The Taser Myth: How Does a 'Non-Lethal Weapon' Kill 400 People?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/112403

The Taser Myth: How Does a 'Non-Lethal Weapon' Kill 400 People?
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted December 13, 2008.

Taser's marketing coup has convinced consumers that there is such a thing as a gun that won't kill. Taser deaths prove otherwise.

On Sept. 24, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a 35-year-old man named Iman Morales fell to his death after a 22-minute standoff with New York Police. Morales, who was described as "emotionally disturbed," had climbed onto the fire escape of a building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, naked and waving a metal pole. Unable to talk him down, one officer, under order from his lieutenant, shot Morales with a Taser gun, at which point he fell to the sidewalk, head-first.

He was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.

One week later, the officer who gave the order, Lt. Michael W. Pigott, drove to Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field, a former air base used by the NYPD, took a 9mm Glock from a locker room, and shot himself in the head.

It's hard to know which are more ubiquitous at this point: stories of accidental death by Tasers, or stories of police brutality involving bullets. Just this week, in New York, a Bronx man was shot and killed after he allegedly waved a baseball bat at police officers who entered his home. In theory, these sorts of confrontations are the reason such "non-lethal" weapons as Tasers exist. But news reports tell a different tale. In the United States and Canada, more than 400 people have died after being Tasered since 2001.

Apart from his suicide, what sets Pigott apart from most police officers who kill people using Tasers is that he must have realized that the order to Taser Morales could deal a fatal blow. Why he decided to do it anyway will remain unanswered. And it's impossible to know whether remorse over Morales' death was the driving factor behind his decision to take his life, or whether it was the stripping of his badge after over 20 years on the force -- or something else.

Regardless, for people who carry a Taser as an alternative to a gun, the realization that they are actually deadly weapons must deal a hard blow.

Despite the rather old news that Tasers can kill, the news media continue to be littered with reports of trigger-happy Taserers, many of whom should be relieved that their victims lived. This week in Oklahoma, police Tasered a man who had gone into diabetic shock while driving, which caused him to spin out of control on the road. (The officers felt "extremely bad" upon realizing that he was not drunk or high but rather in need of medical attention.) In another report, last month, undercover cops in North Carolina Tasered a man acting as a pallbearer at his father's funeral. (The local sheriff apologized for the deputies' behavior. "Family, friends, relatives. … That was a bad decision.")

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[1]

1. yes. a passionate story. but it provides no statistics at all...

can a taser kill. yes.

can a taser save lives in situations where a more lethal force would otherwise be required? yes.

how many tasers are used each year. how many lives were lost? how many lives were saved?

the article states 400 deaths since 2001 but never actually goes on to prove that number. the author does not bother to back that claim up with any sort of evidence. how many lives were saved since 2001 with the use of tasers. the author does not bother with that fact either.


a very heartfelt and passionate article. a very one sided article. this is not journalism. where i come from we call this shit propaganda. we call this lies.

bullshit...

[Shardik]

2. Actually, on page two of the link in the OP there is a link to the study

which the reference of 400 deaths in the article comes from.

[struggle4progress]

3. Amnesty urges moratorium on Taser use after CBC/Radio-Canada probe (Dec 08)

Last Updated: Friday, December 5, 2008 | 5:34 AM ET Comments109Recommend44
CBC News

Human rights group Amnesty International is renewing its call for a moratorium on Taser use after recent tests commissioned by CBC News and Radio-Canada found some of the stun guns deliver a higher level of electricity than the manufacturer promises.

The tests, conducted by the U.S.-based lab National Technical Systems, used 41 X26 model Tasers from seven police departments in that country. Each weapon was fired six times.

Of the 41 Tasers tested, four delivered significantly more current than Taser International says is possible. In those cases, the current was up to 50 per cent stronger than specified on the devices ...

The human rights group has said it believes police forces around the world have relied too heavily on the manufacturer's safety claims. It wants to see more independent tests ...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/12/04/amnesty-tasers.html

[formercia]

7. It's the current that kills you.

shoot the probes into a bad location and add an out of spec unit= Cardiac Arrest. This is assuming the target doesn't have underlying health issues that aggravate the problem.

[struggle4progress]

8. More than one fatal mechanism may be possible. High current can certainly produce

lethal damage by cooking critical tissue, such as muscle or nerve

But inductive effects of strong EM fields without direct application of currents can also produce cardiac arrest or fatal fibrillation; such danger is especially obvious with pace-makers but is also possible for healthy individuals

Beyond such direct effects of current or EM fields, one should consider less predictable physiological effects of stress which might accompany shocks (such as adrenaline release, blood pressure elevation, and heightened pulse which could lead to coronary or other vascular symptoms), including effects related to personal medical histories (such as the triggering of seizures)

A number of more indirect but potentially fatal consequences can also be imagined -- such as aspiration of vomitus following taser-induced emesis, or cranial or spinal nerve injury resulting from a taser-induced fall

[sunnystarr]

6. It's not BS

http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com has a "List of the Dead" and included 386 deaths in the US and Canada. What I found interesting in the list is that 68 (17.6%) of the deaths were in California, while Canadian deaths were 19, with 23 in Texas and 9 in New York state. This list isn't all inclusive and doesn't address the permanent injuries sustained by many taser victims. It also doesn't address the amount of children 12 and under being tasered across the country.

One thing I do continue to notice is how many times the officer tasered a victim. Excessive doesn't even begin to cut it. I was interested in this because we had a few high profile cases of taser deaths in TN. As a result of what happened in Nashville, only supervisors can use the taser guns now.

[Canuckistanian]

4. If the Taser were a medical device, it would have been banned

ANYTHING that causes immediate human death when used as directed should be banned.

[varkam]

5. Except that the taser didn't kill Morales...

the fall did.