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.



Saturday, June 14, 2008

"incapacitation" - another big lie exposed

In a previous post [LINK], I offered one possible explanation of why multiple taser shocks might be so common (43%!!) in spite of the official (ignored) RCMP Taser-Use Policy which advises that multiple taser shocks are dangerous (*) and thus should be avoided.

(* Note that Taser does not admit that taser shocks are ever dangerous - except for falling down. That's a discrepancy between what the official RCMP policy states, and what Taser claims. One of these two organizations is dead WRONG.)

In the course of that earlier post, I touched on a much larger issue:

"...forgot to get in there and put on the handcuffs during that first 5-second cycle. And it's difficult to do that while holding the taser in your hand anyway - which makes the whole design concept of 'incapacitation' less than useful for a single 5-second deployment. What's the point of incapacitation if you're just going to stand there and enjoy the show? What was the purpose of the taser shock again? It's a bit unclear..."

If you watch taser incidents on the news, or on YouTube, you will see that in many of the taser incidents, the police officer(s) stand back during the entire 5-second deployment cycle. Remember, the entire stated purpose of the taser (its design mandate) is to "incapacitate" the subject for that 5-second period. But the police seemingly very often fail to take advantage of the 5-second window of opportunity - which is supposedly the entire purpose of the taser.

In fact, when there is only one police officer present, then it seems unclear as to how he or she would even accomplish the physical arrest (handcuffing) while holding the taser. Can someone explain how a single officer would effect a physical arrest (handcuffing) while tasering the subject at the same time?

If the reality matched the promise, then you would always see the officer(s) leaping into action to handcuff the subject during the first few seconds of the first 5-second cycle while the subject is incapacitated. But that is not something that you see every time a taser is used.

Which raises the questions: What's the point? What's the real purpose? What the actual usage pattern? The answers are ugly (including: excessive and unreasonable pain compliance, torture, tasering to exhaustion, impossible-to-meet design mandate).

Conclusion: The stated purpose of the taser ("to incapacitate") is, quite often, nothing but a damn lie. And in the case of a single police officer it is almost always a damn lie.

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