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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."
Sounds like one of those 18th century list of causes of death, where they didn't actually know the reason so they threw in some medical buzzwords of the day such as hysteria.
Whether something is torture is not (or rather, should not be) decided from whether or not it will actually kill you.
Undoubtedly, pulling someone's teeth out is torture, yet it's not going to kill you. The relevant part is the wanton quantities of pain involved.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
In America, lawyers get to determine how the human body works.
Not sure this is a step up from the Catholic Church getting to decide, but I hear your President has God whisper advice directly into his ear, so...
Now we have a weapons manufacturer dictating medical procedure and reporting.
*Sniff* *Sniff* I smell bullshit....
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If we have trouble with an animal, we shoot it -- either lethally, or with tranquilizer darts. Now you might say let's just use tranqs on humans! ... but that wouldn't work. The only tranq I know of that would be safe to use on humans would be ketamine, and it's not exactly fast-acting.
So then we're still left with the question of what to do when somebody violently resists police or police need to stop somebody from acting violently towards others.
Do you just shoot them? Beat the shit out of them until they stop?
Those both are much more lethal than a taser could ever be.
Try and talk them out of it? Oh, but if you do that now you're valuing the life of the criminal above the life of innocents and the police.
There are most certainly cases where tasers are over-used and abused, but I think that just means the police need to be held more accountable for their use -- not that tasers are an icky nasty evil thing that should be bannzt.
Oh, and it's not unlawful restraint. Where the hell did you even pull that from.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Uh huh, and that explains why Taser International is threatening to sue coroners who cite it as a contributing factor to cause of death. It's not because the product kills people every now and then and they might not sell as many tasers to cops if that becomes widely known. It's the cops they care about! That thin blue line between civilization and chaos!
Look, I think everyone agrees that cops need to be able to subdue violent people with as little lethal force used as possible. To the extent that tasers, stun guns, etc. contribute to that goal, fine. The point is that Taser International's commercial interests may not necessarily coincide with that goal (i.e. the product can be abused, or should not be used in some circumstances), and Taser International may not be interested in owning up to that fact for marketing reasons.
Coroners, who are obligated to determine cause of death as accurately as possible, should be able to opine that the use of a taser contributed to cause of death when that is in fact the case, end of story. That is, assuming you want cops to be accountable. It was interesting to scroll down the comments in TFA to note the number of people who apparently think cops should just be able to pull people off the street and kill them in custody.
Disclaimer: I am a police officer in Florida. I use the Taser. I do not own stock in Taser International.
To say that a Taser didn't *contribute* to the deaths is probably wrong. To say that a Taser *caused* the deaths is almost certainly wrong.
The amperage on a Taser is too low by a few orders of magnitude to cause death by electrocution. It will cause central nervous system disruption, which is very uncomfortable, and causes some unusual side effects.
I've been shot with a Taser. Not a stun-gun, a full-fledged Taser with the barbed prongs and ranged shot. I took a five second burst of 50,000 volts. It isn't fun, but I'd prefer it to pepper spray (which I've also been hit with). At least it's over in five seconds, instead of three hours.
During the shot, the Taser causes you to literally scream out all the air in your body in about two seconds. You spend three seconds trying to force out air that isn't there. In someone full of drugs or with pre-existing medical problems, this can definitely pose a risk.
As a police officer, I've had six situations where using the Taser has saved me from serious bodily injury. In all but one case, the defendant was immediately back on his feet after I helped him up, and quickly back in good spirits. In two cases, they spent the ride to jail joking with me. In one case, the defendant had to go to the hospital due to a cocaine overdose. He lived due to timely medical intervention, but we expected him to be in bad shape and had an ambulance standing by to assist the minute we had him secure.
As for calling the Taser torture, let me put it this way: I would willingly be shot with a Taser again in a training exercise. I've willingly subjected other people to it after feeling its effects. I would *not* willingly be shot with pepper spray/mace again. I have not and will not willingly subject other people to it after feeling its effects. The Taser is a valuable, but dangerous weapon that must be treated with caution and only used appropriately. Pepper spray is torture.
Yes, the theory is that the taser is used instead of a gun, in the situations where otherwise they'd have to shoot. Too bad it doesn't seem to work that way. It seems to work more like: when they would have used a gun, they'll still use a gun, but now have the taser for the rest of the time.
Off the top of my head, I remember such gems as:
- guy with a medical emergency calls 911, cops show up first and tase him in his bed. Apparently they thought he lunged at them. While lying on a bed across the room.
- student doesn't have his library card at the library, and is already leaving (so wtf of a danger did he pose?), campus security guards tase him repeatedly.
- some idiot decides to streak naked, gets tased. I can think of at least two of these.
- schoolkid threatens to cut himself with a piece of broken glass, gets tased.
- 12 year old schoolgirl is found skipping school, gets tased.
- 75 year old grandma insists too much to visit an old friend in another nursing home, a cop gets called and tases her.
- guy gets agitated after being kept IIRC for 12 hours without access to food, water or his medicine in an airport, cops tase him to death. Literally: tased repeatedly, until he dies of heart attack.
Etc, etc, etc.
Here's my question for all the "well, it's better than being shot" gang: exactly which of those would have warranted a bullet instead? No, seriously, I'm curious.
AFAIK not even in Stalin's USSR or Mao's China would they shoot a sick guy for just calling an ambulance. And no country in the world takes school _that_ seriously as to shoot a 12 year old for skipping school.
No, it's already used in _addition_ to the gun, not instead of.
And here's a funnier thought: we already have plenty of evidence that it's used repeatedly. Some even on camera. In some cases it seems to be police stupidity: they see a guy spasming after the jolt, and they think it's some kind of resisting arest, so they do it again. In some cases it seems genuine torture. They've been given free hand to use the taser, so they'll cause you some more pain just because they don't like you.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What's worse? Tasering someone, which only lasts a few seconds and can quick calm down a situation, or just straight out shooting them? It's true that there have been over-uses of it by cops, however tasers have saved many lives when cops would've been more than justified in using lethal force. And no, I am not a cop myself. The problem is something I learned in the military: One screw up can void a hundred atta-boys. So, when some dumb cop over-uses a taser, everyone forgets all the times that good cops used a taser to prevent lethal force. Of course, cops could go back to using billy clubs to beat the suspects when they're being violent or, even worse, being forced to use lethal force when a taser could've taken care of the situation. People are so quick to judge a situation they are not in and never have been in. People also forget that tasers are used both correctly and incorrectly, but, usually, only the incorrect use shows up on the news. We rarely see results from the correct use. So, it seems worse than it really is.
Years ago I was responsible for designing a safety interlock system on a piece of high voltage test equipment, and I worked with an officer of the UK H&S executive to achieve compliance.
H&SE have evidence of people being killed by shocks of as little as 2.5mA, and have reason to believe that there is no lower limit. The actual cause is heart fibrillation which can be set off by a very small current in the wrong place.
The standard set for equipment like electric fences for cattle is based on this research, but it is statistical - that is to say, the overall likelihood of deaths from this cause is very small bot non-zero. People fit and active enough to walk across fields are unlikely to die as a result of contacting an electric fence, but people with heart conditions need to be very careful.
In the case of the taser, the electric shock is deliberately caused and the victim has no opportunity to avoid it. This is a different situation . The law needs to reflect the scientific evidence that electric shocks can cause death because otherwise a police officer may be tempted to use on in a non-threatening situation. It must be possible to prosecute police who behave recklessly, and legislating that certain technology is not dangerous removes this protection from the citizen. Unless you are one of those judges who believe that all policemen are totally honest and always have the best interests of society at heart, in which case I have a job for you in China.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
BZZT. One of the very first things you learn in gun safety courses is that you don't point the gun at some(one/thing) unless you plan on shooting that person / thing.
Once you point the gun at someone you have immediately escalated into deadly force. If the perp doesn't back down - you have to shoot him. That's the entire idea behind a taser - non lethal force. This isn't like TV where people hold guns at each other and talk rationally, defuse the situation and move on to a commercial.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I rank Taser International right up there with Diebold, DirecTV and the RIAA as organizations that regularly misuse American law to suppress competition and legitimate discussion of their products and services. This is not a matter of using the legal system to provide redress of grievance ... it's a form of quasi-legal censorship. It needs to be stopped, particularly when it comes to TI's intimidation of medical examiners and other State employees who are performing vital public services. This is wrong any way you look at it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Change the textbooks then. People must not be mammals then either.
I take it you've never dealt with a human toddler in the 2-3.5 earth year category.
It's said the the mental capacity of most non human mammals fall in intelligence category of a human 'animal' toddler; you can't reason with them, they react on instinct, and the fact that they can't communicate their thoughts exactly makes it extremely difficult to have a meaningful dialog with them.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Tazers are not used instead of firearms, they are used instead of physical restraint. A cop would never use a tazer in a life threatening situation when he already has a firearm, they are only used in situations where physical restraint is required and are no different to a baton in that regard. What we see here is the abuse of the baton to the point where it is torturous and deadly. This does not mean ban the baton, instead we must remove the arbitrary and indiscriminate use of such force and restrain the excesses of brutality they have caused.
I've always been a bit ambivalent on this. I think it's quite silly for the causes of death to be changed, as we all know well enough that getting hit by a pretty healthy jolt of electricity certainly could result in death, especially for those whose health is already compromised by other factors.
On the other hand, it is true that police are able to use nonlethal force in place of lethal force in some scenarios (and Taser use is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, nonlethal). This is a good thing.
I think a good way to treat this would be as we would treat the use of a punch, kick, nightstick, or other form of painful but nonlethal force. If an officer were to punch, kick, or whack someone with a nightstick simply for "mouthing off" or refusing to cooperate without mounting any physical threat, that officer is guilty of a crime and should be punished. On the other hand, if the person is attempting to attack physically, the officer would be well-justified in using necessary force to defend him/herself. Why not develop some reasonable guidelines for the thing, and then, you know, actually hold cops accountable if they don't follow them?
Well, I can dream, can't I? Now back to this video of a cuffed suspect getting tasered repeatedly.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Your argument is only relevant when talking about punishment, which is given to someone who has already been restrained, and should be decided about by a court of law rather than officer Tenpenny. Tasers, however, are not tools of punishment, they're tools of restrainment. When restraining a suspect, the only acceptable standard is to use the minimum neccessary force; altought, obviously, one must make allowances for the fact that the one doing the restraining doesn't have the benefit of hindsight or, neccessarily, a chance to calmy consider his options, so he might err in his estimation of "minimum force".
What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter whether the one you're restraining is a retard or a genius. Either way you either use the minimum force neccessary, or you belong behind the bars yourself.
So no, the fact that more can be expected from humans than animals doesn't mean that you can go taser-happy on humans. If anything, it means that people who hold power over others - embodied in devices like tasers, for example - have no excuse whatsoever if they abuse it. And using that power beyond what is neccessary, for example tasering someone unneccessarily, is abuse.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Do you just shoot them? Beat the shit out of them until they stop? Those both are much more lethal than a taser could ever be.
You assume Tasers and similar devices are used instead of guns. They're not. They're used when you could not get away with using a gun (or even with beating the suspect senseless). Which is why we see them used against children, people who are already restrained and annoying questioners at political rallies. In situations where the taser wielder would certainly not have considered shooting or hitting the subject an appropriate action.
I think that just means the police need to be held more accountable for their use
If shooting someone with a taser was regarded as equal to shooting them with a gun, I'd happily see them deployed all over. Then it would actually be a question of using a taser _instead_ of a gun.
Beating people leaves marks. Shooting people leaves marks. Tasers don't.
If said people are actually criminals, restraining them by necessary means is of course justified. But every cop thinks twice before shooting someone, which is not the case with tasers.
(As a sidenote, there are no criminals before a court says so, only "suspects").
I NEVER start shit with them.
Me neither! That's why I'm always VERY careful never to:
- be black
- be poor
- have a funny haircut
- ask questions
- take pictures
- say the wrong thing
- vote for the wrong people
- etc.
Personally, I'd say the taser is not in itself the problem, it's that the taser is regarded as 'nothing' by police (as instructed by Taser International).
If the taser was billed instead as an extreme and possibly fatal means to subdue a subject or a 'less lethal' form of gun we might see more appropriate use.
Furthermore, use of a taser or other electrical stun device in an already restrained individual IS torture pure and simple. It's no more acceptable than handcuffung and then beating the subject.
I recently saw a training program where officers are themselves tazed briefly in a controled situation so they will understand exactly the effects of the force they might use on a subject. That seems like a good idea to me and is very likely to lead to more appropriate uses.
IMHO, Taser International is so anxious to advertise their product as perfect and a panacea that they CAUSE it to be mis-used through disinformation. It does the officers no favors either. They use the device in an honest belief that it is less brutal than throwing the subject to the ground and pinning them with a knee only to find themselves facing a wrongful death proceeding.
As for pointing a gun, absolutely NOT. A good rule to follow is to never point a gun at anything you don't want dead. Another way to put it is if you pull out a gun you BETTER be ready to use it. Pointing a gun you don't intend to use will get you killed as soon as the other person figures out that you don't intend to fire. The death rate from accidental firing would probably exceed the death rate from taser misuse.
The correct solution is to toss the lazy fuckers out of the police force. Start properly psychologically profiling potential recruits to get rid of the power freeks. The police, at the end of the day, are public servants, and that should be reinforced. If they want to be some sort of god-like figures, they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a taser.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You're no better than him, you know. You pulled out an ad hominem argument instead of providing the facts that he apparently forgot to state.
Don't attempt to take the moral high ground when you're not prepared to put more research into your post than the parent.
Whether or not the policeman was justified in using a taser isn't the issue. The cause of the death is what is in question here.
If the policeman used his gun and killed the suspect then we would say the cause of death was a gunshot wound. We would not change the cause of death to "excited delirium" simply because the action was justified.
In the case of a highway barrier, I imagine we would say that the cause of death was the car's impact with the barrier, regardless of who is at fault.
A taser should only be used when a cop would normally use a gun, and the exact same procedure should used every time a cop discharges a taser as would be used if a cop discharges a gun.
Actually, I support the usage of a taser where the taser replaces more lethal/dangerous means, not just the gun.
For example, people can be killed, have limbs broken, and concussions as a result of the usage of a baton or truncheon. A taser is, properly used, safer for both police officers and suspect than the previous methods.
What needs to be emphasized is proper use.
One specific case I can think of involved a very old woman - the point I'd like to make is that it's very easy for that very old woman to injure herself. Much less a physically fit officer. Just think of a scenario like this - officer has hold of a arm. Grandma simply drops, placing her entire weight on fragile decalcified bones. Snap - there goes a elbow, wrist, or forearm.
A taser, while still dangerous, is probably less dangerous in such a scenario. But it gets on the newspaper as 'Officer tases 80 year old granny!'.
I don't read AC A human right
That said, there definitely should be more controls in place to ensure that the police show some restraint in the use of tasers, especially now that we've seen that they can cause death. We need more research into the effects of tasers too, in order to determine how dangerous they actually are and in what ways.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
A cop has to consider his actions before he pulls the trigger, and on (admittedly rare) occasions, if he acts inappropriately he can be held accountable. If a cop shoots someone inappropriately, the family will know his name, and can sue in civil court.
If a cop tazers someone inappropriately, and the victim dies, then what are the chances that cop will be held to any standard?
If we hold that power corrupts, shouldn't we be encouraging consequences for abuse of that power?
At any rate, as has been mentioned before, the tazers are not being replacing guns, the tazers are being used in cases where talking to someone would do. A tazer, deployed, does not de-escalate a confrontation, it is escalating the confrontation - and it is the cop who is escalating it.
Keep in mind, I think that the tazer issue is merely a way for people to rally around the real issue, which is America's under-trained, over-violent, out-of-control police forces, without saying that they're "anti-cop." There needs to be a vast cultural shift in police forces before a weapon like a tazer is introduced, but there need to be a vast cultural shift in police forces regardless.
As for myself, I'd rather be shot than tazed, but that's just me.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
It didn't kill the one in the article I read.
Then again, they didn't shock her a huge number of times.
You break a bone on somebody that old - infection could set in, a clot could break loose and cause a stroke.
That's what I mean by it's safer than the alternatives. Worst case, slap a IED on their chest for a while and monitor their heart. Take them to the hospital.
People get tasered every day and it only kills a couple a year in the whole nation, assuming you take worst case scenarios. Most of those involved dozens or even hundreds of shocks. Thus my statement of develop a ROE for the taser, don't use it as a compliance tool(torture), use it as a tool to temporarily disable the subject so you can disarm & cuff them.
I don't read AC A human right
Big man, you reveal how helpless you are.
Go back to the video. He's armlocked her on one side, leaving her other arm to flail, then he's dragging her along, flailing He used the one one and only technique taught to regular U.S. cops, an armlock, which leaves suspects' legs and other arm free to kick and escape.
What we see in the video with the 15-y.o. girl is a cop who isn't interested in just making the arrest - he's screaming for compliance from a stupid, possibly drugged-up kid, and when he doesn't get it, he gets angrier.
That's when he lost - instead of dispassionately going about his business, making the arrest, subduing the suspect if necessary, instead he gets emotionally involved. His job is to transport that girl to a facility where ultimately the justice system deals with her. Instead, he's up for a little punitive action himself.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
Actually, the problem is that people today have too much respect for police officers. The vast majority of cops are people who were the bullies in high school, haven't been to college, have very little knowledge of what the law is, and who think that putting on a badge entitles them to respect.
It doesn't.
Police need to be supervised far more closely, and need to have real consequences for abuse. In essence, if they want respect, they need to be respectable.
And yes, there are good cops out there. The other 99% of cops are giving them a bad name.
Are you serious?
Tasering an 80-year-old, and having him or her collapse suddenly to the ground, is as like or more likely to break a bone (perhaps a hip, much worse than an arm to repair) as a result of falling, as they are to suffer infection/clotting leading to a stroke from a broken arm. A stroke from a clot from a broken arm is extremely unlikely. Ask a doctor sometime.
Your reasoning on this doesn't stack up. Forcing an elderly lady to collapse uncontrolled to the ground is more dangerous (what about her head?) than grabbing her on the arm.
As for monitoring her heart... this raises another question - what if she's already suffering from chronic cardiac failure, AF, or some other heart disease? Tasering her is extremely dangerous in that situation.
Bottom line - tasering should *only ever* be a direct substitute for use of a firearm. If the situtation isn't so bad that you'd use a gun, then you don't use a taser.