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, December 27, 2009

Another ineffective taser deployment results in shooting

To be honest, I'm having difficulty keeping all these incidents straight. When I see yet another "taser ineffective" headline or news report, at least the third one in about as many days, even I (the world's greatest skeptic) have difficulty believeing that the new headline represents yet another ineffective taser incident. I have to check the details several times to convince myself.


LEOMINSTER — Authorities continue to investigate the shooting Friday of a man who allegedly brandished a knife at police officers. Authorities said a police officer shot the man about noon Friday after an attempt to subdue him with a Taser electroshock weapon didn’t work. ... [LINK]

See also [LINK].

UPDATE - The Worcester district attorney's office has identified the man shot Friday by Leominster police as Joseph Graham, 19, of Fitchburg. ... [LINK]

The public safety issue here is that the police often have a wide choice of options available to them. But having swallowed the hype that the taser is "safe and effective", they often turn to it too quickly. This choice is often an escalation in the level of violence. Then when the taser is ineffective, they're left with fewer options. This is how rates of police gun fire can go up with deployment of tasers.

Tasers that are ineffective can be extremely dangerous.

It is certainly something that should be tracked and considered when calculating the karmic balance of weapons that are proving to be neither reliably safe nor reliably effective.

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