I’m not impressed
[ifilm]2780613[/ifilm]
Good: A reporter decides to do a piece on her local police department’s use of TASERS. Since she’s going to describe them as safe, she feels an obligation to have the things tested on her.
Not so good: Her “test” wasn’t exactly what the average drunk or stoned knucklehead is going to experience. First, she wasn’t shot with the prongs and given the full five seconds at 60,000 volts that everyone else gets. Instead, she got the wires taped to her and was given a half second surge.
It seems to me that there’s going to be a huge temptation among some police officers to just TASER unruly people and be done with it. While most departments will have procedures and training, some cowboys will abuse it and I’m sure some already have. And while getting TASERed isn’t normally harmful to a healthy person, a lot of the people the police tent to deal with are stoned on cocaine or meth. Some coroner’s juries have ruled that the shocks were a contributing factor.
And it doesn’t surprise me that some coroner juries seem awfully quick to blame these death on drugs in the victims’ systems and completely discounting the fact that these people’s hearts stopped after receiving electrical shocks large enough to knock them to the ground.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
I once saw a photographer in this market do the same thing only he took the firing. You could see them fire out of the gun and hit him. I don’t remember which station it was…thinking HOI because I seem to remember Steve Nicoles being the reporter….or was it Will Koch? Either way, I do remember the photographer grabbing his crotch cause it looked like one of the prongs was heading right for him…and he did take the full five seconds…then got up and was laughing about it. Wish they’d put that on You Tube.
Anyway, I’m in complete support of the use of tasers. I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that does something stupid enough to get tazed. I’d rather see some schmuck in the morgue than a police. What would you like a police officer faced with an ice head with a needle to do? Take the risk of getting too close and getting stuck? Possibly contracting some infectious disease?
I’m sorry, I’ll always take the PD’s side on this issue.
A few years ago, a Springfield talk jock volunteered to be tasered. All went well. Of course, he is physically fit, was well rested, and wasn’t out of his mind on drugs or alcohol. The feature article in this week’s Illinois Times talks about tasers and raises some interesting questions:
http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:6013
(Hoping that link goes through.)
The deaths that have occurred after a Taser was applied were not caused by the Taser themselves. The Amps a Taser has are almost negligible. The cause of death in these incidents were a combination of drugs, weakened cardiovascular systems and similar conditions. The Taser does not effect these, however, after a Taser is applied, it causes the body to undergo an adrenaline rush. Same as if you have just been in a fight. The combination of adrenaline, and cocaine/crack in the system is more than a weakened heart can bare thus causing the suspect to go into arrest. The suspect would more than likely died too if he had fought the officers due to the same adrenaline rush. In both cases, death was a possibility for the suspect as a result of his own drug use. The Taser simply saved the officers from getting hurt. I believe there may be a case or two that the suspect was not a drug addict, but may have had a weaken heart by other means, ailments or natural, but the majority have used crack or cocaine. Every officer on the dept that carries the Taser had to get shocked by it to carry it. Hurts like no other pain, but once its done, its done. And we’re all doing fine.
Well, you can blame the drugs, but the simple fact of the matter is that those people wouldn’t be dead if they weren’t tased as well. A 71 year old man was beaten to death in a botched drug raid in North Carolina (they had the wrong house). He probably wouldn’t have died if he was in his 30s. Did he die of old age? Can you tell by looking at someone if they have a heart condition before you tase them? I’m not attacking your point, Anon Cop, but your logic just doesn’t work.
I haven’t researched this issue, so I have no idea if the cases where people died after being tased were justified uses of force or not. Cops certainly have the right to defend themselves, and defending themselves with a taser is certainly less lethal than defending themselves with their firearm. If the scenario was a justified use of force, then there’s no issue and the cop should be commended for using a less lethal means of defense.
What concerns me is that there are always cowboys out there who will use these things indiscriminately. Look at what happened to that college student in California who got tased for not showing his ID in the school library. A taser could certainly be used as an improvised torture devise as well.
Are there any laws on who can own one of these things? Should there be? Does the 2nd amendment, written in the days of muzzle-loading single-shot muskets, apply to a taser?