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.



Friday, June 27, 2008

NIJ: 'Safe. Except for you & you & you & you...'

The US National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has carefully studied the propaganda and their interim report on 'conducted energy weapons' (tasers) has concluded that they are sometimes generally safe.

Well...

...except for that 43% of the time when they're used repeatedly,

...or used on that up to 8% of the population known to have heart problems,

...or used on the elderly, ...or used on children,

...or used on the other ill-defined and unknown-size population that is 'at risk' (I guess known only after the fact, when their 'unique anatomical makeup' [LINK] is discovered at autopsy- this is just ONE example). And some would say that those that tend to come into contact with the police tend to be those 'at risk'.

So there you have it.


1 comment:

Nate said...

Amen.

One thing I'm frightened of is that in NJ (just across the river from where I am), the attorney general said she was waiting for this interim report before weighing in on the now bipartisan bill (it was solely republican last year) that just sailed through a state senate committee.

I wrote about that here and the article quoting the NJ attorney general's office is here.

NJ may not long be the last state in the US where tasers aren't allowed at all.

Another interesting aspect about the NIJ panel's report is in the makeup of the panel itself. One of the members has an interesting blog with a post citing some interesting statistics on the safety of tasers. I wrote about the report and panel here.

Once again, love your blog.