Taser International Wins Lawsuit to Change Cause of Death

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."

Glorified Cattle Prod

[Neuropol]

Just fire up the sidearm electrocution device.

It's torture my any means.

It's unlawful restraint.

We don't do this (legally) to animals in public, although some do in private, but they'll be dealt with accordingly. So, given that one simple fact, then why should humans be subjected to it?

Don't tase me, bro.

Might as well get used to it.....

[darinfp]

Over here (aus) tasers and MACE sprays are the new thing. Suddenly every police force needs them to handle drug crazed people.

I'm sure it's got nothing to do with the push for middle aged women and people of random ethnic backrounds to become police officers. Apparently the police force should reflect society. If that means a 45 year old, 5 foot tall woman needs a taser when she confronts a fight at a bar, then that's ok.

Apparently..

still

[nguy]

Yeah, those things probably can kill occasionally. But so can kicking, punching, shooting, even restraining. I'd rather get tasered than kicked, punched, or shot, and if they didn't have a taser, those would be the alternatives.

On the other hand, I think if police use a taser or other electrical device, it should be treated just like kicking or punching by the legal system and needs to be justified accordingly. And I think it's wrong for the company to try to suppress these incidents. They are most likely real, we just need to debate whether they are acceptable.

Re:still

[Palpitations]

On the other hand, I think if police use a taser or other electrical device, it should be treated just like kicking or punching by the legal system and needs to be justified accordingly.

No, it should be treated just like a handgun. In every police department in the US that I'm familiar with (my dad was a SWAT team leader, chief of police, and various other positions in many departments in several states), even unholstering your firearm requires some pretty extensive paperwork to be filled out, detailing the circumstances and the justification for it.

Locally, the police pretty much do things that way. The policy here is basically "If you'd shoot someone, shoot them. If you'd pull your gun as a threat, but aren't threatened enough to shoot yet, tase them." It's a small town, and with some of the old guard retiring recently, they've done a pretty good job of weeding out the corrupt cops (unfortunately, the worst of them have moved on to be cops in another city, usually getting a promotion along the way), so that policy has worked pretty well here.

Of course, with stories of elementary school students getting tasered, people being beaten when they "don't comply with a lawful order" because they're essentially seizing from multiple shocks, and all of the other abuses, who knows. The biggest problem is really the code of silence that runs along the thin blue line.

Re:Glorified Cattle Prod

[Anonymous Coward]

Beat the shit out of them until they stop? Those both are much more lethal than a taser could ever be.

You know, back in the old days.. maybe say a whopping twenty years ago, cops were actually trained and were able to apply techniques like swarming to take somebody down. Nowadays we have stupid, lazy, out of shape (tho round is a shape) cops who would rather push a button and BBQ somebody than to put on a set of graphite loaded leather police gloves and do their fucking jobs via jointlock, strategic hit with a baton, etc. I live in southern Ohio, and it seems like about fifteen percent of our cops are actually willing to do their job and have the ability both mentally and physically to do so. Most of the rest of these people couldn't pass a U.S. Army P.T. test, which is incredible since many patrol officers are making 50-70k in a low cost of living area. Standards, anyone?

And before anybody goes there with "what if they've got a knife?".. then the .40 cal comes out and you blow them away. Full stop. If the perp escalates it to that point then so be it.

Tasers are far too antiseptic and easy to use. Woman doesn't get out of the car at a traffic stop? Tase her. Guy mouths off to you? Tase him too. Twelve year old school kid doesn't want to go to detention? Fry her! It's just so easy.. if they displease you and disrespect your authority, well light em up! Hell, it's just the push of a button away and there are few consequences!

It's a new evil - shooting the messenger

[Kupfernigk]

This new trend of governments and companies trying to legislate independent experts out of existence is very worrying. In the UK, coroners are identifying the cause of death of soldiers as being due to failures by the MOD - so the MOD wants the law changed to prevent them from doing so. Here we have a company trying to use the law in exactly the same way. The Tesco company (think Wal-Mart only worse) based in the UK is now trying to use criminal libel laws (in Thailand) and ordinary libel laws (in the UK) to prevent investigative journalists reporting on what it gets up to. Macdonalds famously spent a fortune (in the McLibel case) trying to destroy a pair of activists who exposed their practices - they had what is known as a Pyrrhic victory - hundreds of millions of pounds of legal expenses and adverse publicity in exchange for £40000 damages - but still they pursued the case.

Meanwhile we find out that drug companies have been using the full weight of statistical analysis and selective reporting to represent ineffective drugs as being effective. The result is that independent organisations like the NIH and, in the UK, the NICE, have to spend to counter the propaganda.

Perhaps we need to take a leaf out of the book of the Byzantine empire - which was around a lot longer than the British Empire was or the US Empire is likely to last - and restrict the maximum size of any corporation to the point at which it cannot dictate to elected governments. But who is the "we" who any longer have the power to do it?

Re:FUD on both sides

[Reader X]

OK, can I ask you some questions to maybe help de-FUD the debate:

1. It's clear that some individuals, because they were full of illegal drugs or possibly for other reasons, have died after being shot by tasers. It's also been asserted that at least one police officer has died in a training exercise after being shot by a taser; presumably he or she was not full of illegal drugs. So, knowing this and assuming the above is true, would you willingly be shot by a taser again as part of a training exercise?

2. You stated that the taser must be used appropriately, and made reference to drugs and unnamed medical issues. Could you define more specifically what that means? Having read the TFA, do you think there is a possibilty that the taser is being used inappropriately either by accident or on purpose?

3. As a police officer, you and your coworkers are obviously constantly in situations where you're subjected to serious bodily harm, and let me be the first to say that as a citizen I deeply appreciate it and think the police are not supported as well as they should be from a financial and operational perspective. That being said, do you believe that the mitigation of serious injury is worth the death of a suspect? Put another way, would you forego the use of the taser and accept increased risk of bodily harm if you thought there was a heightened risk of the suspect's death?

4. Per 3) above, I also strongly believe that a civilized society needs to rigorously oversee the use of force to enforce the law. Are you comfortable with the level of oversight that a coroner's inquest provides on the use of both lethal and nonlethal force? If not, why not?

5. It seems clear to me that in seeking the decision referenced in TFA, Taser International is motivated by the desire to avoid liability for the use or misuse of their product, and perhaps less so by the desire to protect officers. Do you agree? If not, why not?

All of the above assuming that you have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than post to Slashdot. Feel free to ignore.

Thanks for the thoughful commentary.

Re:still

[ckedge]

Now here's my biggest complaint. After years and years of field use, where are the statistical numbers that show a decrease in "adverse effects" - before and after taser use began? Yes yes you have to adjust for lots of different factors because crime waxes and wanes and so does the number of incidents with a given level of resistence from people being detained. BUT - if ANYONE in the world is equipped to collect good statistics, it should be police departments whose officers spend 50% of their time on paperwork.

Why the ******* are we all hanging in the wind GUESSING whether or not Taser use causes X% more deaths on the left, and not N% more bruises and M% more deaths due to savage beatings and justified and unjustified shootings on the other hand? Where are the ****ing hard numbers from all the YYY jurisdictions using tasers?!

Also the mumbo jumbo bull**** language about the "cause of death". The *only* thing that matters is whether or not the person would have died if the Taser had not been used. Are they actually claiming that they know for certain that the indviduals would have died had Tasers had not been used? **Exactly** what likelyhood do they place on the individual having died from a seizure or heart-attack if a Taser had not been used? If it's not zero percent, then the Taser's use IS contributory to the cause of death.

It doesn't matter if the person had a congenital heart defect!! Would the person have lived a longer life if a different form of force had been used!?

Now ... balance that against the people that would have died (yes, probably completely different people, this is one of those damned if you do damned if you don't) if Tasers were not available. ..then we can choose how and where to allow the use of Tasers. So far I see no evidence that a systematic rational method of doing this is being done. Individual police departments are pulling guidelines out of their ass, for all I know. (They probably are not, but how come *that* is never mentioned? The only reason people get angry is because they don't know just how much effort is going into doing something right - and so they must presume that nothing is being done right - lack of evidence in such cases IS used against you by the public.)

Re:I feel so safe

[Dunbal]

Not only that, but speaking as a doctor - if politicians and judges are not allowed to practice medicine, corporations certainly shouldn't be. Now if this judge claims he has discovered a new disease and can determine cause of death based on forensic evidence, I plan to file a complaint about him practicing medicine without a license. Because as far as I know, only a medical pathologist (ie the coroner) can determine a cause of death. And the "state appointed" coroner's word is FINAL, whether the judge likes it or not.

I am not a lawyer (obviously), but this ruling is rubbish and will probably be overturned at the drop of a heat - or at least another dead taser victim.

Re:Glorified Cattle Prod

[Slugster]

If people are dying after having a Taser used on them and it cannot be shown that these persons would have probably died anyway, then Taser should be financially responsible. The fact that it causes pain when used is not my objection; it has to do that to serve its functionality--but what it is not supposed to do is kill people. The whole point of these devices was that they were "non-lethal", and then when a few people died they changed it to "less-than-lethal".

Taser is a consumer product and if it's killing people when they claim it shouldn't, then it is FAULTY and Taser should be changed in court to "less-than-profitable".
~

Re:hysterical

[IdleTime]

You know, I like to watch the real police shows, like on Tru TV and you know, 90% of the taser use I see there is just uncalled for. But what can you expect when you give people a badge when in reality they could not hold a burger flipper job? The education of police officers here in the US is just ridiculous. Where I come from, it takes 3 years of education after equivalent to high school in order to become a police officer. In US I think it takes 10 weeks or so.

Torture?

[Brandybuck]

Coroner reports such as the ones in this case contributed to the UN's opinion that taser use is torture.

Like anything, even water, a Taser can be used as torture. But that's not its purpose. It was made to subdue people in a (mostly) non-lethal fashion. If you are suspect of a violent crime resisting arrest in a violent manner, then I support the use of a Taser on you. That's because it's much more human than shooting you with a .357, Pose an immediate danger to the police or public and expect to get tased.

But Tasers are not perfect. They can kill. They are being overused not because the police are sadistic monsters, but because they have been taught that Tasers are non-lethal, that they do not kill. They have been taught that they are nothing more than cattle prods for humans. Nothing can be further from the truth. If police would treat Tasers as the potentially deadly weapons they are, they would be used far less frequently.

They should NOT be used when the suspect is merely acting goofy, or asking beligerent questions of a Democrat Politician, or wearing earbuds so you don't hear the cops, etc. They should only be used when you pose an immediate danger to the police or public. I suspect half the use of Tasers don't meet this level.

Someone please explain

[hansraj]

How is the medical opinion of experts (right or wrong) a judicial matter at all? Isn't it akin to taking me to a court because I published an erroneous theorem?

Isn't the way to correct such things is the "usual way" of doing science? But then maybe litigating is the usual way these days.

Re:hysterical

[Firethorn]

In line with this, the UN's position isn't that taser use is necessarily torture, it's that it CAN be torture.

Much like using a baton in the restraining on somebody resisting arrest isn't torture, but using on somebody who's restrained is.

I think that the honest answer would be to leave the cause of death alone unless the taser company manages to provide substantial proof otherwise. I can't say how good their proof is in this case.

All the deaths that I'm aware of involved numerous shocks, and people who are perhaps more vulnerable. The correct solution, in my belief is to emphasize the taser's less lethal nature.

The alternative methods officers have to subdue a resisting/fighting subject are nearly always more damaging. Arm bars, blows, sometimes baton or truncheon assisted, having numerous officers pile on top of the suspect, etc... In some cases the alternative might even be to shoot the suspect.

The taser is safer. We shouldn't necessarily condemn the taser, instead concentrating on proper use of it. There are ROE's for the use of the firearm, maybe the ROE for taser use needs to be tightened up in some districts.

Re:hysterical

[chrispycreeme]

There are no national standards for police forces as far as education or intelligence. In fact I read one article a few years ago about a fellow who was denied a job with the police department becuase his IQ was too high and he would "get bored".

An informal search on google for "police qualifications" reveals the following as a typical requirements for being a police officer:

Be 21 years of age or older, have a High School Diploma or its equivalent GED certificate, a valid Driver's License, the physical strength and agility sufficient to perform law enforcement work.

They also have to get a C on a test (lower if they served in the armed forces and learned how to kill people effectively)

So not much more than a burger flipper (except for the trained killer bonus). Would you arm McDonald cooks with torture devices and give them the right to zap anyone they wanted?

I for one don't want to arm high school quarterbacks who somehow managed graduate from the American public school system with torture devices and set them loose on the public.

The job of policing in this country is thankless and underpaid. This forces police departments to hire the people who's main attraction to the job is that they get to carry a gun and drive a car with shiny lights on top.

There are countless examples of police using Tasers inappropriately and killing or injuring people. Tasers should be banned until we either start hiring officers who have good judgment and some measure of compassion or there are strict guidelines for use and jail sentences for every officer who uses them inappropriately.

One thing cops and others always say in defense of officers is that they "risk their lives everyday" to protect us. Fine, if they recognize that risk then they should be able to do that job without torture devices. If they are unwilling to do the job without Tasers then they should go get a job flipping burgers and leave the job to the real men.

I for one would never take such a job. It seems boring, dangerous, and underpaid. Zapping people with tasers doesn't hold enough of an attraction for me to make it worth my time.

Re:It's not torture

[The Rizz]

Also, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a case where the officer doesn't first say, "Settle down or you are going to be tased." Often this warning is issued repeatedly before action is taken.

Like the time a cop didn't like a guy sitting on a bicycle asking questions [wcco.com]?

Also, even if they issue a warning, is it still justified to tase a suspect if they literally sit unmoving after the warning? (Such as the multiple instances of tasering people who were in comas [bbc.co.uk] or in shock [wcbstv.com] at the time?)

What if you had four officers on top of a person who had already been overpowered by just one of the officers alone [wikipedia.org]?

Re:hysterical

[binkx]

Hi: I've been a law enforcement officer for over 30 years. In that time, I've seen a number of so-called non-lethal weapons appear (Mace, pepper spray, various types of baton; control holds etc.). In almost every case, there would be "unexplained deaths" that happened when they were used. Or, as often, not used. The problem is when someone is using a lot of drugs and alcohol, their system sometimes crashes. Sometimes they die. The non-lethal weapon or hold or restraint may not have anything to do with it. The research I've read and experience I've had suggests that this is no different for Tasers. A lot more research needs to be done, and it needs to be peer review etc., but I strongly suspect this is the case. Next: the data is very clear on one thing: Taser use has significantly reduced injury to both officers and suspects. Tasers should only be used on someone who is resisting (that is, not doing what you tell them to do). There is a huge danger to the officer, the suspect and the public when that happens. Trying to control someone --especially someone who doesn't feel pain -- is incredibly dangerous. The choices are a bunch of officers piling on the person; using pepper spray (not always effective); or, if they present a deadly threat, using a gun. You never use a Taser instead of a gun, but it may prevent you from getting to the point where you need one. So what are the choices here? How do you control someone who refuses to obey a lawful order? Or, worse, is running amok in the middle of a street or public place? I'm serious. A lot of people here have strong opinions, but no apparent experience or offer ways to do this. There are some really bad or merely darned unpleasant people out there. How do you stop them from being a danger to themselves or others? In my experience, the Taser is the first non-lethal weapon that actually works as advertised most of the time. Also, a side note on training: most officers I know have some college. Many have degrees. Most academies now are 8 months or more with additional time spent in the field with a training officer (usually another 3 months). The number of people who don't make it through is pretty high for most classes. My guess is that most of the ones here saying an officer couldn't make it as a burger flipper wouldn't last a week, either at an academy or certainly on the street. I'll take my answer off the air. George

Re:hysterical

[Swaffs]

Excited delirium has never been caused by the application of a taser on an otherwise healthy individual. Excited delirium has never been caused by the application of the taser, period. Excited delirium is what some people are experiencing that causes police to taser them in an attempt to gain control of the person. The debate is whether or not the resulting death is caused by the taser or by the excited delirium.