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, May 18, 2010

Did Taser International yank Kroll's ping pong page?

I just took a quick look and I can't see it. Maybe I'm not looking correctly. I have a copy on file, so I'm not worried about that.

But if they have removed that infamous webpage ("paper") by Kroll from their website, if that's true, then it's another huge defacto admission. And thus doubly-useful during any lawsuits...

2 comments:

Don Kuhns said...

I hope you also have downloaded a copy of Taser's press kit, which contains some very questionable assertions, such as...


"TASER systems don’t rely upon pain compliance but instead
provide NeuroMuscular Incapacitation (NMI) that immediately stops any coordinated
action by the subject while the TASER system’s current is applied. Recovery is
instantaneous so the TASER system simply provides a window of opportunity to
temporarily stop someone's dangerous actions."

and...

"While the TASER device produces 50,000 volts to create a spark that
will transmit electricity through 2 inches of clothing, only short pulses
of 400 volts actually enter the body. The average voltage during a
five-second application is less than one volt. When compared to a
static shock from a doorknob (35,000 to 100,000 volts) or a Van de
Graff Generator (1,000,000 to 20,000,000 volts), a common display in
science museums which makes your hair stand on end, 400 volts with
extremely low current is equally as harmless."

Excited-Delirium.com said...

NMI (when it works) occurs way, way, way above incredible pain and obviously overlaps with risk-of-death. Their claim that it doesn't rely upon pain, fails to make it clear that it goes way above pain.

The numbers associated with voltage are big and thus attractive, but the more interesting parameter is the current.

They always mention the "average" 2mA current and thus imply that the "effective is the average". That implication is an intentional, bald-faced lie and they know it. The "RMS" is the normal industry standard measurement method (like 120 volts RMS in your house). The M26 and X26 tasers are about 150 to 160 mA when measured using RMS.

The "effective" is obviously something around 30 to 50 mA (a rough guess) judging by results.

The other technical issue is Kroll's claims that the pulses are short. The X26 has a DC pulse that *is* 19 Hz (plus harmonics) low frequency and thus *is* continuous 100% duty cycle. I've explained this on the blog repeatedly. It's The Billion Dollar Blunder.