Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Tuesday, May 13, 2008

12 May 2008: Taser blinks

Note - this is just a first cut. But it won't get any better for Taser with a more in-depth analysis.

Mindless Corporate Slogan: "Tasers save lives every day." [LINK]

Note - the slogan claims "lives" (plural) saved "every day". In other words, they're claiming to save at least 60 lives per month. Debatable, but let's take that as stated for now.

Tom Smith, 12 May 2008: "Tasers save 70 lives for every life lost." [LINK]

So, after 'saving' 70 lives (a bit over one month, at most), he's admitted that they'd randomly claim one victim due to the imperfect field safety of the taser devices.

In other words, Taser has just admitted that their products' imperfect field safety is responsible for some (ie. not zero) lost lives.

At a rate of at least one per month. That's only about 7-to-1 off the raw taser-associated death rate of about seven per month. [LINK] In the greater scheme of things, that's pretty close. And if they're claiming more than the minimum plural value (2) of lives saved per day, then the resultant admission just gets closer and closer to the raw data.

Taser just blinked.

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