Stunning Revelations

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• Reader Comments (7)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  Well written article. Good research. However this line caught my attention.

  That report also urged police departments to evaluate whether certain vulnerable groups—including the mentally ill—should be excluded altogether from being shot with Tasers.

  So shooting them with a 9mm or striking them with a baton is acceptable?

  Posted by texasindependent on Nov 14, 2006 at 2:32 AM

  Thanks for the kind words about the piece. ITT took this piece very seriously, and it was a pleasure to work with them over the course of a few months on pulling it all together.

  No, the report wasn’t suggesting that, but I get your drift. In general, what we’re seeing is that Tasers appear to be being used with increasing *frequency* with the mentally ill, and that’s what the report was trying to address. In interviews with people like former Seattle chief of police Norm Stamper, Sheriff Hennessey, and others, professionals in the field kept emphasizing the need for law enforcement to learn skills to talk people down, to calm them, to not assume that mental illness equalled a violent person, and/or, when necessary, to use non-lethal take-down methods.

  Taser, Inc.,. would no doubt argue that that’s exactly what their weapons do, but there’s no question that overreliance on stun guns w/r/t to already-vulnerable populations is actually what we’ve been seeing more and more of in the last few years. Stunning somebody who is acting out strikes many professionals and critics as a quick way around a method that would probably take longer: assessing what’s happening with the individual; why they’re acting erratically—and the likelihood that they might actually be ill, improperly or overly medicated; and minimizing harm to all parties in the process.

  To be clear, I don’t take the position that being a police officer is an easy job in this country. The sheer number of mentally ill people out there, in the streets, without proper medical assistance, is a shame on our nation. The sheer number of discarded mentally ill people, people addicted to drugs on the streets, etc., constitute a serious stressor on the people who actually do care about public safety and put their lives on the line for that purpose. But a short-cut approach to knocking people out with high voltage doesn’t make the problem go away—or, as I would argue, actually make our communities safer. Certainly, families like the Wilsons have paid a high price for a form of technology that I don’t believe we know enough about for it to be employed as widely as it has been.

  Posted by Silja J.A. Talvi on Nov 14, 2006 at 8:37 AM

  One of the most insidious aspects of Taser’s marketing, instead of offering an alternative to firearms in police departments that use guns now, Taser is introducing their weapons to police departments that don’t use guns.

  Posted by Nine on Nov 14, 2006 at 3:32 PM

  Thank you for the clarification. I would point out that any attempt to elude the police is a serious risk to your life as well as the lives of bystanders. I would also offer condolences to the Wilson family.

  I think that any professional or critic of Tasers would find that the importance of determining the mental status of the naked delusional man is directly proportional to his proximity to you.

  Posted by texasindependent on Nov 15, 2006 at 5:46 AM

  Thank you for this article. The increasing use of Tasers together with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, along with Congress’s race to paint drug offenders, non-violent animal rights protesters and most anyone else as terrorists to make them subject to the jurisdiction of military tribunals is rapidly making any encounter with law enforcement or being arrested a life threatening situation. This in turn makes law enforcement the most dangerous job on earth. Presently we’re in the learning curve portion of this picture; a bit more history could create an era of civil insurrection. For Taser’s part, they should consider turning down their product’s voltage or amperage.

  In a failed attempt to adapt a 30,000-volt stun gun to a device to shock fish, which failed and destroyed the stun gun, I managed to stun myself, and can attest to the incapacitating power of these weapons along with the way I felt embarrassed after I did it, even though no one saw it happen. The charge traveled through the insulation of some cable I was using and technically shouldn’t have happened. I don’t care what stun gun manufacturers claim. These weapons have no place in civilized society, and any use of electricity on a living thing is inhumane.

  Posted by Uranus on Nov 19, 2006 at 11:48 AM

  TEX
  “eluding” the police over TWELVE Marijuana plants , are you really sure this should be a serious risk to your life ?

  URANUS—agreed, 99% !
  I can , just, imagine cases where that would be better than shooting, but only under extremely high supervision.
  The temptation to use these as instruments of torture, and the ease with which this can be done, says NO to me.

  We had a case in France of this sort, repeated “tazering” of an arrested demonstrator for no other reason than that.

  Posted by frog on Nov 21, 2006 at 10:45 PM

  The sales pitch of TASER International to local and area police departments and subsequent efforts to influence opinion in their communities is often an intensive well orchestrated affair.  Slick presentations extol the “non-lethal ” virtues of the weapon.  The company representative emphasizes the legal victories in recent lawsuits against the company, many of which were dismissed while others were settled, they claim, to eliminate further harrassment or embarassment to their law enforcement clients or their sponsoring local governments.

  Generally Taser deaths have been fairly rare but general usage is just catching on and accelerating.  Indeed we can expect to see more deaths with increasing usage.  Local coroners and medical communities are often at a loss when confronted with a Taser death.  There is no body of experience or scientific evidence which can be cited to definitively say that Taser usage was the cause of death.  When a medical examiner or coroner circumstantially attributes death to “tasering,” his competence and credentials are often impugned and he may be sued by TASER.  The company likes to see deaths attributed to “excited delerium” and drug usage (no community sympathy for these victims).  So far most of the research has been paid for by TASER International and is favorable to them.

  Certainly the weapon has, and will be used on mentally impaired individuals.  These people may be on psycho-therapeutic drugs which effect that part of the central nervous system which may be involved in the physiology of tasering.  Elicit drug users could be expected to have this part of the central nervous system impaired also.

  While the Taser may, indeed, be the best alternative to firearms, police batons or even pepper spray and while law enforcement should have every advantage for the protection of the public it is too soon to call it non-lethal.  Great care should be exercised to prevent the death penalty from being imposed before trial.  TASER usage needs a lot more scientific study before law enforcement and the general public blindly accept it as the weapon of choice.

  Posted by panacea on Nov 24, 2006 at 5:44 AM

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