Taser underpowered "training aide" ??!!??

A regular reader made an interesting observation and suggested this post. Thanks K.


Riley Wooten, the father of Mike "Troopergate" Wooten who tasered his stepson, said:

"...the taser used was a training aide, not one with a full charge." [LINK]


Wah... wha... wha... wha... what ?

Training aide? Didn't have a full charge? What?


Choose one:

1) Mike "Troopergate" Wooten is passing along false information to his very own dad about the existence of special underpowered taser training aides.

2) Or such underpowered taser training aides actually do exist, which would call into question the very safety statistics that Taser quotes when they include police training hits (invariably to the back, never the chest) in their denominator washing. Obviously taser hits from underpowered traning aides would not be in the same risk category as from the real-deal.


If #2 is true (and it seems more likely), then we have the makings of a major deception.


Taser needs to answer the following questions:

Do such underpowered taser training aides exist? What is the purpose of such low-powered tasers? Are they used during police training? If so, why? Do you count these underpowered taser hits during police training in your washed-out safety statistics?


Wow...

This whole thing continues to get more and more interesting.