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, March 8, 2009

"Civics" - it's not a Honda

Winnipeg Sun - Winnipeg's top cop says he's confident the city's 1,300-plus officers will be re-trained on taser use every 12 months to continue carrying the weapon. [LINK]

The so-called Taser Training is part of the problem.

From what I've seen, the official taser training provided by Taser International "certified" trainers is nothing but misleading propaganda masquerading as training.

There are many examples of the problems: [LINK]

What they need work on are the topics that were once taught in Grade 6 'Civics' class.


Hey! Look at this comparison:

Ottawa (pop. 812,129) - tasers used "a dozen" times during 2007
Winnipeg (pop. 633,451) - tasers used about 75 times a year (8x higher rate!!)

Why the huge (8-to-1) difference in the usage rate?


This is one big reason why:

Ottawa has regular Use of Force (see? it's a fricken' noun) training [LINK].


The approach being used by the city of Ottawa is perhaps, arguably, just-barely, acceptable. Far from perfect, but at least within sight of reasonable. Their usage of tasers is "only" about 20 times the expected rate of police lethal gun-play.

Winnipeg? Not even in the right book, let alone on the right page.


Forget the Taser "Training" - try some Grade 6 'Civics'.

Or maybe some Use of Force refresher training as is done in Ottawa.

Or just read the right-hand column of this blog to start.

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