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.



Tuesday, December 29, 2009

How many lawsuits can now proceed?

OMG.

Police may not taser an individual simply because he or she is acting erratically, nor may they taser someone simply because they are not obeying.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that police can't zap someone with a stun gun unless the suspect poses an immediate threat. The ruling sets police standards for use of the taser, saying stun guns must be used only when "substantial force" is needed. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said officers can't taser a person simply for acting erratically or disobeying orders. ... [LINK]


Dear Taser International,

Happy New Year.

I told you that 2009 would be an interesting year.

Between the Maryland Attorney General concluding that you have "significantly" understated the risks of taser use, and now the court ruling that an extremely common application of your torture device is unconstitutional, what a great way to end the year.


Anyone, anywhere (in the USA) that was tasered under circumstances that align with this ruling should seek immediate legal counsel with a view towards launching a lawsuit.

There should be many tens of thousands of such cases.

Hopefully Taser International can be dragged in due to their vertically integrated training and certification scheme.

2 comments:

Detective Dave (retired) said...

Hey- I actually followed the link and read the American Institute of Cardiology report you are using for "Facts". They report that there was a 6-fold surge in SIC deaths in the first year, but then FELL to pre-deployment levels later. This is accompanied by a 3.2 fold increase in shootings, which also fell to normal levels later. Does the data support that tasers are killing people in the first year of deployment only? That makes no sense, and the article makes no attempt to explain this data jump, which obviously has no relationship to Taser use if after the first year the SIC deaths returned to normal levels, were Tasers no loger used? No. Also, there was no data regarding how many SIC deaths had been exposed to Tasers. I am a law enforcement officer who DOES NOT carry a Taser (for reasons other than their lack of safety), nor has any stock in the company, however I have been tased twice.

Excited-Delirium.com said...

Hello Detective Dave.

I'm not sure why your comment is attached to the unrelated post. The post is concerned with recent news (9th Circuit Court and MD AG), while your comment is related to news from March 2009.

The study you reviewed was mentioned in the following posts at that time (March 2009).

http://excited-delirium.blogspot.com/2009/03/facts-at-odds-with-tasers-claims-of.html

http://excited-delirium.blogspot.com/2009/03/taser-associated-increase-in-icd.html

The sharp increase in violence coincident with the introduction of tasers could most easily be explain as a result of the clearly defective taser training. As that training wears off, and the departments regain their sanity, the level of violence returns to pre-taser levels.

The important conclusions were that tasers and the accompanying training MADE THINGS WORSE (not better), and in the mid-term did not improve rate of in-custody death nor rate of officer injury.

If you have any further comments on the findings of that major study that provided results that clearly contradicted Taser International's marketing, please attach the comments to the applicable post.

I hope you noticed that this blog has 1500 posts and most related subjects have been covered. There's a larger pattern that clearly emerges when the subject is studied extensively. Taser International will use an argument to escape from one trap, and another argument to escape from another trap. You have to study the entire issue to be in a position to notice that their two arguments logically and/or factually contradict each other. I'm in that position, and I have posted such examples.

Once you see such things, the larger pattern is crystal clear.