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.



Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Time to review s.269.1

CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA ON TORTURE

269.1 (1) Every [Peace Officer] who inflicts [severe pain] on any other person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.

I've [rolled up] some definitions for your convenience. Please refer to the complete section for details. Note that the only possible exception is as a 'lawful sanction' which appears to be intended to permit prisons and fines.

It really seems pretty clear...

For those that might require further guidance:

First please note that although this section is found in the 'Criminal' Code of Canada, it is specifically written to address actions of the police and other people in positions of authority. Think about that. Police are subject to the Criminal Code too.

'Reasonable force' can be recognized by the subject responding by saying something like, "Ouch, hey that lawful force that you're applying is extremely uncomfortable to the point of being downright painful."

'Torture' can be recognized by the subject falling down, writhing on the floor in sheer agony, and screaming like an animal being slaughtered.

There's enough of a gap between the two, especially with tasers, that there's not really any excuse for being confused by the distinction between 'lawful force' (the noun) and trying to force (the verb) the subject to obey your commands by way of applying extremely painful electric shocks in a vain attempt to coerce by pain.

Especially when dealing people in distress where attempting to coerce by pain may be ineffective, leading to moth+light endlessly repeated applications (Robert Dziekanski was tasered FIVE times, and died).

Even the NIJ 'Braintrust' was forced to note that repeated taserings are strangely correlated with death.

You guys keeping up?

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