Taser QotW - "None of us is going to light up a kindergartner..."

Florida Times-Union - Glynn County school police want tasers, but some school administrators say they’re unnecessary. County school board members want to hear from parents and teachers before deciding whether to equip school police with tasers, and whether to reinstate capital corporal punishment. ...

... "At my school, we probably could have deployed tasers four or five times already if we’d had them," said Sgt. Robert Kocour, who is assigned to Brunswick High School. "None of us is going to light up a kindergartner, but what about the irate parent who comes in all out of control? … A taser basically saves a life. You can energize them, but don’t have to shoot them," Kocour said. [LINK]

Follow the "LOLgic" carefully. Sgt Kocour claims that "a taser basically saves a life", and that he "could have deployed tasers four or five times already". If your brain is switched on, then you'll hopefully see the insanity of these two self-contradictory claims. Either at least one of these two claims has to be completely false, or Sgt. Kocour has actually killed four or five irate parents in his career as a school resource officer (not likely). I suspect that both of his claims are false or highly exaggerated.



For your decision, here's some useful info you need:

Search this blog for recent taser deployment settlements. [LINK] They're way into the high end of 5-figures now. Some are 6-figures. And these are for cases where no one died.

American Medical Association (AMA) - "...[tasers] may contribute to the death of suspects, either directly or indirectly." [LINK]

What about others that have studied the issue of tasers and DEATH? See [LINK]. I'm not making this up. Follow the links and you can fact check for yourself.

What about the NIJ? What did their interim report actually say?