Tasers the new “weapon” of choice for law enforcement

Are you sick of hearing about Taser abuse? Do you believe most people deserve getting Tasered? Are you unclear about why Tasers are even used and under what circumstances they were intended to be used?

You are invited below the fold for some essential information regarding the startling reality of Taser abuse. Hopefully armed with this knowledge be pissed off enough to do something in your town to change the use of something even more popular and equally as lethal as choke holds.

A little history about Tasers. They were invented in the 70's by a NASA scientist named Jack Cover. Originally, Tasers used an explosive charge to propel the electrodes to the victim, classified as a Title 2 weapon and available only thru a special permit. Over the next 20 years the company making the original Taser suffered financial set backs and only a limited number of law enforcement agencies possessed Tasers.

In 1991 another company (Air Taser)was formed with the help of Jack Cover to manufacture the next generation of Tasers using compressed air, making some models available as non lethal personal defense weapons.

The newest versions of the Taser can be shot wirelessly from a standard 12 gauge shotgun at a distance of up to 300 feet. The company has aggressively marketed these weapons to both law enforcement, the Dept. of Defense and Security companies.

There have been no safety studies not paid for by Air Taser themselves. Taser International originally marketed the Taser as a non-lethal method of protection, contending that 50,000 volts of electricity from a Taser, can disable a person more effectively and safely than a blow from a police baton or a blast of pepper spray. However, cardiologists say that, in some cases, a surge from a Taser might also interrupt the rhythm of the human heart, throwing it into a potentially fatal state known as ventricular fibrillation. Dr. Zian Tseng, a cardiologist at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), believes Tasers are potentially dangerous because a jolt of electricity, at just the right moment in the heartbeat cycle, can trigger ventricular fibrillation.

It is frightening to know of the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in this country 11,000 are armed with Tasers.

Are they ever used appropriately? Sometimes, but it appears not usually.

Denver Post report found that 90 percent of the subjects tased by the police department there were unarmed. Most times, the weapon was used to “force people to obey orders, to shortcut physical confrontations and, in several cases, to avoid having to run after a suspect.” More than two-thirds of those charged with a crime faced only a misdemeanor charge or a citation. In December, 2004, Miami police used a Taser to subdue a man in a wheelchair who threatened them with scissors. Four months later, local authorities zapped “an Orlando man was handcuffed to a hospital bed for refusing to take a urine test that would confirm he had ingested cocaine.”

Safety procedures require that Tasers not be used on children, pregnant suspects, or near bystanders or flammable liquids and that individuals hit in specific body areas with Taser barbs, such as the neck or face, be examined by a physician. Additional limits placed on Tasers. Now with that in mind read Amnesty International's concerns starting in 2001. And this Tasers, the controversial stun guns used by police to subdue suspects, are safe when used with restraint, a coalition of emergency-medicine doctors says.

Among the more problematic Taser cases cited by AI: a man suffering from two epileptic seizures was tasered by Baytown, Texas, officers for resisting while being strapped onto a stretcher; a man was tasered while standing in a tree by Mesa, Ariz., officers — he broke his neck and is now paralyzed after falling; a handcuffed nine-year-old girl was tasered by South Tucson, Ark., officers in the back of a patrol car for refusing to put her legs into nylon restraints; a 71-year-old man was tasered by Portland, Ore., officers for dropping to his hands and knees instead of lying flat on the floor as ordered; and a six-month pregnant woman was tasered by Chula Vista, Calif., officers for not following orders during a domestic dispute — she later miscarried the baby.

Taser Deaths An ACLU review of 33 deaths involving Tasers found that 90 percent of the suspects did not brandish weapons and two-thirds of the deceased fit the category of people who are psychologically agitated, intoxicated or have pre- existing heart problems.

Cameras won't work, we need to see everything that has happened up to the point of Tasering. But police departments say it's unnecessary because patrol cars already have video cameras. In my home town they are trying to convince us cameras will make a difference, just like cameras in patrol cars were supposed to cut down on police brutality and didn't.

I believe Omaha is pretty representative of other cities across the country. As things are now Tasers have simply given law enforcement another seemingly harmless way to brutalize the very people they are suppose to protect and serve. None of us would stand for a police officer standing over a cuffed suspect and shoot them repeatedly with a gun, we shouldn't  stand for this either.