result in death, especially for those whose health is already compromised by other factors.
On the other hand, it is true that police are able to use nonlethal force in place of lethal force in some scenarios (and Taser use is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, nonlethal). This is a good thing.
I think a good way to treat this would be as we would treat the use of a punch, kick, nightstick, or other form of painful but nonlethal force. If an officer were to punch, kick, or whack someone with a nightstick simply for "mouthing off" or refusing to cooperate without mounting any physical threat, that officer is guilty of a crime and should be punished. On the other hand, if the person is attempting to attack physically, the officer would be well-justified in using necessary force to defend him/herself. Why not develop some reasonable guidelines for the thing, and then, you know, actually hold cops accountable if they don't follow them?
Well, I can dream, can't I? Now back to this video of a cuffed suspect getting tasered repeatedly.
Re:Taser use == MEDICAL PROCEDURE??? (Score:3, Insightful)
And exactly what medical condition is being treated by a Taser? A device causing a medical problem (death or disability) is not the purveyance of the FDA.
Re:Still torture (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument is only relevant when talking about punishment, which is given to someone who has already been restrained, and should be decided about by a court of law rather than officer Tenpenny. Tasers, however, are not tools of punishment, they're tools of restrainment. When restraining a suspect, the only acceptable standard is to use the minimum neccessary force; altought, obviously, one must make allowances for the fact that the one doing the restraining doesn't have the benefit of hindsight or, neccessarily, a chance to calmy consider his options, so he might err in his estimation of "minimum force".
What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter whether the one you're restraining is a retard or a genius. Either way you either use the minimum force neccessary, or you belong behind the bars yourself.
So no, the fact that more can be expected from humans than animals doesn't mean that you can go taser-happy on humans. If anything, it means that people who hold power over others - embodied in devices like tasers, for example - have no excuse whatsoever if they abuse it. And using that power beyond what is neccessary, for example tasering someone unneccessarily, is abuse.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. There were certainly many cases where perps have died in police custody before the invention of the taser. Any time you have human beings attempting to subdue other human beings, you are going to have cases where someone gets injured or killed. That's the nature of conflict The solution is simple: avoid conflict. Don't break the law and don't screw with the police, and you won't have anything to worry about.
Re:Tasers and death? (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, that's what makes it so abhorrent. They're saying "you know and we know what killed him but let's have the official record list another cause of death. That way it's much easier for you to suspend disbelief and become our co-conspirators; all for the greater good of society. Sure it's unfortunate for a few to die needlessly so that police officers aren't inconvenienced whilst protecting society but hey.. whaddaya gonna do?"
Re:Still torture (Score:3, Insightful)
However, my complaint is mostly with the frequency that it is used in. A suspect struggling is not necessarily a cause for using it. Again, in this situation, you should likely have multiple cops on a single suspect. However, if you can't do that, and/or the suspect is thrashing about wildly and likely going to injure someone beyond a few scrapes or cuts, then yes, go for the taser, until we have a better alternative.
I suppose this all goes along with your last sentence, but I just wanted to note that I understand their necessity at times, but that doesn't make them any less horrible or any less overused. Non-lethal != "I can use this on anyone I need to arrest with no questions asked" which is a sadly wide-spread attitude.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume Tasers and similar devices are used instead of guns. They're not. They're used when you could not get away with using a gun (or even with beating the suspect senseless). Which is why we see them used against children, people who are already restrained and annoying questioners at political rallies. In situations where the taser wielder would certainly not have considered shooting or hitting the subject an appropriate action.
I think that just means the police need to be held more accountable for their use
If shooting someone with a taser was regarded as equal to shooting them with a gun, I'd happily see them deployed all over. Then it would actually be a question of using a taser _instead_ of a gun.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
If said people are actually criminals, restraining them by necessary means is of course justified. But every cop thinks twice before shooting someone, which is not the case with tasers.
(As a sidenote, there are no criminals before a court says so, only "suspects").
Re:hysterical (Score:2, Insightful)
When somebody loses control of their car and slams into a highway barrier — is the barrier's intervention "the cause of death"? Is the engineer, who designed it, to blame? Are the workers, who built the barrier, liable for all the deaths?
Just as the barrier is there to keep wayward cars from getting on to the other side of the highway (and killing/injuring a multitude of others), police are there to keep order — which some times includes stopping an unruly individual. When the target (quite possibly upstanding and/or perfectly innocent) dies, it is no less tragic, than when a driver (for example, falling a sleep, after a night of hard work) hits the barrier...
This approach can certainly be (ab)used to excuse police excesses — but blaming police/taser for all taser-related deaths is highly inaccurate.
Re:The brutal murder of Deacon Frederick Williams. (Score:3, Insightful)
Me neither! That's why I'm always VERY careful never to:
- be black
- be poor
- have a funny haircut
- ask questions
- take pictures
- say the wrong thing
- vote for the wrong people
- etc.
Re:hysterical (Score:2, Insightful)
The best way to avoid being tasered is not to do anything (or act in any way) that might give a cop cause to shoot you with a taser. As the article states, only a handful of tasered suspects have died, and only a handful of subjects within that group have died for reasons that might be attributable to the taser itself. How many times, in this even-smaller group, have police been accused of acting inappropriately? I am sure there have been a few, isolated cases of police officers firing these weapons when they weren't needed. If a person ever dies as a direct result of inappropriate and unjustifiable use of a taser, the officer(s) responsible absolutely deserve to be brought up on charges. Thus far, I've yet to see any evidence--including the immigrant in Vancouver--where any inappropriate actions took place.
If you don't want to get tasered, don't invite the possibility.
Torture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd say the taser is not in itself the problem, it's that the taser is regarded as 'nothing' by police (as instructed by Taser International).
If the taser was billed instead as an extreme and possibly fatal means to subdue a subject or a 'less lethal' form of gun we might see more appropriate use.
Furthermore, use of a taser or other electrical stun device in an already restrained individual IS torture pure and simple. It's no more acceptable than handcuffung and then beating the subject.
I recently saw a training program where officers are themselves tazed briefly in a controled situation so they will understand exactly the effects of the force they might use on a subject. That seems like a good idea to me and is very likely to lead to more appropriate uses.
IMHO, Taser International is so anxious to advertise their product as perfect and a panacea that they CAUSE it to be mis-used through disinformation. It does the officers no favors either. They use the device in an honest belief that it is less brutal than throwing the subject to the ground and pinning them with a knee only to find themselves facing a wrongful death proceeding.
As for pointing a gun, absolutely NOT. A good rule to follow is to never point a gun at anything you don't want dead. Another way to put it is if you pull out a gun you BETTER be ready to use it. Pointing a gun you don't intend to use will get you killed as soon as the other person figures out that you don't intend to fire. The death rate from accidental firing would probably exceed the death rate from taser misuse.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't attempt to take the moral high ground when you're not prepared to put more research into your post than the parent.
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't use it as an excuse to take your frustrations out on people.
Re:hysterical (Score:2, Insightful)
Try a job where the citizenry and tax-payers are, through your fear, the "enemy."
Try a job where "crimes" are invented to keep you employed...
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
The taser IS the less lethal alternative. Note that I said less lethal, not non-lethal. That's the problem with this entire anti-taser argument - they are not, I repeat NOT "non lethal" weaponry. They are designed to be less lethal than a bullet. They are in the same category as beanbag bullets, rubber bullets, mace / pepper spray, teargas grenades, water canons, etc. These are deterrents to be used to diffuse a situation with a dangerous criminal or rioter.
As for accountability, tasers have ID tags that identify the officer that discharged them and much like the discharge of firearms they must complete reports after every incident and upon injury or death there is a departmental review process that investigates the officers' actions as to how the situation was handled and how it could be better handled in the future. If the officer was found to be negligent or derelect in their duties, disciplinary action will be taken.
However you have to realize that some situations just require force to dissipate. If a person is high on drugs and/or so belligerent they will not succumb to authority and public or officer safety is at stake make no mistake about it - force will be used.
Now, as to the popular strawman arguments about people who did not deserve to be tasered - that's a matter for disciplinary review, not a matter for the weapon itself. It's not the taser's fault if an officer decides to zap a homeless man or an innocent bystander.
People have to understand that when an officer believes his or her life is in danger they will use force to prevent the situation from escalating. Until you've been under threat from an incoherent person waiving a weapon at you and threatening all sorts of nastiness I don't think you're qualified to judge the actions of these officers in these dangerous situations.
Re:hysterical (Score:5, Insightful)
If the policeman used his gun and killed the suspect then we would say the cause of death was a gunshot wound. We would not change the cause of death to "excited delirium" simply because the action was justified.
In the case of a highway barrier, I imagine we would say that the cause of death was the car's impact with the barrier, regardless of who is at fault.
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hysterical (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I support the usage of a taser where the taser replaces more lethal/dangerous means, not just the gun.
For example, people can be killed, have limbs broken, and concussions as a result of the usage of a baton or truncheon. A taser is, properly used, safer for both police officers and suspect than the previous methods.
What needs to be emphasized is proper use.
One specific case I can think of involved a very old woman - the point I'd like to make is that it's very easy for that very old woman to injure herself. Much less a physically fit officer. Just think of a scenario like this - officer has hold of a arm. Grandma simply drops, placing her entire weight on fragile decalcified bones. Snap - there goes a elbow, wrist, or forearm.
A taser, while still dangerous, is probably less dangerous in such a scenario. But it gets on the newspaper as 'Officer tases 80 year old granny!'.
Re:hysterical (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, there definitely should be more controls in place to ensure that the police show some restraint in the use of tasers, especially now that we've seen that they can cause death. We need more research into the effects of tasers too, in order to determine how dangerous they actually are and in what ways.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:4, Insightful)
A cop has to consider his actions before he pulls the trigger, and on (admittedly rare) occasions, if he acts inappropriately he can be held accountable. If a cop shoots someone inappropriately, the family will know his name, and can sue in civil court.
If a cop tazers someone inappropriately, and the victim dies, then what are the chances that cop will be held to any standard?
If we hold that power corrupts, shouldn't we be encouraging consequences for abuse of that power?
At any rate, as has been mentioned before, the tazers are not being replacing guns, the tazers are being used in cases where talking to someone would do. A tazer, deployed, does not de-escalate a confrontation, it is escalating the confrontation - and it is the cop who is escalating it.
Keep in mind, I think that the tazer issue is merely a way for people to rally around the real issue, which is America's under-trained, over-violent, out-of-control police forces, without saying that they're "anti-cop." There needs to be a vast cultural shift in police forces before a weapon like a tazer is introduced, but there need to be a vast cultural shift in police forces regardless.
As for myself, I'd rather be shot than tazed, but that's just me.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
Cops don't tase people armed with knives. They shoot them full of holes with guns. If they do things properly they might actually give a warning first and only shoot if necessary.
It's pretty obvious that tasers are only used when cops don't think they are in significant danger, otherwise it's gun them down time. There are cases where cops blow away people trying to show them ID or are just carrying something they just bought.
As for avoiding conflict. It'll help if somebody worked out better "protocols" so that people and cops can interact nonlethally in "charged" situations, and perhaps even avoid escalating things to an arrest.
Currently many police forces appear to have a very antagonistic relationship with civilians - even noncriminal civilians. Such police forces should seriously keep in mind the "Peelian principles":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles [wikipedia.org]
The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a real problem in our society ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but you can't separate the two. When rights get trampled in a previously-affluent society, economic failure usually follows. It's rare to see prosperity result from a loss of civil liberties. Worse yet, from our perspective, the speed at which modern economies move (and which armed conflicts can begin) means that we will not suffer a Roman-style long slide into oblivion, with the barbarians only storming the gates at the very end. It will happen fast, so fast that most people will be left wondering "what the hell happened?"
The problem we're having in the United States is that the plebs have discovered that not only will the government provide bread and circuses, but with this being a Republic they can "vote" themselves more bread and circuses! The effect of this no longer uplifts the unfortunate (if it ever did) but serves as a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the poor, with gross inefficiencies and corporate handouts along the way. It's also resulting in the destruction of our manufacturing engine. Consequently, having given up the means of creating wealth, it will not be long before we can no longer afford to keep ourselves in beer, TV and junk food, no matter what country actually makes them.
A major economic collapse will happen unless we start taking steps now: these processes are non-linear. The truth is that it's probably already too late for us, but I see no reason to do nothing, which all I see us doing now. Well, now that's not entirely true
Re:hysterical (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, they didn't shock her a huge number of times.
You break a bone on somebody that old - infection could set in, a clot could break loose and cause a stroke.
That's what I mean by it's safer than the alternatives. Worst case, slap a IED on their chest for a while and monitor their heart. Take them to the hospital.
People get tasered every day and it only kills a couple a year in the whole nation, assuming you take worst case scenarios. Most of those involved dozens or even hundreds of shocks. Thus my statement of develop a ROE for the taser, don't use it as a compliance tool(torture), use it as a tool to temporarily disable the subject so you can disarm & cuff them.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
The general public isn't lashing back at cops simply because they have a new power over the rest of us and it has killed a few of us. The public is lashing back because of a perceived or real lack of internal control of officers. The public believes that the police are acting as if they are above us. The police are validating that perception by stonewalling every attempt to get any officer in trouble for actions they actually committed. See the original atricle for an example of the law enforcement industry trying to whitewash one of these incidents instead of taking responsibility.
I remember a newspaper story where I found out that the Buffalo, NY police refused to be required to wear seat belts when on duty. Their argument was, "We are well trained drivers and we deserve to make our own determination of whether a seat belt would endanger or protect our lives." However, if they pull over a race car driver for not wearing a seat belt, they fall back to "Seat belts save lives, we are only giving you this ticket for your own good. It's the law, suck it up." This was also the first written public admission I have ever seen of "laws apply to you, not us".
Re:It doesn't work that way (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know... it seems to me like it lowered the bar even in that aspect.
I mean, think about the small sample of cases I've listed. I can't think of many of them which would have warranted even the use of the baton. I mean, just replace "tased" with "beaten with a nightstick" in any of them, and in most cases you'd probably be outraged.
E.g., "Cops beat up a sick guy who had called an ambulance." Nope, doesn't sound justifiable. "Cop hits 12 year old schoolgirl with the baton for skipping school." Egads, he'd have the children rights groups all over him like a sack of bricks. And most of the rest of us would want to at _least_ see him out of that job, permanently. "Cop beats up 75 year old grandma for insisting to see her old friend in another nursing home." Erk. Doesn't sound palatable either. "Guy is kept for 12 hours in an airport without food or water or his medication, cops beat him to death when he gets agitated as a result. 'Cause they didn't understand what he was saying, so a sound beating sounded like a reasonable alternative." I'm betting they wouldn't get as easily out of beating someone to death as out of tasing him to death. Etc.
So, sad to say, it looks to me like it lowered the bar even in that aspect. People get tased in situations where even using the baton would have been considered inappropriate.
1. So, then, it seems to me that the sooner we debunk that lie, the better. Regardless of whether you're pro or against the way the police uses them, let's get that lie out of the way. Then maybe we'll be able to have a rational dialogue with those politicians.
At any rate, that's my biggest problem: that lie.
2. Well, the fact that they need to lie to get things their way, already seems to me like a dangerous road to travel.
That's not how a democracy was supposed to work. The politicians are there to serve the population, not the other way around. _If_ the majority of an informed population is against it, that's it.
Basically I don't believe in enlightened despotism. Someone at the top being so smart that they know what's really good for the population, whether the unwashed masses understand it or not... well, we've tried that before. It didn't work too well.
And again, make no mistake, it's not democracy. Democracy means that if the people want X, they should be able to get X. Even if it's something bloody stupid. (Back in the days of everyone-votes classical democracy, Athens actually voted to go to war with Sparta, and never recovered from _that_ mistake.) The politicians may -- and should -- try to make their case as to why X is a good or a bad idea, but ultimately it should be up to the citizens to look at the facts and decide if they want X or not.
Now I'm not idealistic enough to believe that lies aren't already 90% of politics. I know that. But I do believe that they're a perversion of the whole process, and a thing to be fought off, not shrugged off.
Re:It's not torture (Score:3, Insightful)
The Redmond case is especially outrageous. There is solid medical evidence that she was not capable of performing any action to warrant tazing her at the time. It takes a serious rageaholic to attack someone in diabetic shock for being unresponsive! People like that shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun as a matter of public safety.
MOST people would have enough situational awareness and compassion to become concerned for her well being after breaking the window out and she just sits there. It sounds like the cop was already wound up to hurt someone by then.
Re:Glorified Cattle Prod (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe you are referring too the time the cops maced an infant here in Portland. Another option would have been to give the baby a bottle. You are assuming every situation should be solve with a taser, gun, baton or pepper spray. That is the exact mentality that makes me think they shouldn't have them. Total lack of imagination like this is the problem. Until you can demonstrate that you can think of other options besides tasering or shooting, you should not be allowed to have tasers or guns.
You can't ask questions like that without context. The point is that officers too often use tasers when they shouldn't and can't seem to make sound judgements.
Tasers only have one purpose; to inflict immobilizing pain. A camera many other uses with torture probably way way down the list, so it can't really be categorized as a torture device. However, if you would like to replace all police tasers with SLR cameras I would accept that as a reasonable compromise.
Re:u.s. police lack basic takedown training (Score:4, Insightful)
Big man, you reveal how helpless you are.
Go back to the video. He's armlocked her on one side, leaving her other arm to flail, then he's dragging her along, flailing He used the one one and only technique taught to regular U.S. cops, an armlock, which leaves suspects' legs and other arm free to kick and escape.
What we see in the video with the 15-y.o. girl is a cop who isn't interested in just making the arrest - he's screaming for compliance from a stupid, possibly drugged-up kid, and when he doesn't get it, he gets angrier.
That's when he lost - instead of dispassionately going about his business, making the arrest, subduing the suspect if necessary, instead he gets emotionally involved. His job is to transport that girl to a facility where ultimately the justice system deals with her. Instead, he's up for a little punitive action himself.
Re:hysterical (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't.
Police need to be supervised far more closely, and need to have real consequences for abuse. In essence, if they want respect, they need to be respectable.
And yes, there are good cops out there. The other 99% of cops are giving them a bad name.
Re:It doesn't work that way (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. I'm not at all suggesting that the cases you mentioned are in any way justified. I just wanted to try to eliminate the justification that police, politicians, and many of the posters in this forum use to defend the Taser.
This justification is particularly disturbing in light of the cases you mentioned. In the many years prior to the introduction of the Taser, cases similar to the ones you described did occur involving either batons or pepper spray or just good old fashioned fists. Police brutality is nothing new. However, in the age of cell phone cameras and the Intarweb, what we have is a situation where police brutality can be hidden behind a simple press of a button, then supported by police and politicians saying "but it's better than using a gun", and justified in just about any case by pointing out that Tasers are "safe".
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Tasering an 80-year-old, and having him or her collapse suddenly to the ground, is as like or more likely to break a bone (perhaps a hip, much worse than an arm to repair) as a result of falling, as they are to suffer infection/clotting leading to a stroke from a broken arm. A stroke from a clot from a broken arm is extremely unlikely. Ask a doctor sometime.
Your reasoning on this doesn't stack up. Forcing an elderly lady to collapse uncontrolled to the ground is more dangerous (what about her head?) than grabbing her on the arm.
As for monitoring her heart... this raises another question - what if she's already suffering from chronic cardiac failure, AF, or some other heart disease? Tasering her is extremely dangerous in that situation.
Bottom line - tasering should *only ever* be a direct substitute for use of a firearm. If the situtation isn't so bad that you'd use a gun, then you don't use a taser.
Re:hysterical (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, the taser has replaced the baton, 4-cell maglight, etc. and with those defensive weapons/tactics went the restraint in their deployment. That's the real problem. The police deploy tasers where they wouldn't have deployed batons, pepper spray, flashlights, etc. Now, they don't have to talk to anyone or even really consider any non-physical means to resolve the situation. Hell, they don't even explain why they're taking the actions they are (citations, arrest, etc.) They just use the taser.
I remember very clearly, a period where the taser WAS pitched as an alternative to lethal force. If a police officer faced someone with a knife or other non-firearm weapon, he now had an alternative to his firearm-the taser. It was positioned as a way to reduce death in formerly lethal situations.
I know very clearly that it was NEVER promoted as a tool of compliance or as an alternative to all other methods of subduing someone.
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
If you would like to provide one I will gladly apply common sense to it.
Your saying that I need to decide whether force is needed is situations where it is "implied that force is needed"? Well then, of course force is needed. That one is easy.
Now define that and we'll be all set. Any officer who violates it can then be put in jail.
It's not my job to write guidelines for police conduct. It is my right as a citizen however to be free from thugs with badges wielding torture devices with impunity.
I don't care if we send them out there with foam bats and squirt guns. If they can't learn to play nice with their toys then that is what they should have so that no more citizens are tortured at the whim of a cop.
Remember no one asked them to do this job. They claim they do it becuase they like helping people. Well they can help me without the Tasers thank you very much or they can find another job.
Re:It's not torture (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hysterical (Score:3, Insightful)
Or by some combination of excited dilirium, police intervention, and Taser use.
Have there been cases of people just dropping dead of excited delirium without any police intervention?
If excited delirium is a legitimate condition, then the reality is likely that death is caused by the actions of the police, usually (but not necessarily) using a Taser, on an individual experiencing excited delirium. Excited delirium alone should not be listed as cause of death.