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.



Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tasering an elderly man - six times

[North County Gazette] Pinellas County, FL (28 June 2008) - "Charles Faybik....75-year-old....Dec. 28, 2005 ...deputies zapped him six times. He posed no threat and had broken no laws. ..." [LINK] This story (from 2005) is back in the news because Mr. Faybik is now "...suing Sheriff Jim Coats and the sheriff’s office for use of excessive force and violation of his civil rights."

This incident appears to cover all three taser usage patterns: misuse, abuse, and overuse.


Another sentence in the story that is nice to see is the following: "Tasers kill people."

Even just eight months ago, such a statement would have resulted in Taser's non-PR and less-than-Legal departments flying into an incandescent rage. Black helicopters would hover silently overhead while teams of crack litigation lawyers dressed in nifty black turtlenecks slide down ropes and kick down doors (slight exaggeration). These days the Taser lawyers are probably busy with other matters. And the facts have slowly stacked up against them. Maybe NCG will get an whiny e-mail from Taser. Maybe they won't.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had an email exchange with the North County Gazette and she will not deal with anonymous people (like me). Fine.

But there is a world of information, ideas and arguments available to those that can deal with such a small matter as Internet anonymity in the year 2008.

You'd certainly treat anonymous sources differently (much less trust and much more verify), but to exclude all contact with them as a matter of policy is just plain being silly.

Besides, after a few friendly e-mail exchanges, perhaps more contact info would be revealed eventually. I've had direct contact and long conversations with influential reporters and more personal details were revealed in due course.

As a matter of fact, this blog has received some very useful guidance and information from sources not willing to identify themselves. The information received was essentially tips and pointers to publicly-available information (much like this blog), but I may never have found those tidbits without the helpful advice of those anonymous sources.

To exclude contact with anonymous sources is misguided.

But - to each their own.

Beta_Test_Victim said...

I'm glad to have communicated with you Mr. Anonymous.

Thanks again for your time and obvious effort invested here!!