"The next revolution will be televised"

In a previous post entitled 'An Interesting Question...' [LINK], I had observed that the public outcry (in Canada) starting in late-2007 apparently caused (?) a sharp reduction in the number of taser-associated deaths in Canada. From FIVE in a 3-month period in late-2007, to zero (total) for about the next six months (up until 23 June 2008, when the peaceful run was broken).

I received a couple of interesting e-mails responding to that post.

One e-mail was from the family of Robert Bagnell (who died in a taser-associated incident in Vancouver on 23 June 2004). They publish the TNT blog [LINK].

(The other e-mail I will address in another post ASAP.)

The Bagnell family pointed out the following way of looking at the same data:

Taser-associated deaths in Canada:

#1 - Apr 2003, no public outcry
#2 - Jul 2003, no public outcry
#3 - Sep 2003, no public outcry
#4 - Mar 2004, no public outcry
#5 - May 2004, no public outcry
#6 - May 2004, no public outcry
#7 - Jun 2004, no public outcry
#8 - Jul 2004, no public outcry
#9 - Aug 2004, no public outcry
#10 - May 2005, no public outcry
#11 - Jun 2005, no public outcry
#12 - Jul 2005, no public outcry
#13 - Jul 2005, no public outcry
#14 - Dec 2005, no public outcry
#15 - Aug 2006, no public outcry
#16 - Sep 2007, no public outcry
#17 - Oct 2007, VIDEO AVAILABLE -> Public Outcry
#18 - Oct 2007, Public Outcry builds
#19 - Nov 2007, Public Outcry continues...
#20 - Nov 2007, Public Outcry continues...
#21 - Jun 2008, Public Outcry continues...

The video obviously made the difference. That makes Paul Pritchard, the man that videoed the Dziekanski incident [LINK] and bravely stood his ground in the face of RCMP's stated intention to keep the video for up to two years, a hero.

I had made a similar observation in a previous post back in May 2008 [LINK].

"(By the way - We really owe an apology to those 16 or so Canadians that died before this point and their families for neglecting their incidents. But unfortunately that's the way it often goes. It's like boiling a frog - if you start with cold water and apply heat slowly then perhaps the frog won't notice. But the Dziekanski incident on 2007 October 14 was like a pot of boiling water in the face of all Canadians. We woke up that day.)"

Video is certainly the most powerful medium.