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."

Comments

Re:Glorified Cattle Prod

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

My, what short memories we have. Uproar over chokeholds, anyone?

There are no safe methods for restraining a resistant person. If you want to claim that one method - "swarming" (which doesn't actually have a definition), chokehold, taser, or beating-with-nightstick - is more or less dangerous than others, you'll need to dig up some statistics and crunch some numbers. If all you're relying on is anecdotes, you're going to get nowhere, as all of those have been implicated in deaths (depending on what you call this ill-defined "swarming").

You think tasers are bad? Fine - show us data that demonstrates something is safer.

And before anybody goes there with "what if they've got a knife?".. then the .40 cal comes out

So you're saying officers are supposed to tackle a guy who may or may not have a knife, and then if that guy pulls out a knife they're supposed to get up, get away, pull out their own weapon, and fire?

What do you expect the "perp" to be doing while this is going on? Your "solution" is laughably naive, and would lead to officers getting killed.

Re:hysterical

[boyko.at.netqos]

Has anyone considered the possibility that the vast majority of people who get tasered may actually deserve it? Have you considered the idea that tasers are properly classified as torture devices and that, as such, no one deserves it?

Get a grip

[m167a1]

Couple of points here folks.

A taser is preferable to being shot. And its preferable to having the cop put in danger. When in doubt. TASE em' and figure it out later.

As for torture.. Yes it hurts, so what? All the alternatives to using a taser are worse.

I also hear the juvenile I love the UN / I hate cops
BS being trotted out. I bet most of you children call 911 if you have a toothache. As for the UN, why would you even care what it had to say?

Re:hysterical

[timmarhy]

the problem is that people today don't respect police officers, so they are forced to use tasers to bring people into line. there is NO alternative if you want to maintain law and order.

Re:Dude, how stupid _are_ you?

[c6gunner]

Yeah, listen, I can argue with retards like you and not lose interest, but I don't generally argue with liars. When your own sources contradict what you're saying yet you still continue to argue ... well, you're pretty much useless. Goodbye.