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.



Thursday, January 28, 2010

Annual restraint deaths - compare the numbers...

"...approximate number of annual restraint deaths of 25..." [LINK]

See paragraph 8 referring to Mumola (2007) concerning 2003-2005 data.

"25" per YEAR?

Isn't it strange that the taser-associated in-custody death rate is running about SEVEN (7) PER MONTH (!), the starting point of the obvious ramp-up in 2003 being being strangely coincident with the introduction of the more-dangerous X26 taser in 2003. See graph below.

And not even asking if the non-taser ICD rate has shown a compensating decline.

This kinda..., sorta..., seems to... set an upper limit on how many of the taser-associated deaths might reasonably be attributed to "sudden ICD" based on this historical data (25 per year being about TWO per month, maximum). Leaves about FIVE per month, minimum. (Hey - I told you that the one-third was a low-ball. [LINK] and elsewhere)

See previous post:  Taser-associated deaths 1999-2009



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