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A Tour of Taser HQ
Soychemist writes "Walk into the Taser headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona and it may seem like you are on an episode of Get Smart. The foyer is like a fortress, with giant steel doors and biometric identification systems. Inside, factory workers meticulously assemble the less-lethal weapons by hand and then put them through a battery of safety tests. In addition to making pistol-shaped devices, the company also produces the electronic equivalent of a claymore mine, which hurls dozens of electrified needles at the push of a button and electronic shotgun cartridges that deliver a powerful jolt."
Tasers going through "a battery of test"... Props for stunning punning.
There is no intended non-lethal purpose, because it is non non-lethal.
Most /. readers USED TO BE Wired readers, back in the 90's when it was relevant, interesting, and had actual production value (of a sort).
Now it's just geek playboy. A couple interesting articles, 60 pages of glossy shwag for sale, and a desperate sense of self-promotion.
Well, maybe it hasn't changed THAT much... maybe my gadget pr0n tastes have evolved. Either way, leave it on Digg.
The front entrance is very impressive. But it's security theater. Google StreetView shows the entrance to the loading dock, where the gate has been left open.
The term electronic police state describes a state in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and taze its citizens.
If you treat me like an animal don't be surprised when i bite you in the face.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
What exactly is the intended non-lethal purpose of such a thing?
I'm gonna take a totally wild guess here: to make profits for Taser Inc.?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Were your first words, "Don't tase me, bro!"
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The foyer is like a fortress, with giant steel doors and biometric identification systems...
Security like that for a business like theirs is just for show. It's there for all the "foreign dignitaries" with their big pocket books. Which makes me think of other elements of their corporate identity. These people market "non-lethal" weapons and then cover up the research that says that blasting tens of thousand of volts through the human nervous system might just have some negative effects. Not that there isn't a ton of historical evidence saying that when you science and law enforcement meet, a conspiracy usually results. Taser's products are not "non-lethal", they are "less lethal"... But the police and people who buy their equipment love to watch people scream and fall over because they smarted off to them, and for this, Taser Corporation delivers. And although their products could easily be designed to be more humanitarian, curiously these changes never make it to market.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Taser are NOT "non-lethal."
They have killed many times. Amnesty International says 351 people have been killed by tasers in police hands. Although they are marketed as non-lethal and safe, they are most definitely not.
Information on taser deaths:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/taser-abuse/page.do?id=1021202
http://www.justicenewsflash.com/2009/08/31/dallas-wrongful-death-lawyer_200908312018.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/14/crimesider/entry5013690.shtml
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0730taser30.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/tasr-j19.shtml
http://www.startribune.com/13841301.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126936.100-taser-guns-raised-deaths-in-custody.html
http://www.taserdeaths.org/
Their marketing is part of the problem. Because they are seen as "safe," officers are more likely to use them in situations where it is unnecessary. There are many viral videos where the police officer goes directly to the taser as soon as the person asks a question or protests in any way. (I would post them, but youtube is inaccessible from my work.) They are more likely to escalate a situation and use force because they believe the taser to be safe. For example, there was one incident a woman was tased in front of her kids after protesting an unjustified traffic ticket. The officer in question was about a foot taller and outweighed her by around 100 lbs, yet felt threated enough that using a weapon was justified even though the woman made no aggressive movement against him at all. Thankfully she didn't die, the ticket was dismissed and she is currently in the process of filing a lawsuit. (http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/mom_in_minivan_tasered_in_traf.html)
I knew a correctional officer who frequently used stun guns on rowdy inmates. They called it "The funky Chicken" because of the inmates' jerks and spasms which were often so severe that they would shit and piss on themselves.
Stun guns != tasers, but keep that in mind the next time you mess with authority.
Just like a club is less lethal than a sword... but it still does 1d6.
I think the key here is that the "less lethal" concept means to many that "you can use it more than a gun and get away with it" which is a problem because in a small subset of its use it does become lethal or causes situations that cause death when normal restraining methods would have sufficed without incident.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I know this is offtopic (somewhat) so I won't mind if it's moderated out of usefulness, but I'll get on my soapbox at this point.
A taser should only ever be used as an alternative to shooting somebody. If you wouldn't shoot them in the same situation, you shouldn't taser them.
Resisting arrest alone should not mean tasering is on the table, even with a difficult struggle. Law enforcement is getting way to used to tasering simply to avoid any kind of physical confrontation.
If tasers didn't have the lethality question hanging over them I would think differently, but according to Amnesty International, at least, 334 people died after taser shocks between 2001 and 2008.
There is no intended non-lethal purpose, because it is non non-lethal.
Yes, non-lethal, except for the 100's of times it has killed people. Tasers are nothing but a torture device used like a cattle prod when people don't "comply" with police orders.
They were originally intended to be used in cases where a gun would have been used. These devices would never be used against people in the manner they now are in a truly free society.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Just like a club is less lethal than a sword... but it still does 1d6.
Personally, most taser incidents where the perp is not threatening the officer's safety should be replaced with a rap on the calf or elsewhere with a smaller billy-club. Still hurts, without resorting to electric shocks. Less likely to die from 'mysterious circumstances' from a sharp rap on a muscle than from electrical pulses (and less of an uproar, probably, when they do).
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
I understand the less lethal part, but doesn't anyone see the inherent danger of hurling electrified needles into the air. It could poke your eye out then send a electric charge right to the head. Into your mouth if your screaming or yelling. The jugular vein is basically unprotected and a unlucky shot there could puncture it. On another note, wonder if their testing includes a person wearing different types of clothing for like summer and winter. Also if the voltage needed to subdue someone fluctuates greatly between people of different weights.
"And here we have the Legal Department, which pursues county coroners who suggest that our device could possibly interfere with heart rhythms. That's Doug over there, yes, the one with the horns and the tail. He came to us after a stint with Adolf Hitler. He's responsible for, ah, marketing."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You don't want to rely on pain for compliance. It just doesn't work on all people. The electric shock of a taser screws with the target's muscles, it's not just pain.
Grab on to a non-pulse electric fence sometime near the fencing unit. Try to let go.
Less Lethal...Just like a club is less lethal than a sword... but it still does 1d6.
Yep - that's why they started calling them "less-lethal" weapons rather than "non-lethal" weapons...though if we're doing dnd references, I'd argue that many of them do subdural damage and something more like a 1d2 with a 5% chance of causing death.
What exactly is the intended non-lethal purpose of such a thing?
What lethal uses did you have in mind, exactly? It doesn't sound very effective at killing people. As a less-lethal weapon, however, it sounds useful for crowd control, remote perimeters where you'd rather capture than kill, ambushs where you'd rather capture than kill...any number of things.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
Or the police could just go back to using guns...
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
How dare they manufacture a product that could harm people! They should change their company and make harmless, useful equipment like baseball bats, kitchen knives, and tire irons.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
This foyer may look like the entrance to the Control headquarters from an episode of Get Smart, but this is the front door of the Taser plant. The corporation has plenty of reasons for high security. It recently launched an online warehouse for digital evidence, so keeping trespassers out is a top priority.
Looking at the image, my impression is that this is more about appearances than real security. It's all about looking high-tech and security oriented.
Because it's the exception.
People die in car crashes daily and regularly (one cite I saw said 115), but at best they're mentioned on traffic reports. "Fatal car accident on I-5, traffic backed up for miles..." You'll never hear about those outside of the local area unless someone famous is involved.
But a plane crash that results in fatailites gets reported nationwide for a good week.
The more statistically improbable a fatal incident is, the more probable it will be reported on.
How does that matter to it being clearly "less-lethal" than a claymore mine?
And why would the police use it anyway? THe description in the article refers to "Military personnel" at "checkpoints".
Yeah, because when they used guns exclusively it was commonplace to shoot someone in cuffs for struggling against being put in a police car, or shoot someone, yell "get up" at them, then shoot them again cause they can't.
Using Tasers instead of guns is a good thing, but they are constantly being used in situations which would not warrent the use of a firearm, and Taser International's own training and marketing material is a least partly to blame.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Right, but that should be reserved for times when otherwise an officer would use a firearm to subdue the perp. Tasers have expanded their role to include instances where the officer would have just hit the perp and been rough with them.
There are some times when a taser can fit between these two places (some massive dude high on PCP is threatening to pummel a cop with his fists, I'm not going to require the cop to subdue him physically if he has access to a stun gun), but in general, I think that most of your taser stories ('don't tase me bro' guy or the naked wizard) would be better handled by just cuffing them roughly. Of course, when you have a dude covered in kerosene charging you with a lighter, a taser seems like a better alternative than an officer dying or needing to shoot the guy in the kneecaps.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
"Pain compliance"? In other words, torture.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I see what you did there, you changed the words. Tasers are called less than lethal not non-lethal.
But I do agree with you they are over used. Personally I think that the officer should draw their gun when they would normally be allowed to tase the perp. If that doesn't work and its save to switch from a gun to a taser they should then do so.
Actually, it's essentially pain. True, it's not exactly same, but neither are burns and cuts. The muscular interference effect is largely unimportant as it tends to be both short lived (i.e. duration of shock) and fairly localized. If someone is high PCP and charging you, zapping them on the arm isn't really going to do much better than a billy club. Unless, of course, you keep the current on until they're dead, but that kinda misses the point, doesn't it?
If the money spent on tazers and tazer training (and defending tazer death suits) was instead spent on billy clubs and (here's the important part:) close combat classes, officers would generally be better off.
If the money spent on tazers and tazer training (and defending tazer death suits) was instead spent on billy clubs and (here's the important part:) close combat classes, officers would generally be better off.
Right, because when someone is charging a cop, it's much better they be allowed to get up close and personal before the cop can begin to disable them with a club than it is to have the cop shoot them at a distance with a taser.
The whole point of both guns and tasers is to keep the person away from the officer.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Tasers have expanded their role to include instances where the officer would have just hit the perp and been rough with them.
Actually, they've expanded their role to include instances where the officer just wants to punish someone when they don't do as they're told, like when they can't move because they're lying on the ground with a broken back.
billy clubs and (here's the important part:) close combat classes
Yeah, I'll mention that to a cop I know. She's 5'-2". I'm sure she'd much rather get into a physical fight with PCP-stoked guy twice her size than simply drop him, alive, like a sack of potatos. Though it sounds like you'd prefer she used a firearm in that situation.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The truth of the matter is simply that the perps know you (as a police officer) can not shoot them unless they are offering deadly force against you or another. It is however legal to taze them if they offer resistance. If you pull your pistol on a perp and he knows you have no right to shoot, he will laugh and keep doing what he is doing, pull a tazer and he will change his mind. It is legal for a police officer to taze some one anytime they have a reason to place their hands on them, this IMHO is inappropriate and should be judged according to the situation.
(IAaPO) not that it matters.
Yet at the same time, take a look at the Texas officer who tazed the 80+ grandmother, He was a very large man she was a crazed little old lady, she was trying to attack him, trying to run out into the highway, according to the video it even looked like she was attempting to grab his pistol. He was faced with a choice of tackling her and most likely breaking something like an arm, hip, or ribs, etc. or as you suggest hitting this lady with his baton (~24" steel pipe) or just tazing her which provided just the right amount of force required to get the situation under control with out causing any real/lasting damage to the lady.
What I am trying to point out is that both tools are necessary because I do agree that a PCP perp dose not respond to a tazer the way a normal person does, they also do not respond to a steel pipe the same either. That stuff will make a perp think they are indestructible!
The rest of the blame can be attributed to how fun it is to taser someone, of course.
I'm not sure why you're such a fan of officers beating people with clubs or their fists. I have a friend who recently became a police officer, and as part of their training they get tased. It can kill, yes, but the chances are pretty slim. Frankly, if I'm going to be subdued by a police officer, I'm going with the taser every time. I don't have numbers (does anybody?), but I'd guess the chances of lasting harm from being hit with an expandable baton are significantly higher than from being hit with a taser. That's why it's ridiculous to confine it only to circumstances where otherwise a gun would be used. Have they been overused? Yes, but so have clubs and fists. Bad or scared cops will will abuse whatever weapons you put into their hands.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
They were originally intended to be used in cases where a gun would have been used.
No they weren't. Guns (deadly force) can't be used unless the life of the police officer or an innocent bystander is in imminent risk. No sane police officer whose life is seconds away from ending is going to reach for his TASER. The TASER is useless against multiple opponents, is useless against someone hopped up on drugs or with certain mental illnesses, only gives you one shot and has an limited range compared to handguns. In a scenario where his life or the life of another is in mortal danger the smart police officer is going to draw his firearm and squeeze the trigger as many times as are required to end the threat.
TASERs were intended as a replacement for the police baton. They were not intended as a replacement for deadly force. The use of deadly force (firearm, knife, claymore, etc) has an entirely different set of standards that need to be met than does regular force (fist, taser, mace, pepper spray, etc). Deadly force can only be used under specific circumstances, generally to save the life of the officer or another. Regular force can be used to affect an arrest, halt the commission of non-lethal crimes, halt the escape of a suspect, defend against the use of non-deadly force, etc.
These devices would never be used against people in the manner they now are in a truly free society.
That part I'd give you. It seems that there are quite a few incidents wherein police officers have reached for their TASER rather than reaching for their deescalation skills. I don't think you can blame this on the tool though -- you have to blame it on the operator. These same personalities would probably have wielded the police baton in the same inappropriate manner.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'd like to see laws allowing citizens to carry tazers and use them against anyone presenting a life-threat, including police officers.
Uh...citizens are allowed to carry tasers. It's regulated, just like the carrying of any weapon is, but it's not like only police officers can have them. And as it turns out, the law does allow you to use them against someone illegally threatening you, including police officers. You'll have a heck of a time proving that attacking a cop was justified, but that's true of any assault on a police officer. If you're trying to say that police officers can never justifiably threaten your life, have fun explaining that to the next armed mugger you meet. I'm not saying that there haven't been abuses by police officers, but come on - grow up.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
Yeah it definitely would not be a good tool for LE or riot control. The un-aimed barbs would have serious eye-injury potential.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Right, but that should be reserved for times when otherwise an officer would use a firearm to subdue the perp
Firearms are not used to subdue perps. Firearms are used to end a threat to the life of the officer or another innocent person. The only occasion I'm aware of where firearms are allowed to be used to "subdue" people is in the case of a prison guard shooting a prison escapee. Your regular beat cop is not allowed to use his firearm to "subdue" someone. He's only allowed to use it to save his own life or the life of another.
Tasers have expanded their role to include instances where the officer would have just hit the perp and been rough with them.
That's exactly what they are intended for. Situations where non-deadly force would have been used. Their role hasn't been expanded at all. What's been expanded is the willingness of officers to use force during inappropriate times. Tasing someone in handcuffs just because he said something nasty to the Judge is no more appropriate than hitting him would have been.
but in general, I think that most of your taser stories ('don't tase me bro' guy or the naked wizard) would be better handled by just cuffing them roughly.
Why? So you run the risk of injuring two people (the officer and the perp) instead of one? How is that better? Have you ever been trained in restraint techniques? I have been -- as part of my employment at a mental health facility. It's not that easy to take someone down without injuring them or yourself. How is injuring the perp while subduing him with your hands any better than injuring him while subduing him with a Taser?
Of course, when you have a dude covered in kerosene charging you with a lighter, a taser seems like a better alternative than an officer dying or needing to shoot the guy in the kneecaps.
You wouldn't shoot for the kneecaps in such a situation. You'd shoot center of mass. Shooting someone's legs/kneecaps/hand-holding-the-knife is a Hollywood myth. It's just too hard to pull off in the real world. If you shoot a 2" group with a handgun at the range with paper targets you are going to shoot a 10" group when being charged by some nutjob intent on ending your life. That's what happens when you get an adrenaline dump and your fine motor skills go to hell. That's why police officers are trained to shoot center of mass.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, criminals have evolved.
In 1930s USA we had "beat cops" that would walk through neighborhoods in cities. Their very presence deterred crime. Should someone be as unwise as to steal an apple from a box outside a market, they would often be chased down and caught by the beat cop. At least that was the idea.
The beat cop did indeed have a tough life being on their feet for their entire shift and being only lightly armed, generally a club and a small revolver. Criminals of the day would often have more substantial weapons, but the Firearms act of 1934 attempted to change that making it a Federal offense to have an unlicensed machine gun. Things pretty much went back to the same level they had been at since the late 1800s or so.
Since that time, criminals have virtually cornered the market on firepower in the cities. Your average cop has a 9mm Berreta with a 15-round clip. The folks they are going up against have at a minimum guns like the Tec DC-9 with a 30 round clip and often operates in full automatic. The end result is of course that the police have no idea what they are going up against.
And you wonder why they might like to stay back from criminals?
"They" ... Why do you just through all Police under the same buss with some idiot who needs to be charged with assault and battery?
Just because some one dose something like this means all police think they can and should do it?
Well, obviously not a single cop or anyone working in any position in law enforcement there did ONE DAMN THING about that illegal immoral injustice.
So yes, every last single cop in that police department is morally bankrupt and clearly has NO objections to assault and battery of a 19 year old kid with a broken back, else they would have, I don't know, objected instead of providing excuses.
I mean, if you have proof otherwise, then please put it forward.
My proof however is their very actions, during and after what happened to the kid.
Odd, I get to argue in favor of clubbing people, this is a rare (and somewhat amusing) day.
I'd actually prefer it if police clubbed people to subdue them, rather than tase(?) them, for a couple reasons. Police need to think twice before hopping in with a club, a TASER is somewhat different in that it is a point and click weapon (branded as being as safe as throwing twinkies at whoever is being arrested), it lowers the threshold of use. It makes it easier to use force, and opens it up to be used in places where not even a baton would be used. While it might be a bit safer to the person its being used on than a club, this might be outweighed by the fact that it is used more than the baton would have been used, for situations requiring much less escalation.
Call me a namby pamby liberal who likes his rights, but officer safety is only HALF of the equation, being that the people their stopping, no matter how much they resist, are innocent and and have equal rights, to the officer until it is found otherwise in a court of law. Also the bar to "resisting" or "stuggling" is far more cloudy than we'd like to realize. Hell, even watch Cops, which is nothing but friendly to the police, and see how resisting can be very nonresiting looking, if it is convenient. Hell, struggling against strange restraint positions is resisting somehow, even though I'm guessing anyone would struggle with some of them. Its a high stress enviroment for cops and the people they are arresting (guilty or not), but somehow we expect everyone to turn into a limp bean bag when an attacker puts out arms behind our back as a restraint. As a person who has been wrongfully arrested, it would be a miracle of someone DIDN'T struggle. Trying being surprised and thrown against a wall by someone who just screams "POLICE!" at you, and not trying to struggle a bit.
No, I'm not anti-police, but I realize that police are humans, and thus are not infallible, and their ranks contain a fair share of bad eggs. And also not all crooks are violent sociopaths out to kill the police and innocent bystanders. Hell, not all people who are arrested are violent, much less actually guilty of a crime. Also not all cases of "resisting" are actually people actively being antagonistic to the police, sometimes its just an expedient way of jailing them for otherwise banal things, or a way to escalate charges, or a way to vent some frustration of the person being arrested. Yes, this isn't the majority of times, but even in the minority of times when the police go too far, we should protect the innocent and others from the police.
We also don't know how lethal the TASER actually is. We can't really judge whether it is more or less lethal than the common baton. We really shouldn't be saying it is equal to a baton when we have no proof of it, and what proof that might exist is being actively blocked by the corporation whose job it is to sell the device. This corporation is also saying that no one has EVER died from a TASER, just some mythical pre-existing condition that mysteriously appeared at the same time the TASER was developed and sold to law enforcement.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The other thing is that the Taser works a longer range than the baton, and so doesn't require the officer to put himself into the suspects range. It subdues a suspect faster than the use of a baton, and doesn't have that "Rodney King" stigma attached (though it's rapidly gaining its own level of infamy).
IANAL... But I play one on
I don't think you can blame this on the tool though -- you have to blame it on the operator.
In most cases, the operator is a tool.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
is a perfectly sensible idea; there are some use cases for firearms where fewer deaths and injuries would result if tasers were used instead (obviously, there are situations where they don't work too). The problem occurs when they get used for situations which would previously have been resolved using force less lethal than a taser, or, in a frighteningly large number of cases, situations which would previously have been quite easily resolved with no force at all.
But you can blame them for encouraging their use in situations not actually requiring violence and for covering up evidence that they are potentially lethal. I'd still agree that the larger problem is police forces passively accepting the advice of a corporation. I'm not from the US and don't understand how local police forces fit together there; at what level are decisions on policies and equipment made? It seems that decisions on taser use are made by police forces who are very small next to Taser International and can't really produce their own manuals or do their own research (contrast with US military weapons purchases, where the manufacturer is at the mercy of the customer).
That is surprising, because there should be multiple instances caused by loading my sig in your web browser and by entering the command.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
The need might be rare, but the use of them sure is not.
Like when you need to get someone who has a broken back to stand up.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/93135/teen_with_broken_back_tasered_19_times_for_not_standing_up_when_ordered/
Or when you think a diabetic might be giving you trouble.
http://www.digtriad.com/news/features/article.aspx?storyid=115481&catid=216
Or if you have a deaf and disabled man you need to get out of a store:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/antonio-love-ala-police-u_n_246081.html
In Canada since the results of the royal commission on the death of Robert Dziekanski there is no doubt that these are dangerous weapons and their use should be restricted to a last resort weapon. Mr Dziekanski was tasered five times and the recommended usage is once or twice. As a result Mr Dziekanski died. Even today Taser is trying to dispute the results of the commission. I don't think they are going to get very far though.