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

Taser cams - a very poor concept

"...teaching officers they need to keep the taser pointed at the subject in order to make sure the audio and video are actually of the subject at the time [and before, right?] of the taser use. That’s different from officers pointing sidearms at subjects, as they’re trained to point the deadly-force weapon down instead of at a subject unless and until they’re ready to use it..." [LINK]

Gee, what could possibly go wrong with that?

Hints:

1) Taser aimed at head may be quite reasonably interpreted, by the subject/plaintiff, as an unjustifiable escalation in violence. Subject may quite naturally react badly. It's a stupid concept.

2) In some jurisdictions (Canada), a taser is legally considered to be a (Prohibited) Firearm. Pointing a firearm at someone's face simply to record video is probably a criminal offence. There's an explicit section in the Criminal Code of Canada that says exactly that. And just because the stungun salesmen dream it up doesn't make it legal.

3) Under pressure, pulling the taser trigger may be a natural next step after aiming. After all, isn't the recording started when the SAFETY is armed? What's the point of recording the subject "bouncing around on the ground like a basket ball" if you don't capture the behaviour that alledgedly justified the taser deployment?

4) Under pressure, being trained to aim one weapon at the subject and being trained to aim down another weapon could cause confusion (cough BART cough cough).

This post is not to be interpreted as an advertisement for the AssOnline (or something like that) video system from the same bunch. That system is stupid on a whole 'nother level. See Evidunce.com for some initial observations.

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