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, February 22, 2009

'Tasers make officers safer', eh?

As a follow-up to a previous post entitled 'The dangerous world of law enforcement...' [LINK]

Here is a graph of the same data.

(Click on graph for a larger and clearer image. Click on back to return here.)

Clearly, in Canada, having more tasers (starting around 2003 with the introduction of the X26) is coincident with a step function increase in the annual rate of police officers being killed in the line-of-duty (excluding accidents).

And the sharp drop-off to zero in 2008 is strangely coincident with the increased public scrutiny subsequent to the killing of Mr. Dziekanski and several others in late-2007.

So do tasers really help to make Canadian police officers safer?

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