How Does A 'Non-Lethal' Weapon Kill 400 People?
It's always hard to know where to begin with Tasers. I mean, they're a nightmare for the citizens against whom they're used, the lawsuits will end up costing millions of taxpayer dollars and they inevitably suppress freedom of speech and assembly. Why are they still in such widespread use?
I suppose it didn't hurt that right-wing heroes Rudy Guiliani and Bernie Kerik were so heavily involved in marketing them to police departments around the country. (Did you know the police officers recruited to demonstrate them to their departments receive stock options and/or payments? That explains a lot.)
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.
Hmm. Do you suppose the fact that the Tasers shoot a lot more voltage than claimed by their manufacturer might explain things?
A new study has found that the type of Taser stun gun used most by police officers can fire more electricity than the company says is possible, which the study's authors say raises the risk of cardiac arrest as much as 50 percent in some people.
The study, led by a Montreal biomedical engineer and a U.S. defense contractor at the request of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., also concluded that even stun guns firing at expected electrical levels carry some risk of inducing a heart attack, depending on the circumstances.
The researchers' analysis contradicts Taser's position that electric shocks from the weapons cannot kill. The study said the results raise questions about quality control in the stun gun's manufacturing and decline in performance over time.
[...] Researchers said the fact that 9 percent of the guns tested abnormally high was significant enough to recommend a freeze in using X26 stun guns made before 2005. They also recommended more electrical tests on Tasers now in use by Canadian and U.S. law enforcement.
The well-connected company released a statement saying the test results had "no bearing" on safety. So we can all relax!
I hate tasers. I think they're popularity with police forces is due to more Star Trek influence on them than common sense.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
nowadays than when I was growing up in a small town. They seem to be part of the problem rather than the solution to crime.
And they are everywhere except when you need one.
These tasers should be outlawed.
Here's an example of how police would operate in a saner America:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDgbmmrJv_E&fe...
Unfortunately, this is the exception, not the rule. This was from a small town near where I live. The officer is courteous and friendly & even a little skeptical about the people whose property he's protecting. Not coincidentally, he's not only old enough to remember the 1960s, he was on the side of the protesters back then.
I wish more of our police were like this, but high stress, low wages and a culture of militarism & conformity turn policing into something very different in too many communities.
Whatever happened to tear gas and rubbert bullets?
So many of these taser shootings are on people that seemed to have taken leave of their senses. They would suggest some chemical problem already, either self-induced accidentally or deliberately or naturally caused. So they're already not in the best of conditions.
The worse I heard didn't result in death, but it was police in a school classroom, tasering a black girl (11?) having a tantrum.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
All of these technologies are being marketed by manufacturers as, `less than lethal,' but that doesn't make it true. Why do we believe the spin of PR people about a weapon - do we believe the PR people for the cigarette companies, for example?
Rubber and wooden bullets have killed people, particularly in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Tear gas and pepper spray, like all of these weapons, are being used for compliance & control. In practice, this often means either bending to the will of an over-stressed cop or being physically punished. This is not what police are supposed to be doing.
I refuse to assume that cops on the street are necessarily better informed about the law or my rights than I am.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJZNkJbTpjA&fe...
I know rubber bullets have killed some Irish kids during their Troubles, but often they were where they shouldn't have been.
There's also some call for concern on the force the bullet is delivered with. Even car impact cushions can smother a child to death.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Couldn't they use some kind of (very mild) tranquilizer dart, like when capturing roaming animals?
Can they set tasers to stun, instead of liquidate?
far left loon >.<
I would love to see Obama ban them outright from any use AT ALL in the US.
*
So you would allow our soldiers to use them?
I've heard from a credible source, we now have tanks capable of throwing out an electrical field to disperse crowds. If they get too close they feel like they're burning, but all they have to do is step back for the pain to stop.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The biggest problem I see with that is the very nature of crowds. The people at the front of the crowd may well feel like they're burning, but the people *behind* them won't - and there are few things more difficult than pushing back a crowd that wants to go forward. How many more stampedes like the Who concert (or Black Friday Wal-Mart) do we need? You put in a setup like this electric field, and you're going to have the everyone at the front of the crowd trying to back up, and all those in back trying to push forward, forcing those front people even further into the field. Yeah, THAT's going to improve safety.
Yeesh.
...there was a story on 60 Minutes, I think. The weapon was mounted on a military truck and one of the reporters volunteered to stand 50 yards in front of it. The energy field it emits apparently creates great pain in humans (and I would assume animals) that stops as soon as it's turned off.
A rather dastardly instrument of mass torture....all ready for use when we march on DC to protest....Everything!
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
60 Minutes was where I saw it too. But the crowd dynamics that thorswitch was mentioning several of us used, including myself, during the discussion of that Walmart employee being crushed to death by a Black Friday crowd of shoppers.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
As someone who worked for the Police Department (and a liberal), I have to disagree with the "taser-bashing". Most of the time a taser is used, it is as an alternative to deadly force (i.e. taser the guy who is fighting with an officer instead of killing him with a bullet). Also, aside from the occasional "improper use" story that hits the papers (most of which are not that bad when you actually read them), the people who get tasered are not your average person. Someone who will fight with police is probably high on drugs, and very unstable. If a drug-crazed nutbag fights with cops, is tasered, and dies from a drug overdose 6 hours later (which happended in my department), it will likely get reported as another "taser death".
I'm sure there are still mistakes, but in the big picture tasers have saved many, many lives.
And let save some more. They said if we had used that in Iraq, we would not have had as many terror attacks there.
reading your post just further enforces why it is dangerous to provide law enforcement with tasers. sorry.
tasers are not "non-lethal", i wish people would stop repeating this lie.
I'm a former police officer. Would you prefer we go back to the old-school methods of beating people with batons or just putting bullets into them? Because that's what will happen. Dealing with a suspect who is on PCP, or just too stupid to realize that he's not going to win, requires force. Since I really wanted to go home at night, I'm going to use as much force as authorized by doctrine to subdue the suspect quickly. Especially if I feel my life, the suspect's life, or the life of civilians is at stake.
When we were issued tasers, all of us had to be hit by the bloody things as part of the training. Just as I learned what a face full of pepper spray felt like and how being cuffed and restrained feels back in academy. They are non-lethal in the vast majority of applications.
But tell you what, if you're that opposed to the police having the tools, volunteer for a ride along with your local department. Then when you answer a call where some drunk is wailing on his wife and kids with a bat, or the local biker bar's debate has spilled out in the street, feel free to solve the situation through calm, rational discourse. Because that always works.
Let me know where to send the flowers.
Problem is, YouTube and elsewhere, is full of videos for them being used for things like speeding tickets, with mild-mannered sorts.
In these cases, the police have lost public sympathy because they protect their own. It seems "the bad apples" don't get weeded out.
far left loon >.<
Hey just an idea but why don't you actually read the cases of Taser deaths that we're talking about and then get back to us on how those were appropriate use of a lethal weapon. Because Taser ARE lethal weapons since that is what a weapon that kills is called.
Hey. It IS deadly force. The death part is just more of a crap shoot than a head shot.
me-oww!
They shot him in the ass?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I have met one man who used a taser for a sex toy--on himself. Athletic and healthier than average,though--certainly not a cocaine-psychotic or meth monster.
Really? I happened to be living in Vancouver when the RCMP tasered that Polish man who was distraught after being forced to wait several hours in customs. In Canada, we all watched in horror as the video from this incident was shown over and over on the news.
Of course the RCMP claimed that he was being violent, was totally uncooperative and deserved the "non-lethal force" that was used against him, that is until the video surfaced and proved that they were lying. Four cops literally walked up to him, tried to subdue him for all of about 10 seconds, then tasered his ass. Result? One dead innocent man and a whole lot of public flak for the RCMP who clearly wanted to take the easy way out.
So no, I don't believe you. Sorry.
I just read today that the cops tasered the man FIVE times and none of the officers have been found to be culpable in an RCMP internal probe. The easy way out is exactly right.
I agree with you. To me, this has always seemed like another one of those "microwaves cause cancer" scares that get the public all worked up.
I don't know who invented the idea that Tasers were just about avoiding gun use. They are about avoiding physical altercations that are dangerous to the officer. Making an arrest has always been a dangerous process for both the officers and the arrestees. Lots of uncooperative people die from heart attacks, drug overdoses, injuries, and other conditions that are only made worse by the ordeal. Lots of officers get injured or killed while making arrests.
I don't think a Taser is a silver bullet that makes arrests safer for everyone, but it's not bad. It does make it safer for the cops. It may not prevent the overall use of guns by police, but it may very well open up many areas of policework to different kinds of officers who would otherwise have had to resort to gun use, such as women or even older and more experienced officers who aren't as physically strong as their young male counterparts.
I don't think that anti-Taser proponents have submitted any fair statistics in this regard. Police accross the country are under lots of different pressures. They're trying to hire more educated, level headed officers rather than just a bunch of big strong men who can put on riot gear and hold off the crowd. They want to diversify their police forces to better meet community needs. They want to be able to send more women to respond to domestic violence incidents, for example. And so I can't fault them for falling in love with Tasers as a part of the overall solution to modern policework.
I'd also like to fault the article that was quoted in the blog post. How can anyone call a police officer who commited suicide after an accidental death to be an example of police brutality using bullets? Wow, that sounds like a bruttish, insensitive cop to me! You've got to be kidding me. A man fell off a fire escape and died after being Tasered. What does that have to do with Tasers? The Taser didn't kill him, the fall did. He could have fallen for any number of reasons. The statistics of deaths after Taser use, if one looks into it, is nothing more than a simple correlation of death in arrests using Tasers. There's absolutely no causation and no reason to think that the Tasers actually caused any of those deaths.
:eyes roll:
me-oww!
Yeah, I've been too busy with work to post that much on C&L lately. Mostly just read it for the last few months.
In my experience, give anyone a badge, a title, a weapon, or even a rummber stamp with power over your future, and they become assholes. Sorry. That's just me.
Question Authority!!!!
far left loon >.<
Question everyone!
I agree with you that the situations you describe are the INTENDED use of tasers. The problem, as anyone who looks at the cases can see, is that they are being used in situations they were never intended for!
"Someone who will fight with police is probably high on drugs, and very unstable."
Or they could be someone who is aware that an exceptionally high percentage of police officers are themselves criminals. It's not just some odd coincidnce that the rate of crime among police officers is very much higher then among the rest of the population.
What in the world does this have to do with resisting arrest? How is that a rational, reasonable attitude to take under any circumstance? Are the police going to let you free because you struggled hard enough? Maybe if you try to punch one in the face, then they'll understand that it's because they're really the criminals and you're in the right and they're wrong. I stand corrected - they won't just slap you with additional charges and treat you like every other scumbag lowlife who tries to put up a fight with them.
The cops in my town tasered a guy for complaining to Bank of America for not cashing his check.
Yeah...sure.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_10...
Tasered!
But as usual for people on this site, why tell the whole truth. Let me see....you say a guy was tasered by the police for complaining to Bank of America for not cashing his check. The story you linked has a little bit different take on the matter. The first two sentences are "A man was arrested Thursday for allegedly threatening Bank of America employees and resisting arrest.
According to the Arcata Police Department, at around 11:25 a.m. officers responded to Bank of America on the report of a man threatening bank employees." The story goes on to say " He reportedly resisted, and was eventually Tased before being taken into custody." He was later booked on suspicion of making criminal threats and resisting arrest. I wonder how the bank employees felt after having some asshole threaten them. But wait...he just wanted his check cashed, which is not in the story. But don't worry, by using a taser this joke of a person will live to threaten other people on other days. Pathetic.
Police always justify their performance as perfectly legal.
And the press often serve as the police public relations expert.
I'd be more interested in the aftermath of a trial, because regardless of the decision, most relevant facts will be present, hopefully, in the record.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
...has got curtilingus dead to rights. I'm a liberal and I get frustrated because so many other liberals don't seem to understand that going after the police by misstating facts in ways geared, intentially or otherwise, to make the police look stupid plays right into the hands of our conservative enemies.
Tasers may not be working out the way we want to but—know what?—adjustments can be made. Since the most likely alternatives are using billy clubs, which I believe have something or other to do with unnecessary and permanent brain damage, or actual bullets, which have an even greater reputation for lethality if you can believe it, I'd say tasers arguably possess the ability to subdue the violent while cutting way down on permanent damage.
But, but, but...moral masturbation FEELS SO GOOD!
"...has got curtilingus dead to rights."
Wrong. Just because a man is *allegedly* being disruptive and maybe even violent doesn't show that the police reacted properly. As ysbaddaden pointed out, the police always claim they acted legally and appropriately.
"Tasers may not be working out the way we want to but—know what?—adjustments can be made."
Gee. *That* must be comforting to all the people who have been improperly tasered. Oh sure, they were volted without real cause, and maybe even killed by it, but hey, adjustments can be made! We aren't making them, but whatever.
Yeah, Shade Tail.
far left loon >.<
Dear Shade Tell,
Have you no reading comprehension? Cartilingus made the claim that the victim merely "complained" and then provide as proof a news article that used the word "threatened" which is a very different word than "complained." This constitutes a rather obvious and unmistakable false claim on the part of cartilingus. If you want to prove that the guy who got tasered merely "complained" then show me an article which uses the word "complained" not "threatened." Got it?
People who have been inappropriately tasered are victims who deserve our sympathy and police who have acted inappropriately should be punished. But the question here is what options do we have when a violent, threatening person is present and how can we improve them. Merely throwing temper tantrums to show how righteous you are really is no help whatsoever.
But moral masturbation feels so good! And you, Shade Tell, are an obvious prodigy.
Of course. He was just standing in line and the police tasered him for no reason. Because that's what we do, you know. Forget the queue of outstanding non-emergency calls, forget trying to do paperwork in your spare moments, forget having to pull over the guy doing 60 in a school zone, forget being waved down because someone wants to complain about the government putting radios in his head, no we have all the time in world to put our careers on the line and possibly face litigation by randomly using force on civilians.
like you can't handle the job...
me-oww!
According to the taser apologists, the only other option to those officers if their tasers were taken away would have been to shoot this bank guy in the chest and kill him. That's their reasoning. And that kind of disingenuous reasoning is what annoys me the most. Don't bother to observe and assess whether there's a real element of threat, just shout a command, and with 2 seconds of perceived non-compliance, ZAP! Then move on. Without these tasers, that same scenario would lead to a bullet in the head? Really? Or how about the Polish man at the Vancouver airport, he would have been shot and killed absent that taser, is what they are saying, despite his calm demeanor once the FOUR officers arrived (which the RCMP lied about on many levels).
The Polish guy didn't look calm to me.
Subduing the violent and psychotic is no easy trick. In fact, it's often scary. Police are searching for non-lethal, less violent ways of doing it. What happened in Vancouver was awful. But let's say the police tried to physically restrain him before tasering him. He could have hit them with the chair, punched and maybe even temporarily overpowered or otherwise seriously injured the police in which case the billy clubs come out. Hello brain damage.
I'm not saying that there couldn't be better ways of approaching the situation. But your approach, JohnnyRocketpants is just a lot of sanctimonious back seat driving.
No one EVER "LOOKS CALM" to SOME "police officers"! Is that what they taught you at the "police acedemy" - to say that they "didn't look calm to me"? I know I've had one half-wit shit for brained deputy try to pull that assinine shit on me! He's more then a little lucky he still has his pissant job.
Sometimes the most dangerous also look the most calm. Look at any picture of Timothy McVeigh.
And suicide experts state that it's a bad sign when an upset/depressed person becomes quiet and calm. It usually means they've arrived at a decision, suicide.
I'm on my dial-up, so can't view the video clip everyone's referring to. And although I understand the Polish victim wasn't holding up furniture the entire time, is it possible he was holding them as shields?
Additionally, although it's a stereotype, many people in our region think Eastern Europeans always seem angry, even when they're having a normal conversation.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You don't sound that calm to me.
We're taught to evaluate body language and to learn what has transpired before our arrival on the scene. If I'm told that a subject has been ranting, making threats, throwing things, and out of control, and I see a person who is pacing, flushed, and obviously disturbed, I am going to proceed with caution and attempt to put the person in protective custody until I can figure out what the hell is going on.
As for my "pissant job", you wouldn't last a week.
Oh there are other options for bringing down a resisting subject. We can use batons, beating the suspect until he complies. Or we can dogpile the suspect, using brute force to force his arms into position for handcuffing. sometime you break bones doing this, but hey, at least it's not a taser, right?
And I have a better chance of recovering from a beatdown than I do from being rendered dead.
me-oww!
Yeah and police officers have NEVER falsified reports to cover their own criminal asses. Yeah right!
at the Vancouver Airport with Tasers. One thing that happened when this guy died, was the new media portrayed the outrage of this incident, and kept it up. The guy was upset, spoke only Polish, had no idea why he was being detained, couldn't understand, got stroppy, and BAM! Death sentence for talking back, wanting his mom.
But since then, this has been a major public conversation in Canada.
me-oww!
I see a deranged man, flagrantly using furniture in a threatening manner. Ever occur to you guys that the cops might be scared of this guy? And these aren't even cops. They're security guards. How often do you think they have to deal with violent a-holes?
You know what I'd do if i was a Polish guy coming to Canada? I'd bring an English phrase book. I'd show folks my Polish passport so they could get a polish interpreter. I wouldn't run around threatening people with furniture. And if the cops attacked me, you know what? It'd be my own damn fault for running around threatening people.
Why do liberals insist on helping conservatives? Why?
I see an innocent man frustrated beyond belief and getting killed for over-reacting, without actually threatening anyone per se. It looks to me, Mr. Braintree, that you've never been abroad or experienced anything like this. The world ain't so neat and tidy. (Stuff your phrasebook, by the way.)
Anyhow, death was too big a price to pay. There were four officers to restrain him if needed.
far left loon >.<
He's not threatening anyone? He's walking around waving a piece of furniture. He didn't possibly visit IKEA while he was at the airport did he?
And doesn't his mother have a phone? Why not wait and make a call? Why smash things? It's obvious you see what you see, Edwin. But, is that what' really there?
HB, you're not clued in to the reality of that Vancouver situation.
The cops should not have been scared of the guy as he was not exhibiting any of those aggressive tendencies once they arrived on the scene. In fact, multiple people are seen approaching the man trying to communicate with him. He never threatened them or threw any furniture at them. However when the 4 RCMP officers arrived (not security guards) they can be heard discussing how to take him down, even though he had mostly calmed by then. Remember, this is a 25 minute video with no pausing, there's nothing to take out of context. He was calm and not throwing anything around at that point. And he did show many people his polish passport, and the idiots at Immigration didn't get him an interpreter, or even tell his mother he was there. And his mother lived hours away, which is why he didn't call her, cuz she was there waiting to take him home. But instead she was sent home and after 12 hours in Immigration, the guy went off. He certainly didn't deserve to die, and I can't possibly rationalize how he even deserved the taser. He wasn't, as you state, threatening anyone I saw in those 25 minutes, other than possibly himself.
I wouldn't know.
I guess you didn't read how he was exhausted and frightened -- oh but wait, if YOU were him, you wouldn't have allowed yourself to become fatigued.
Jesus. Just because you call yourself liberal, doesn't make you the same. It's what you stand for. Being an apologist for excessive force by the cops is not that liberal.
me-oww!
I just read the article which takes its info completely from the dead man's lawyer who is hardly an objective source.
If the dead man's actions are so understandable could someone please tell me why there isn't an epidemic of people smashing things at airports? Doesn't the situation's uniqueness call your presumptions into question? People land in strange places where they don't speak the language and miss connections with loved ones all the time after long flights. How many of them become violent? I've travelled coast-to-coast on Amtrak a journey that is four times longer than the guy's flight sitting up in a chair on a bouncing train. My mental state was just ducky. I've flown to Hong Kong and back. I wasn't dazed. The story that this is some normal guy in a Kafkaesque nightmare just doesn't add.
Maybe the reason the guy acted the way he did is because he's mentally ill?
And I'm not saying that the cops couldn't have handled it better nor do I assume that they shouldn't be punished. I assume nothing. What I am saying is that there are far more sides to this than you in you easy high dungeon are willing to admit to. The story you're telling is far too simple and far too one-sided and doesn't make nearly as much sense as you seem to think it does.
I goofed. The article does use other sources but the opening is clearly dominated by the plaintiff's lawyers and is the proof Miss Kitty uses to substantiate her assertions about the dead man's mental state. I've been up 24 hours thanks to a work emergency so the old cocoanut ain't humming like it ought to.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/553251
Now that's more like it. Intelligence, not moral masturbation.
Lightning killed more than 400 Americans last year and most of them weren't doing anything wrong.
If I am wrong, may a policeman taser me dead where I stand.
24 seconds before they let him have it.
me-oww!
Bad analogy. Who can you blame for a lightening strike?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Thor?
Most would probably say Zeus. I've often wondered about Thor being known as Thur by the Saxons. Once they conquered Britain and settled some, they really pushed the legends of the Celtic chieftain who supposedly resisted their conquest, ArTHUR.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
tasers make the conditions under which state sanctioned violence can be applied to the citizenry far, far, far easier. and, hence, they are dangerous in the hands of law enforcement.
also, tasers are lethal. so calling them non-lethal is a non-starter.
i would be willing to refer to them as "unreliably lethal".
un-reliably lethal tasers
Agreed.
far left loon >.<
I hate to excuse a cop for violence, but if these crazies choose to use crack cocaine, which can cause heart attacks, or meth, which can create fatal central nervous system anomalies, or even tie on a mean drunk and risk death by DUI, I can't see that the majority of deaths by tasering are the cop's fault. Being a cop is not a capital crime, and these guys and gals have the right to defend themselves against confrontations which would be a death sentence for earning a paycheck , protecting the public against out-of-control creeps who couldn't care less about their own health.
Not that I'm a police groupie...I have been hounded by the law for opposing a state income tax, been railroaded by family of a sheriff's candidate I actively opposed, and am a mouthy woman likely to be arrested at least one more time before I become a bitchy old lady.
Ooops...
My bad.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
For a Canadian example (I'm ashamed to say):
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/12/12/bc-airport-taser-death-charges.html
"Secular humanism -- a fearless, realistic world view replete with doubt and scepticism that attempts to attain an unachievable state of equilibrium between and among the human qualities of reason, intuition, imagination, memory, ethics and common sense.
I thought Canadian cops used cannisters of cannabis smoke.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Only off duty. They don't like it when on shift as it tends to calm them down.
"Secular humanism -- a fearless, realistic world view replete with doubt and scepticism that attempts to attain an unachievable state of equilibrium between and among the human qualities of reason, intuition, imagination, memory, ethics and common sense.
I've been following it. I still feel for a guy who was tasered for being scared shitless worried about his mom.
me-oww!
I've been following it too, along with the 11 year old girl. These are admittedly anecdotal incidences, however they are indicative that they're not being used in show-downs that would've otherwise resulted in death.
America is being overrun by a goon-squad mentality.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
All of these folks might have been.......ME terrorists in disguise..right? Be very afraid....
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
The ME generation have their own terrorists?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
if you were in this guy's shoes, would you threaten people with furniture?
are you being a smartarse?
me-oww!
No, we're just reading the story. The guy tried to smash windows, threatened people with furniture, was out of control.
And guess what? The tasers didn't kill him!
From the article:
"Instead the pathologists concluded Dziekanski likely died as a result of cardiac arrest linked to a condition the report called Sudden Death Following Restraint.
"That condition was brought on by a combination of:
* Heart disease due to chronic alcohol abuse.
* An agitated state of delirium.
* The stress of the physical restraint worsened by the deployment of the Taser.
* A decreased ability to breathe as a result of being restrained.
* Alcohol withdrawal."
this guy was the loser and you're all too bad, so sad. Tells me all I need to know about you.
* Heart disease due to chronic alcohol abuse. (Disease. Not a crime)
* An agitated state of delirium. (circumstances. Not a crime)
* The stress of the physical restraint worsened by the deployment of the Taser. (hmm police action)
* A decreased ability to breathe as a result of being restrained. Suffocated, in other words, due to police actions.
* Alcohol withdrawal. (Disease. Not a crime)"
Actually the Taser DID kill him. I'll tell you something. This is precisely why Tasers should not be allowed. If the intent is to stop and not kill. I would say, unless a police officer has a medical work up on the guy, wherein s/he knows that the action taken will not cause harm to the subject.
All these crazed motherfuckers have stuff wrong with them, and killing them may solve your immediate problem, but getting the death penalty for being an alcoholic who is disoriented and not speaking the language is beyond the pale. If this had happened in France to a monoglot American, there would be all sorts of outrage.
me-oww!
Snore. We don't need any armchair justices. He didn't threaten anyone. Get your facts straight before you pass off your crap.
far left loon >.<
Waving furniture at people and smashing windows is an inherently threatening act.
with people yelling at you in a language you don't understand, you might feel somewhat inherently threatened yourself -- oh wait this is the Ever Ready Hieronymus Braintree who has all travel contingencies covered.
me-oww!
The death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport a year ago was a pointless tragedy that underlines all the failings of tasers and police procedure. Dziekanski was a 35 year old polish immigrant who had never flown or left Poland when he immigrated to Canada. He knew no English, and found himself without help or direction when he arrived at Vancouver Airport after a long flight. He wandered around the arrivals area for several hours, not knowing what to do. His mother was waiting outside the arrivals area, but she left. Dziekanski, fearful, sleepless and hungry, eventually became irrational and agitated. He tried to throw a stool through a window and yelled. These were his only 'crimes'.
He was tasered 5 times by RCMP. One of the officers knelt on his chest while Dziekanski was handcuffed.
Dziekanski died from suffocation and a heart attack.
Here's a video of the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6nx0Cx3uMk
Yesterday, the legal authorities in BC declined to charge any of the officers.
Tell me, annoyed Canuck, when you travel don't you make some attempt to learn the local language before going? I do. When frustrated do you throw furniture through windows? If you do, then I won't be the least bit surprised if you wind up being tasered. You'd be pretty much asking for it.
It infuriates me as a liberal how flagrantly bigoted other liberals are against the cops. There are a lot of bad cops out there but, know what? THEY'RE the ones who have to deal with violent a-holes out there. Not you. Getting on your high horse is easy. Dealing with violent criminals (and the Polish guy WAS a violent criminal—he threw furniture through glass) isn't.
You can go after the cops if you want to, but don 't be surprised if conservatives start winning reelection by painting liberals as inherently anti cop.
/sarcasm
me-oww!
I never claimed to be perfect. I questioned your logic. Stop your sadistic beating of straw men.
I'm not telling you to shut up. You are perfectly welcome to feel you're 'liberal' even though apparently, YOU'RE NOT.
me-oww!
Mr. Braintree has spoken.
By the way, how many times have you tried to use a foreign language in these situations? I just spent a week getting a work visa renewed at Korean immigration. "Teensy" language and cultural barriers going on, fer sure!!!
(Good thing I didn't have a taser-in-hand! If you get my point, which you WON'T!)
far left loon >.<
If I tried to use a phrasebook to defuse a situation with foreign cops, I'd probably end up accidentally questioning the cop's mother's gender preference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Phrase books are so useful.
"On which track will the train for Zagreb arrive?"
"Do you have any rooms overlooking the piazza?"
"How quickly can your laundry service press these trousers?'
Yet, I kinda think that guy woulda been looking for something more like, "WTF is up with you people. I came to visit my mother and you've left me standing around helplessly, cold, tired and hungry for 8 hours."
far left loon >.<
Phrasebooks also have sections on how to ask for directions. They generally don't advise people that to get help they should run around smashing things. Oh, and here's a tip. If you do smash something and the police show up. Raise your hands and show them that you mean no harm. Don't make them think that you might try and hurt them. Otherwise you might put them in a position where they'll be criticized by liberals who don't have to face the same dangers.
...why is "teensy" in quotation marks? I never said teensy. It's a dishonest rhetoritician who puts words in his or her opponent's mouth indeed.
Tell me, did you throw a chair through a window or visibly threaten anyone while you were at it?
As an alternative to guns, which is the way they were originally touted, they're a good idea. But the situations we hear about are those in which they are being used as an alternative to such labor-intensive techniques as, say, TALKING to the potential target.
If their use is to be continued, there should be very nasty disciplinary procedures against anyone who uses them for anything except their originally intended use. And that means NEVER against any unarmed person.
Like that kid in a college library who wasn't leaving fast enough. And after being tasered and collapsing onto the floor, they repeatedly tasered him for failing to leave, when the whole purpose of the tasering is to immobilize.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The case cited involved a young man who was mentally disturbed, already violent, and who needed to be brought in before he hurt himself or others. I can tell you from experience that these factors, especially the first, tend to make negotiations nearly impossible.
24 seconds. Crack decision making skillz, RCMP.
me-oww!
At some point tasers will be replaced by non-lethal high-frequency (and low-frequency)acoustic sound "laser" guns. The military has been testing this infrasound resonance technology for a few years now
I do agree, tasers are dangerous but still, it would be fun to see Sean Hannity, or Billo get tasered.
Thirty years ago they were calling them maser guns,
Which we call corn.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
the scads of 'unreliably lethal' devices being tested now by the military might make a more cynical person to comment on the state of our society. and its failings.
and that person is me.
like the 'war on terror' only serves to increase terrorism, and the 'war on drugs' has done nothing to stop the flow of drugs, this new 'war on dissention' is doomed to lead to more dissention.
and mentoring. Police also have to deal with the mentally ill. Generally the brightest in society are attracted to other fields in the criminal justice industry, and the training is too short compared to other important occupations.
Animal control officers don't seem to need tasers to control dangerous animals...
She says that police are not trained to deal with mentally ill people. In our area, a long time veteran cop was killed by a crazy naked guy, who'd wrestled the officer's gun from him.
Another went to the door of a known crazy guy and was killed by a shotgun blast through the door.
And most recently, a crazy guy killed 6 people up north, including an officer who knew the guy and was trying to help.
She says another disservice done to police officers is not training them to deal with the after-effects of an adrenaline dump. This is why you see cops sometimes wailing the shit out of guys on the ground after a high speed chase. Some of these guys are shocked by their own actions after the fact.
me-oww!
that sweeping the mentally ill under the rug would prove to be a bad idea?
/sarcasm off
Ron Reagan -- The Greatest President evah!
/channeling right wing assclown.
me-oww!
That's a seperate issue from taser use. However, it's the result of a well intentioned liberal cause being derailed by a conservative one. The liberals didn't like how non-dangerous people were being institutionalized, everyone from the retarded to an unwanted spouse. They envisioned half-way houses and drop-in places to help those who needed it, but didn't require institutionalization. The conservatives decided to save money by not having the half-way houses drop-in places created. So the mentally ill just got worse, many ended up in the streets as the homeless.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
i live and work in CC philly and i probably have more interaction with the mentally ill in one day than people living in the burbs have their entire lives (sweeping generalization, sorry), and it is a tragic situation.
the forced institutionalization was dreadful. the situation now is dreadful. maybe those half-way houses would have been the trick... something has to change.
Wow, so now I'm not that smart for being a cop? And I'd love to know where you get your knowledge of police training. Conflict resolution is a big part of it. A good call is one where our hands never go near the belt. No gun, no spray, no handcuffs. We talk everyone down, life goes on.
This does not work on crazy people. Crazy violent people (who sadly, seem to be naked most of the time. The joy of police work, wrestling a fat naked guy on meth who just decided to pee on you.) require force.
and IIRC, crazies and methheads can still come at you, with tasers still stuck in them, discharging.
me-oww!
I can just see cops walking around with tranquilizer guns. That would really make all the cop-haters out there happy.
You can't tranq someone without a weight amt, medical history and all.
me-oww!
I still think what I suggested yesterday would be best, cannibis smoke bombs
"Suspect down!!! Request Twinkies...Repeat, Request Twinkies...ASAP!!!
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
a vapour of THC in the face. followed by rice krispie squares, potato chips and Twinkies.
Or diffuse the sitch with laughter. N2O in a concentrated stream
Mellow, thass muh style.
me-oww!
Maybe the police forces can get those spritzing bottles from store-walkers in the shopping malls. Some of those perfume samples they spray on unsuspecting passerby are enough to floor an elephant.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
This may sometimes be the case, but increasingly they are used for the sake of convenience, and because they happen to be hanging on the officer's belt.
It's called 'usage creep' and is referred to as such in the Canadian study referred to at the top of this post.
I heard a guy on a call-in radio show (CBC in Vancouver, BC) ask a very pertinent question. He cited the fact that there are now about 4,000 documented uses of tasers by police officers against citizens. His question was, does that mean that in all 4,000 of those incidents, the officer would have used 'deadly force' in the absence of tasers?
Highly, highly doubtful. Shootings by police in Canada have always been rare.
My opinion - police now routinely pull out the taser in situations where they used to have to take a guy down physically, or give chase. The taser is not just an alternative to deadly force, it's an alternative to getting a police officer's hands dirty or messing up his uniform.
I agree... I saw a guy get tasered at a Tampa Bay Bucs game last year. The guy was drunk and may have wanted to start a fight with someone else. I found it very disturbing to see a guy getting tasered with about 12 police officers watching the whole incident. Essentially, they're telling me that 12 Hillsborough Co. Sheriffs would not have been able to tackle 1 guy down to immobolize him without risking their life or serious injury. Keep in mind that this is within a stadium that you have to go through security to get in. Also, that's without mentioning disturbing thought of all the 8yo-12yo kids that were watching and having reactions such as "Look Dad, he's getting tasered, it's so cool!!". These kids are going to be great adults someday......
We watched them tase the guy for asking John Kerry too many awkward questions. I mean, maybe the kid was a bit of a goof, but also very frustrated by the US EMPIRE BULLSHIT. They were aready dragging the kid out with force, but they somehow felt a need to ZAP him a few times as punishment.
far left loon >.<
I think you nailed there, Annoyed.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TasersKill
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B4846...
How do Americans think that those anti-Constitutional "Free Speech Zones" are being enforced? It's not just with a please and thank you. In a country where the writ of Habeas Corpus has been suspended along with our centuries-old Posse Comitatus law, the law has become whatever the cops on the ground say it is.
The Second Amendment was originally enacted so that citizens could protect themselves against tyranny by the government - by OUR government. It was, after all, citizen militias who played a huge part in repelling the British during the Revolutionary War. I used to think that, in the modern era, this was just a fig leaf for gun nuts and recreational hunters, since our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. I never in my life thought that I would agree with the militia movement in this country, but to my dismay, increasingly, I do.
You need to look at the first and second articles of the US Constitution. Under the powers of the Congress: Article I, sec. XIII, XIV and XVI, and the powers of the president: Article II, Section II. They define what a well-regulated militia is and what the feds can use them for. One of them is for quelling sedition or declaring war against one own's government.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Read the Virginia Declaration of Rights, from which the language for the 2nd Amendment was adapted.
"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
The Founders drafted & debated the Constitution firmly in the context of what had gone before. This meant the history of militias in English Common Law, in which they were compelled by the King, but it was also in the context of the Revolutionary War. In America, decentralised militias evolved to oppose the King, rather than enforce his edicts.
After Shay's Rebellion, the Federalists wanted to create a standing army to, among other things, put down uprisings by the poor and disenfranchised. It's a lot harder to get local militias to fire on their neighbors than it is to get a professional army to do so. The Federalists opposed the Second Amendment (& the Bill Of Rights as a whole), largely because they didn't believe that America would ever have a standing army that could rival the strength of the citizen militias.
"Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
- Noah Webster
It was the anti-Federalists who opposed creation of a standing army & saw state-run militias as the last defense of the people against a tyrannical federal government. They knew from Roman history that their newly-formed republic could devolve.
I'm a follower of Thoreau, Gandhi & Dr. King but, as I wrote earlier, my opinion of the 2nd Amendment is ever-evolving.
States can offer more rights if they want than the Feds, as long as they don't violate the Federal Supremacy Clause,or someone else's rights, and since the portions of the Constitution I cited don't tell the states how to run the Militias during peace-time, presumably whether arms are issued or owned is left up to the state.
Afterall no army would be wanted that had nothing but militias manned by men bearing weak rabbit hunting rifles.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
There are a lot of people who have been tased that otherwise would very likely have been shot by police officers. An argument can very easily be made that tasers have saved many more lives than they have taken although those numbers are harder to quantify.
Semantically, they should be termed as "less lethal" rather than "non lethal". I'll definitely cede you that part of the argument.
That they are frequently misused by sadistic jackasses operating under color of authority is true but I think the concept is still valid and that electroshock weaponry has its place in law enforcement.
They are dangerous and should only be used in an emergency situation. Only if the only other way is to shoot and kill. I think that is the circumstance that should be used.
Funny how English cops don't have guns at all. And they seem to do OK.
far left loon >.<
Well, you're wrong there. Most police don't carry firearms, but Authorised Firearms Officer do, and what they carry would make most progressive wet themselves. An AFO carries, on patrol, a H&K MP5 submachinegun along with a service pistol.
but what of the rest of the British police? The make do with a variety of non-lethal weapons... like tasers.
Also, only specially trained officers (like the Firearms Officers) will be able to use them, they're limited to 10 Police forces in the UK. Up until 1 Sept, 2007, Tasers WERE restricted to Authorised Firearms Officers. Only 3000 had been issued (Britain is a country the size of Colorado, with about a quarter of the US population)
So not every idiot on the force will get one. And I mean in the sense, well you've had brother cops that you just shake your head at...I'm not calling all officers idiots.
More concerns raised in Britain over stun gun use, Nov, 2008
Amnesty and Metropolitan (London) police express doubts on Taser surge
and many other countries are light on the armed response bullshit. Norway, for one.
me-oww!
Although i think Tasers are a serious problem because they lower the threshold regarding the use of force (deadly or otherwise) when it comes to how the police deal with the public i think it is more appropriate to look a little deeper. For the most part the police in our country are trained to look upon the average citizen as a possible adversary; a potential threat rather than a fellow citizen. Walk into a 7Eleven and say hello to an officer and you will see what i mean. An institutionalized distance is apparent. An invisible wall has been erected just in case you need to be arrested or shot for the psychological protection of the officer but to the detriment of our society. This makes it easier for the officer to use deadly force non, lethal force and in some cases illegal force when dealing with the people he is sworn to protect because in the end the mindset police are working under is to protect the officer not the public.
You're describing what I've read described as the fishbowl mentality.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I have not been privy to this.
I recently "caught" a murder suspect who had stolen a car and crashed it into mine at an intersection. Now when I walk into the local 7Eleven, the cops says "Hey man how's it going?" One time when I was 12, I got lost in NYC on New Year's. It probably took the whole NYPD to reunite me with my parents, at which point they offered us VIP seating next to visiting dignitaries for the Macy's fireworks. Also, my former platoon commander from the Marine Corps works on my city's SWAT team. So when I see him keeping the peace at city events, he'll give me a bear hug and tell me not to drink and drive. The other day I saw an old lady walking down the street after dark and she had asked a passing police officer if he would walk her to her car. And he said of course, and did. Police are human, too, you know? I think the "institutional" distance that you feel might be your own prejudice.
If I'm not mistaken, the Anglo-Saxon name for Thor was Thonur--that is, "thunder." The "thur" in Thursday is a contraction (from Thonursdag.) The modern word "thunder" is influenced by the Dutch form, or so it is thought. (Or so I think it is thought.)
I'm describing Saxon, not Anglo-Saxon (a disntinction of a couple of centuries), and even within one ethnicity names can vary from region to region in the era before mass communications. In addition, to me, Thonur sounds more Gaulish, where they had such Latinized names for Celtic Gods as Taranis, Teutates and Esus.
I do, however, remember one church document denouncing the Anglo-Saxons for continuing to worship, "Wodin, Thonur and Saxnot (probably Tyr)."
Did'ja know the names of the reindeers Donner and Blitzen are derived from thunder and lightening?
The Fish Bowl mentality is the feeling of being constantly observed disapprovingly by citizens and governments, and becoming insular and isolated with only your immediate companions, other officers, and everyone else are outsiders.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Czar and Kaiser are derivatives of Caeser, and methinks Amerikkka is making far too many Caesars.
far left loon >.<
You forgot Tzar.
Or is it Tsar?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
OMG I've been in a fishbowl my whole life, but didn't know it. Now stop looking at me.
far left loon >.<
Don't they have pepper spray? Can't they develop something less lethal? Or is America no longer the land of ingenuity?
You did send men to the moon after all. (If you believe that. Just sayin'.) There's trillions for a "war on terror", developing good torture techniques, and having a worldwide chain of black secret prisons, complete with rendition flights. But no money for safety for American citizens in the face of their own police. "To serve and protect." M'kay.
far left loon >.<
I've seen methheads take full blast of pepper spray right in the eyes and keep going. I've never seen anyone take a taser and be able to continue to resist in a meaningful way.
From my own training, the capsicum spray was intensely painful, but I remained standing, and remained aware of my surroundings. I could have continued to fight back. When I got tasered, I was on the floor in major pain and unable to get my arms to move for a second or two.
Would you at least agree there could be an alternative to tasers, if there was a will to develop it??
They're too easy to use. I agree with the 'usage creep' phenomenon.
far left loon >.<
we're talking about 11 year old girls (learning disabled) and frightened exhausted travellers with no command of the English Language. No one ever said being a cop was easy or safe. It's what you sign on for, to serve and protect. It's not much of a service to kill someone for acting up. You plug an unarmed someone corralled in a tiny room with a taser 24 seconds after encountering them, you really aren't using the skills for which you were hired.
Hell give me a Taser. There's a motherfucker who keeps parking on the sidewalk in my hood, and I want it stopped.
me-oww!
"Get down, get down." Z-a-a-a-a-p! A lot of cops are under a lot of physical and emotional stress all the time. Maybe too much. Maybe too much occupation force, paramilitary training is not such a good idea. I've seen some disturbing changes in how the police interact with the public. Time was you could talk with them if you ran afoul of the law for some minor reason. Now, it seems that failure to comply immediately is not an option and can get you seriously hurt, and if they do talk with you it is only to try and get you to incriminate yourself. I can understand why this might be justifiable in some places, but it seems to be rapidly becoming the case every place, and that cannot be good.
They kill people. As an alternative to " Deadly force".
They fail. Get rid of them.
The cops that use/abuse them should be prosecuted.
Don't Tase Me Bro!
remember that one?
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Tasers were promoted by people as "non-lethal" when the sellers knew they killed people.
The think is, the hype about tasers wasn't about money. It was about legitimizing more police violence, to encourage police to be more willing to use force against people, especially against non-violent people.
But we've seen this story before. Go look up the effects and deaths caused the rubber bullets used by the Israeli Terrorist Force (the ITF) against Palestinian civilians, and the ITF's claim that rubber bullets are "non-lethal".
it's kind of detailed. lemme know what you think if you have the time to check this out.
http://getangrywithme.com/2008/12/cops-earn-w...
> 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.
Joy! Wouldn't it be GREAT if all fascist pigs "just following orders" did that?
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/12/3834...
There are some police departments that taser people to death just because they don't want to touch people who were burned in a traffic accident just minutes earlier.
Now the Christofascist pigs who committed the murder is on trial -- not for the murder but for numerous other crimes.
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