Be Brave and Mash yer brain

UPDATE - Excited-Delirium.org (with a dash and an .org) no longer lands directly on the UM Brain Contract Services webpage as it did at the time that I posted the following. The reason it doesn't is that these people are reacting to these posts.

The Internet Whois record [LINK] (extract below) for Excited-delirium.org (note the .org) leads straight back to a certain lawyer known to be closely connected [LINK][LINK] to Taser International:

Domain Name:EXCITED-DELIRIUM.ORG
Registrant Name: Michael Brave
Registrant Organization: LAAW International, Inc.
Registrant Street1: 8362 Tamarack VLG
Registrant Street2: Suite 119-311
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City: Saint Paul
Registrant State/Province: MN
Registrant Postal Code: 55125


But when you visit the Excited-Delirium.org website, it's all about Dr. Deborah Mash and the University of Miami Brain Contract Services:

UM BRAIN CONTRACT SERVICES - The University of Miami Brain program (under the direction of Dr. Deborah Mash) has developed the largest collection of postmortem specimens linked to autopsy and forensic information from in-custody excited delirium deaths. [Fair Use claimed]

This outfit provides support for postmortem determination of in-custody excited delirium deaths. So, if you have a brain, send it in!!


Summary: Excited Delirium <-> Dr. Mash <-> Excited-Delirium.org <-> Michael Brave <-> Taser International <-> Excited Delirium

And thus the circle is complete


The question to ask here is the following: Why the fricken' hell is sometimes-Taser lawyer Mr. Michael Brave the registrant for a website which appears to be associated with Dr. Mash's brain examination outfit (associated with the University of Miami) which specializes in assisting with the postmortem determination of in-custody excited delirium deaths?

Perhaps there's an innocent explanation for this strangely-close connection from Taser International's (sometimes-?) lawyer Mr. Brave to one of the world's leading consultants for finding you some potentially-useful postmortem proof of excited delirium.


Oops! Make that "...proof of in-custody excited delirium..." I almost forgot the 'in-custody' part. Sorry about that.

They claim to have the "...largest collection of postmortem specimens linked to autopsy and forensic information from in-custody excited delirium deaths." [Fair Use claimed]

So do they have any postmortem samples from any NON-in-custody excited delirium deaths? Perhaps they've never seen such a thing.

Hey! I'm just making observations and asking obvious questions.

[update: link summary added]

IPICD, LAAW, Micheal Brave & "Excited Delirium"

IPICD is sponsored by LAAW.
LAAW is basically lawyer Micheal Brave.
Mr. Brave has registered at least two Internet domain names with 'excited delirium' in the URL.
These domain names are redirected to point to IPICD.

And thus the circle is complete:

...IPICD <> LAAW = lawyer Brave <> "Excited Delirium" URLs <> IPICD...


So, what does this have to do with Taser?

Taser's chief litigation lawyer is (or was?) a certain lawyer named Mr. Micheal Brave, Esq. etc.


You're either in on it, or you're being played like a trumpet.

Very Interesting... But Stupid !

(To be clear, the stupid part is towards the bottom...)

Well well well... look what I found.

Let's start at the beginning: When Patti Gillman was testifying at SECU (subject of my immediately-previous post [LINK]), she mentioned this blog and recommended it to the members of SECU. [thanks Patti!]

Unfortunately, the dash in my domain name (Excited-Delirium.com) is silent when spoken, and so in the original SECU transcript [LINK] the URL came out as exciteddelirium.com [no dash].

Note: I've already sent in a request to the Clerk of the SECU Committee asking if he could please correct or clarify the website address in the Evidence.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check out the URL-without-the-dash and see where it leads.

Well, guess what...

It redirects to (ahem): "The Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths".

So who the heck are they?

Their mission statement is as follows:

The Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, Inc. (IPICD) is a clearinghouse, resource center, and training provider dedicated to providing interested parties with objective, timely, accurate, qualitative, and quantitative information, training, and operational guidance for the prevention and management of sudden- and in-custody deaths.

Cough cough gag cough - Sorry. Excuse me.

According to the IPICD Sponsors page, the only two sponsors are:
1) US Armor Corporation, and
2) LAAW International, Inc.

Taser is not listed as a sponsor.

But it is not exactly very subtle for someone (?) to register the domain name exciteddelirium.com [no dash], and redirect it to the IPICD home page.

So, who did it?

Is there any connection from exciteddelirium.com [no dash] to Taser? Any at all?

The website registration for exciteddelirium.com [no dash] (as found on Whois.net [LINK]) extracts are as follows:

domain: exciteddelirium.com [no dash]
registrant-firstname: Michael
registrant-lastname: Brave
registrant-organization: LAAW International, Inc.

"...Michael Brave..."?? Oh, now that name sounds familiar.

Do you remember Mr. Alphabet Soup from a previous post? [LINK]

"Michael Brave, Esq., M.S., C.L.S.3, C.L.E.T., C.P.S., C.S.T. National Litigation Counsel, TASER International, Inc."

(Here it is...)

So in summary: The current (or former?) National Litigation Counsel for Taser International, Inc. has apparently registered the domain name exciteddelirium.com [no dash] and redirected it to point to IPICD.


Here's the issue:

It would have been perfectly normal if IPICD had registered an alternate domain name (such as exciteddelirium.com) and linked it to their own IPICD home page if they wished to do so. That's S.O.P. for webpage owners. Nothing abnormal about that. But that's not what happened.

When a 'sponsor' (LAAW/Michael Brave/Taser's Litigator) registers a domain name representing a controversial medical theory being promoted by Taser, and links it to someone else's independent (?) homepage, that's very strange.

Seems a bit clumsy. Cue the gently-indignant press release from IPICD requesting that LAAW remove the unauthorized link from exciteddelirum.com [no dash] to their IPICD home page.

Editorial note: You couldn't even make this stuff up.

[Updated several times: 29 April 2008]

The University of Miami connection to Taser International

On Tuesday, April 7, 2009, I posted Be Brave and Mash yer brain [LINK] about the strange connection from the offending webpage at Excited-Delirium.org (registered by sometimes-Taser lawyer Mr. Brave *), to the University of Miami's Brain Contract Services and Dr. Deborah Mash - who specialize in postmortem detection of 'excited delirium' (especially 'in-custody deaths' - I'm quoting the above website).

[* Mr. Brave has, at various times, purported to have been National Litigation Counsel, Legal Executive, and/or National Litigation Specialist, all for Taser International, Inc.]

This link clearly demonstrated the connections from Taser International to those that are involved with 'Excited Delirium' as an excuse for "in-custody" deaths.


Well, it appears that someone got their pee-pee slapped.

The Excited-Delirium.org URL now points (back... [ahem]) to the Institute for Prevention of In-Custody Death [Lawsuits?] (or something like that...) instead of UM Brain Contract Services as it did on 7 April 2009.

UPDATE2: They've cleaned-up the mess. At this point, everything is squeaky-clean.

So, there are no back-room connections from Taser International to the UM Brain Contracting Services - none at all. They're totally independent. No connections. Any former weblinks were just an out-of-control webpage administrator making unauthorized links to random webpages. Now move along, there's nothing to see here.

See also 'Whois' pushing "Excited Delirium" ?? [LINK]

UPDATE1:

CBC: And while the B.C. coroner’s service has not yet determined what killed Dziekanski — an autopsy failed to reveal a clear cause — RCMP have speculated the 40-year-old was also suffering from excited delirium.  "This is not due to a Taser," says Deborah Mash, a neurology professor at the University of Miami who has been studying excited delirium for 20 years. "This is in the brain and they die because the mechanisms that control the heart and the lungs fail." [LINK]

Jerry Staton explains "excited delirium"

"As a Senior Master TASER® Instructor..." [LINK]

Mr. Staton links to IPICD and an "excited delirium" website, but fails to disclose that those links are directly connected to Taser International.

He mentions the old crock of sh_t that "excited delirium" has been killing people for 150 years, but fails to disclose that the historical victims died a slow death over weeks due to lack of appetite. Hardly the same thing as tasered_and_died.

Perhaps he can explain the taser's 'Curious Temporal Asymmetry'?

--

Why is nearly everyone that is pushing "excited delirium" either directly connected to Taser International, or still keeping the connections under wraps.

Remember when IPICD pretended to be fully independent of Taser International? Then it was noted that principal Micheal Brave was also Taser International's own lawyer. And then it was revealed that Taser International provided seed money to IPICD.

This blogger uncovered Internet connections from Mr. Brave to UoM's Dr. Mash. Brave had accidentally or over-ethusiastically redirected one of his domain names to land directly on the UoM website.

So, 'Whois' pushing "Excited Delirium" ??

Mr. Michael Brave is (or 'was') connected directly to Taser International - he is (or perhaps 'was') Taser International's "National Litigation" lawyer [LINK].

He is also involved with an outfit called "LAAW International, Inc."
[JOKE: "Laaw"... I guess they specialize in stretching the laaw?].

The following 'Excited Delirium'-named websites are registered to, or associated with, Mr. Brave - and thus, indirectly, have connections to Taser International. I've provided links to the 'WhoIs' inquiries so that these registrations can be fact-checked.


URL's linked (indirectly thru Brave/LAAW) to Taser International:

Exciteddelirium.com [Whois]
Exciteddelirium.us [Whois]
Excited-delirium.net [Whois]
Excited-delirium.org [Whois]
Excited-delirium.info [Whois]
Excited-delirium.us [Whois]
Exciteddeliriumsyndrome.com [Whois]


And for bonus points:
Exciteddelirium.info is 'privately registered' [Whois] by 1and1.com and also links to IPICD.

1and1.com are the same outfit that has registered all of the above public registrations for Laaw.


Draw your own conclusions.

You're either in on it, or you're being played like a trumpet.


On the Canadian news, every now and then, one hears about a really stupid and mindbogglingly moronic individual that commits some minor crime, and then walks straight back to his house - leaving his footprints in the freshly fallen snow.

Minor updates 15 Feb 2009.

Common sense - if you knock it perhaps you lack it

There is a PowerPoint slide package published on the web (ECD Law) by Taser lawyer Mr. Brave that pooh-poohs the application of common sense (and I think he, to his peril, includes fundamental logic and philosophical arguments in this category). He practically dares that such common sense should ever challenge "science".

Well excuse me Mr. Brave.

If you've paid the slightest attention to the history of science, and the meaning and intent of the words hypothesis and theory, then you should know better. Science is often 'Science Du Jour'.

For example - one year milk (or beef, or coffee) is good for you, then next year it isn't. As comedian Lewis Black once ranted, "Everything I know about health has changed ten times in my lifetime." Another example, paleoanthropologists find a new bone that destroys all their previous detailed theories. This happens in many fields. Sometimes the change is a subtle improvement, other times it is a complete do-over.

So Mr. Brave, don't be overly confident in science over common sense. A bit of both is better than either one by itself.

PS: The X26 taser is 151 mA RMS with a primary frequency component at just 19 Hz. Put that data point on your chart and smoke it.



We know that the taser 'Induces pain'. We know that the taser 'Locks up muscles'. Taser has admitted that it can 'Interfere with breathing'. Some observers claim that the taser could cause the heart to behave erratically [LINK].

So which dot is correct? Average or RMS?

And as was discussed in a previous post, a frequency component (such as 19 Hz) is a sine wave, just like a sine wave.

"Conflict of Interest" (ref. TNT)

The Truth ... Not Tasers blog has posted an open letter to the Chair and Members of the Guelph Police Services Board. [LINK]

Selected related posts found on this blog:

1. So who is pushing 'Excited Delirium'? [LINK]
   
2. So, 'Whois' pushing "Excited Delirium" ?? [LINK]
   
3. Be Brave and Mash yer brain [LINK]
   
4. Taser International admits they sponsored IPICD [LINK]
   

I believe that item 4 happened because we uncovered the links (Taser - their lawyer Micheal Brave - IPICD - 'excited delirium') and reported them here. I've not found any evidence that they had previously been open about their back-room links (but I'm willing to be proven incorrect). Even now, Taser International is still not listed as a (founding?) sponsor on the IPICD sponsors' page.

This blog has more than 900 posts. You can search the blog (top left) for related keywords such as IPICD and 'Micheal Brave'. Almost every post is linked, either directly or indirectly via previous related posts, to external sources.

You might also want to browse. There's more than enough material here to make a Micheal Moore movie about these clowns.

Cleaning up the connections, too late...

According to this report [LINK], Taser International's clumsy lawyer Micheal Brave has excused himself from the IPICD(L). It's the "Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Death (Lawsuits) (*)".

"Brave, now listed as an inactive director, says he remains a legal adviser at IPICD."

(* They don't actually include the word "...Lawsuits" in their name, but let's be honest - it's the true purpose.)

Peters sees nothing inappropriate about his Taser connections. "We are not aligned with them at all," he says, although "we did not distinguish ourselves enough" at the start.

No. The mistake was allowing Mr. Brave to do the IT work, leaving a trail of clues, firmly linking IPICD(L) to Taser International, ...evidence that could be seen from orbit (literally, since the ISS has access to the Internet).

Critics of Taser International have been vastly "misunderestimated".

So who is pushing 'Excited Delirium'?

We had already noted [LINK] that Taser lawyer Michael Brave [LINK] was (and is) the registered owner of the domain name www.ExcitedDelirium.com (no dash).

Well, it turns out that this [blankity-blank] Taser lawyer Mr. Brave is also the proud registered owner of the domain name www.Excited-Delirium.net [LINK]. This domain name is a redirect to the organization IPICD (suspected by some to be a front for Taser, indisputably preoccupied with excited delirium - which may effectively be the same thing). This domain was registered on 30-Apr-2008 (one can only assume in response to this blog of the same base name, ha ha ha).

I present this information just in case you were in any doubt about the relationship between Taser and the promotion of this ancient and mysterious non-evidence-leaving, convenient excuse-for-death, called 'excited delirium'.

If IPICD had registered these various 'excited delirium' domain names themselves, and Taser/Brave had sponsored the trivial cost of those registrations, then it would have been much more clever on their part. It would have been a case of nothing to see here - move along.

But as it is, they've left their Taser-to-'excited delirium' connections clearly documented for all to see.

Not exactly a bright move on their part.

Recommending policy - what's the truth ????

"TASER International does not create, recommend, or endorse policy."

Extracted from a presentation dated 07-16-07 by Michael Brave, Esq., M.S., C.L.S.3, C.L.E.T., C.P.S., C.S.T. National Litigation Counsel, TASER International, Inc.

[Check-out the alphabet soup... geesh.]

Compare and contrast the above claim to this news report extract:

Glens Falls (NY) Police use the policy recommended by stun gun maker Taser International to guide when and how the tasers are used. Bethel would not release that policy, saying City Lawyer Ronald Newell's opinion was that the policy should not be released, for safety reasons... [LINK]

Other reports ([LINK]*) say 95% of agencies do the same thing: use policies recommended by Taser.

(* ACLU-NC: The company continues to downplay safety concerns and bills its product as “non-lethal.” Taser’s reluctance to acknowledge potential dangers is particularly disturbing as over 95% of surveyed police departments rely on use policies supplied entirely by the manufacturer.)


So what is the actual truth?

Either the news reports are incorrect (seems unlikely), or Taser is not telling the truth (?), or perhaps Mr. Brave is unaware of what the Smith Bros. have been up to (?).

Please feel free to leave comments explaining this discrepancy. I'm very open to getting some additional information regarding this discrepancy.

This is potentially huge...

Canadian police brainwashed by Taser

Vancouver Sun, May 14, 2008 - A police psychologist blasted Taser International at the public inquiry probing the controversial use of Tasers, claiming Tuesday that Canadian police have been "brainwashed" by the manufacturer to justify "ridiculously inappropriate" use of the electronic weapon.

Mike Webster accused the company that makes Tasers of instructing police in Canada that when they encounter a person suffering from a "mythical" condition that Taser calls "excited delirium," police have few options other than jolting the person with the controversial electrical weapon, which delivers a five-second shock that incapacitates a person.

"When you think the only tool you have is a hammer, then the whole world begins looking like a nail," Webster told the inquiry in Vancouver.

Excited delirium is not a recognized medical diagnosis, he said, but is a "dubious disorder" used by Taser International in its training of police in Canada and the U.S.

The term is also used by the Institute for the Prevention of In-custody Deaths, which is headed by John Peters, a business associate of Taser International of Arizona. He pointed out Peters is one of Taser's "star witnesses" in court when the company defends itself against lawsuits alleging a person was killed by a Taser.

[Also, one of the sponsors of IPICD is Taser's litigation lawyer Mr. Brave. Coincidence? Brave also registered to domain name ExcitedDelirium.com (no dash) and redirected it to IPICD's homepage. ...Pointedly unsubtle.]

"It may be that police and medical examiners are using the term [excited delirium] as a convenient excuse for what could be excessive use of force or inappropriate control techniques during an arrest," Webster said.

"My own opinion on this is that Canadian law enforcement, and its American brothers and sisters, have been brainwashed by companies like Taser International and the Institute for the Prevention of In-custody Deaths," he added. "These organizations have created a virtual world replete with avatars that wander about with the potential to manifest a horrific condition characterized by profuse sweating, superhuman strength and a penchant for smashing glass that appeals to well-meaning but psychologically unsophisticated police personnel," Webster said.

...Webster, however, said he has been shocked and embarrassed by recent "ridiculously inappropriate applications of the Taser" in low-risk situations involving people who are mentally imbalanced, likely suffering from "plain old delirium."

He specifically mentioned the case of Frank Lasser, an 82-year-old Kamloops man who was delirious in his hospital bed after heart bypass surgery last week when he produced a pocket knife and an RCMP officer gave him several jolts with a Taser.

He also cited Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died last Oct. 14 at Vancouver International Airport after wandering around the airport for nine hours, unable to find his waiting mother, who finally left the airport.

..."It is neither humane nor logical to inflict crippling pain upon someone who has lost his mental balance," Webster told Braidwood.

Police need to create a non-threatening environment to defuse crisis situations by using calm communications skills and neutral body language, he said. He suggested people who are agitated are in a state of hyper-arousal, which disrupts a person's ability to process information, including police commands, and causes unpredictable behaviour.

Asked by commission lawyer Art Vertlieb what his motivation was in making a presentation, Webster said he wasn't anti-police. "I've worked with police for over 30 years," said the police psychologist, who teaches crisis management skills to Vancouver police and at the Canadian Police College. [LINK]

See also Canadian Press version [LINK]


This speaks for itself. I don't need to add any commentary.

Thank you Mr. Webster.

By the way - the RCMP have reportedly threatened to black-ball Webster from receiving any future police work or contracts. Because his criticism of the force is "disloyal". Don't miss this little insight into the minds of the RCMP's top brass-holes. [LINK]

Causes of Death - Hatchel Pate Adams III

A man who died in police custody in December 2009 died from a combination of excited delirium, mental illness, methamphetamine use, obesity and subdual by police, medical examiners said Tuesday. Hatchel Pate Adams III, 36, died in the hospital after police responded to a complaint at his residence in the first block of Overlook Court in Hampton at about 11 p.m. December 10. Officers tried to talk to Adams, but he would not come to the door. When police were able to get inside the residence, Adams began swinging a Samurai sword at them. In response to the sword threat, officers tased Adams, but he was able to free himself from the taser probes. Officers tased him again and attempted to place him in custody, but he then stopped breathing. [LINK]

Let's review the causes of death listed above...

1) Excited delirium - nothing but meaningless words. A place-holder for ignorance. Too often associated with taser-associated deaths. The holistic-medicine of the In-Custody Death explanation-for-hire industry.
2) Mental illness is obviously not a direct cause of death. It's plain crazy to suggest otherwise.
3) I'd buy "methamphetamine use" provided it is of a lethal does and time-aligned with the death. Even it's use can be certainly be considered to be a contributing factor even in the absence of the dose and timing factors.
4) Obesity - at most a contributing factor, obviously not a cause of death.
5) Subdual by police - they used a taser, twice. Why is this listed in last place? WTF is with THAT?!

UPDATE - I've noticed that the five purported "causes" are listed in strict alphabetical order. Perhaps the choice of words (e.g. "subdual...", an odd choice) is intentional to achieve the ordering desired, while supporting the 'alphabetical' explanation. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it...

Based on the report, only one of these factors (#5) is minute-by-minute time-aligned with the point where Mr. Adams stopped breathing. The others would have been going on for hours to years.


...the Taser shooting didn't violate any department policies and was ruled justified. "They were defending themselves from someone wielding a samurai sword at them." [LINK]

If that's true, then I agree. I'm not here to debate the rational and justification for responding as they did. I'm just curious about the taser deployments and the reported causes of death.


A Hampton police press release said the police and the medical examiner's office enlisted experts on excited delirium at the University of Miami to help investigate the death. [LINK]

Ah, that'll be Dr. Mash et al.

Some too-close connections have been uncovered between Taser International, via their sometimes-lawyer / sometimes ICD "expert" Mr. Micheal Brave, and Dr. "Excited Delirium" Mash at the University of Miami. If anyone is interested in these ethically-questionable Taser Internation-to-UoM connections, then review the following posts:


Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - Be Brave and Mash yer brain [LINK]

Saturday, April 18, 2009 - The University of Miami connection to Taser International [LINK]

These sorts of connections do little to enhance the on-stand credibility of Taser International's own bought-and-paid-for "experts", and the "external" "experts" at the UoM.

Taser International and taser use policy

"TASER International does not create, recommend, or endorse policy."

Extracted from a presentation dated 07-16-07 by Michael Brave, Esq., M.S., F.A., C.L.S.3, C.L.E.T., C.P.S., C.S.T. National Litigation Counsel, TASER International, Inc.

And 'Whois' Michael Brave? See [LINK] and try not to LOL and ROTFLYAO.

"...over 95% of surveyed police departments rely on use policies supplied entirely by the manufacturer." [LINK]

Taser International is asking the court to quash the conclusions and/or resultant recommendations made by Braidwood. [LINK]

"...the fact that it's a policy piece he's been asked to write and not a hearing...'' said University of B.C. law professor Cristie Ford. [ibid]

2008 - a year in review...

The Year 2008 In Review

(And this is just a sample. It's not even all the major highlights.)


We started the year 2008 with a review of an "article" in IEEE Spectrum written by Taser's leading braintrust member, Dr. Mark Kroll. We more-fully exposed Dr. Kroll's extreme financial ties to Taser. [LINK] & [LINK] Then we dissected his Taser mouthpiece article more fully. [LINK] It was also noted that Dr. Kroll is a serial non-discloser of his close ties to Taser. [LINK]

Also very early this year, we noted that the X26 taser has a electrical waveform with characteristics that are the exact opposite of those characteristics that were claimed to be the reason that the M26 taser was 'safe'. The older 1999-era M26 taser is high frequency and low duty cycle. The 2003-era X26 taser is low frequency and very high continuous 100% duty cycle. I've not seen this critical technical distinction high-lighted in any other source. Taser's own data sheets mention the raw information, but not a word about this critical change to the waveform. [LINK] [LINK] and [LINK]. See also [LINK].

Some of the basics of Canadian law jumped out at me. I'm not a lawyer, and perhaps there is 'case law' that has taken away some of our fundamental rights (I doubt it). But some of the mistakes being made are (quite literally) elementary. Lawful 'force' is a noun. It's not a damn verb. Police officers and officials that think that they're allowed to use painful electric shock as a form of on-the-spot torture to coerce (force - verb) someone to obey are morons. Let me repeat - morons. The language used to forbid such behaviour is crystal clear. If 'failure to obey' is an offense, then add it to the list of charges and bring the subject before the court. You're not allowed to torture. And Tasers-R-Torture. [LINK]

By the 6th day, it had been noted that former Taser Board of Director member Mr. Bernie Kerik was facing charges that might result in him being jailed for up to 142 years. [LINK] [LINK] (Update: now facing just 28 years. [LINK]) In Canada, we have Sgt Darren Laur (Victoria, BC) and his 'apparent and perceived conflict of interest' [LINK], and coroner James Cairns' jaunts [LINK]. There are quite a few more ethical lapses associated with Taser and/or Taser-associated folks - eg. [LINK] - review the whole blog for more.

Shooting holes in Taser propaganda is a continuing theme of this blog. After Smith's appearance before SECU, I blasted away at the pure BS Taser propaganda. [LINK][LINK][LINK] There is so much propaganda from Taser that is so weak that almost anyone with a modicum of skepticism can instantly see the logical and technical flaws.

By early February, I'd tracked down a certain Taser fan-boy, (apparently) named David E. Zuskin, who (it seems) had been spamming the Internet with his nonsense trademark 'TASERS SAVE LIVES EVERYDAY' (in all caps) - which is both factually and grammatically incorrect. He has since installed a brain and now keeps a much lower profile (now he's 'Bob'). But he's still out there spamming the Internet - and nursing his investments [smirk...]. He got his bum smacked by his ISP [LINK] after clumsily entering my blog e-mail address into many investment-related news letters as some sort of punishment. Typical... ...these law and order (sic) folks are the ones that will break the law to maintain their order. LOL.

Another theme of this blog is taser abuse, misuse and overuse. For some reason [LINK], tasers are constantly being used where there is little to zero justification. Honestly, I don't care if the police are equipped with flame-throwers, so long as everyone is being perfectly honest. But if the manufacturer of flame-throwers starts claiming that they're perfectly safe, and that the burnt-to-a-crisp subjects are simply examples of Spontaneous Human Combustion, then those flame-throwers need to be put away until the brains are reinstalled and lawsuits settled.

By March, we had had a visit from Grettir, who may or may not be Dr. Mark Kroll himself (it certainly sounded like him). [LINK] The flawed thinking by Grettir was crystal clear - some of the logical errors were shocking in their simplicity - such as double-dipping for the natural protection of everybody's shared anatomical characteristics. The other points were equally easy to shred. It's clear that even self-styled big thinkers sometimes make small mistakes.

I note with interest that as these sorts of pro-taser arguments have been shredded by this blog, they tend to disappear from the Taser PR machine. The only argument that they've been using recently has been the 'reduces injuries to the police officers'. Yeah, so would a 'shoot first and let God figure it out' policy. They've very few arguments left standing.

By April, I had noticed that the higher RMS current values had been expunged from the later data sheets. [LINK] Taser would probably say that it was to reduce confusion. Yeah thanks for thinking of us. Nothing to do with ~160 milliamperes RMS being well above the safety limits, eh?

BC Transit Police revealed their empty-headed policies in April. Tasering fare-cheats for gawd's sake. [LINK] Idiots!

Safety margins were examined here [LINK]. They didn't stand-up very well to even a modest application of scrutiny.

But the most important contribution of this blog might be highlighting the relationship between the M26 waveform, and the X26 waveform, and the potentially huge impact of the seemingly-minor change to the waveform. A little DC offset changes everything - it lowers frequency (more dangerous), and it VASTLY increases duty cycle (to 100% continuous). It really seems that Taser forgot about Fourier. [LINK]

See also the guesstimated spectrograms [LINK].

We started plotting the number of taser-associated deaths per month, by month. The running average jumped up from much less than 1 per month before the introduction of the X26 taser in 2003, to a fairly steady 7 per month after that point. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. Perhaps all these deaths are just coincidences. [LINK] and others... [LINK]

In May, the brave BC Mounties tasered an 82-year old man in his hospital bed. Because he had a knife. It was 'a very dangerous situation'. So the frightened officer walked up really, really close to the elderly man and zapped him at close (zero) range. Yeah, it makes no sense to me either. [LINK]

Taser chairman Tom Smith more-or-less accidentally admitted that tasers takes one life for every 70 'lives saved'. [LINK] Well - ah - that's nice. Except that they claim that almost every time a taser is deployed, it counts as a life saved. Which is nonsense. And that just leaves the lives lost. Not to mention the Karma issue [LINK] of saving some lives at the expense of instituting a street level "death lottery" [LINK] on everyday citizens that do not deserve such risks.

We've reported incidents where diabetics in comas [LINK], people sleeping [LINK], and those having epileptic episodes [LINK] are tasered. These sorts of examples, which are almost endless in number, shred the old stale argument about 'just obey the police and you won't be tasered'. If you see that argument, please be gentle to the weak and ill-informed mind that houses it.

Another theme is the extraordinarily bad Taser-certified training. Given the actual behaviour of some supposedly-trained police officers, the only possible explanation is that the Taser-certified Trainers are brainwashed numskulls, and the Taser-certified training material is so poor as to be considered evil. [LINK] How else can you explain this nonsense? [LINK] !!!

This issue is (far and away) more than sufficient to fully justify a moratorium to allow time to surgically removed all the Taser propaganda from the skulls of those that have been Taser-certifiably brainwashed. It might take a year or two to sort out.

It's probably time to remind the readers that this taser issue is not just in the cross-hairs of a few outrage civilian bloggers. People with PhDs are also pointing out that some of Taser's so-called studies are useless. [LINK] And a more skeptical mind might ask, 'Wouldn't the pro-taser 'researchers' be familiar with the basics of Statistics 101?' Are these uselessly-small sample sizes an innocent mistake? ...or a sign of deeper issues?

Inconvenient facts like this [LINK] must annoy Taser: "...people with heart problems are about 5% of the general population (2% to 8% averages to 5%), but they represent 54% of the (tasered-then-dead) victims. That's about an 11-to-1 ratio that needs to be explained. Well obviously [sic] there's no connection [sic] between the taser and the heart. None at all...[ROLLS EYES]..."

Mid-way through 2008, the NIJ released a report that found no evidence of a high risk from tasers. Well DUH! What about low to moderate risk? And NIJ excluded huge swaths of the population, which add up to most of the population. [LINK]

Then a truth-stretcher named Billo turned the NIJ statement around to claim that this proved that Tasers-R-Safe. [LINK] Which it doesn't. [LINK]

Oh my! Then it was noted by another blogger that Billo the Blogger is a certain William Oliver and he is sitting on the same damn NIJ Taser Study panel!! Oh my gawd. [LINK][LINK] and especially [LINK] !!! Isn't that amazing!! This unabashed taser fan-boy is sitting on the NIJ panel "studying" tasers. And then he systematically twists the NIJ findings to suit Taser. What a bunch of clumsy clots.

On the subject of clumsy clots - I discovered by accident that Taser's lawyer Micheal Brave was registering domain names that promote "Excited Delirium" and he points these URLs to a seeming-front organization. Read it here [LINK] and [LINK] You're either in on it, or you're being played like a trumpet.

Taser likes to highlight its legal record, but not that fact that they actually settled many cases to make them go away. [LINK] [LINK]

By September, the RCMP had been body-slammed by an independent report [LINK]. But by mid-December, the RCMP thumbed their noses at the Parliamentary committee SECU that directed that the RCMP recategorize tasers as impact weapons (to cut back on the abuse, misuse, and overuse). [LINK][LINK] I guess the RCMP doesn't take them seriously, but they should... [LINK]

Still in September, the Canadian Police Research Center (seemingly acting as a branch of Taser sometimes, sat beside Taser at SECU for gosh sakes!) report failed to note that tasers are already considered to be firearms. [LINK] You'd think that might be worth noting. They had their chain yanked in August [LINK].

Taser's French distributor got himself arrested. [LINK] For some reason, Taser seems to be occasionally associated with people (Di Zazzo, Kerik) that are not as far above the law as they thought.


There is so much more. The above tidbits are just a sample of the issues that we've discussed. I've made some very interesting findings along the way.

It's been a crazy year for Taser. Their stock has tanked "due to oil prices", but I believe that the next year is when the perfect storm of cold hard facts will intersect with the legal system to make the year 2009 even more interesting for them.

Scratch the surface and hold your nose...

THIS is the sort of crap that's going on beneath the surface...

Canadian coroners are getting tangled up with these clowns:

"...Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, a small private company with ties to Taser. It is headed by John Peters, a communications specialist who often acts as a course instructor for Taser International. Its only other director [and sponsor] is Michael Brave, a Taser legal executive. ..."

See the Truth ... Not Tasers blog: [LINK]

Any advertising is good advertising, eh?

Nice semi-advertising, light-weight, puff-piece on Taser International at The Economist. [LINK]

It's good free advertising.

Too bad about the comments: [LINK]

Even with the mention of the "controversy", this article is a bit of a puff-piece. Allow me to be specific.

"The device’s success has been electrifying. In the 15 years since it first came on the market..."

First, the M26 taser was introduced in 1999, and the X26 taser was introduced in 2003. The company touted the M26 as safe "because" the output waveform was high frequency and very low duty cycle. But the X26 taser waveform contains a DC pulse after the arc phase. This DC pulse repeats at 19 Hz and is thus more dangerous low frequency and is continuous 100% duty cycle. This makes the X26 taser significantly more dangerous than the older M26.

The monthly taser "associated" death rate shows a clear ramp up from just several per YEAR to a running average of SEVEN per MONTH starting in, guess when... ...2003. It's an extraordinary outbreak of taser associated deaths (often a.k.a. "excited delirium") starting coincident with the introduction of the X26 taser in 2003.

Mr. Smith is quoted as saying of the XREP "...it won’t kill you." Funny, they said the exact same thing about the X26 taser that has been firmly linked to numerous deaths, and suspected in hundreds more (it leaves no postmortem evidence). The US AMA concluded that tasers can kill, "directly or indirectly". The huge $4M Braidwood Inquiry in Canada (which heard from Taser International) concluded that tasers can kill, through a variety of mechanisms, even with healthy adults. The Maryland Attorney General recently issued a report that concluded that Taser International has "significantly" understated the risk of taser use.

The XREP contains a feature, the Hand Trap, that encourages the subject to grab the device and thereby be more-fully shocked via his hand. This intentional design feature directly contradicts the recent advice given by Taser International to "avoid aiming at the chest" to avoid trans cardiac paths. The arm (especially the left) being the worst case of such a path.

Regarding their new X3: They've never admitted that the X26 was a huge mistake, forgetting Fourier transforms and accidentally dropping two key safety features, but it's worth highlighting that the new X3 reportedly emits about 40% less electrical charge than the X26.

With respect to the [taser associated] death toll, standing at 450+, [primarily associated with] the X26 taser.

1) The device leaves little postmortem clues. None that anyone has identified as being reliable.
2) Taser International has sued Coroners that dare to find the taser as a cause. It's been described as a "chill" on free and honest findings.
3) They promote (*) "excited delirium" as an alternate explanation for the taser associated deaths.

[* Their own lawyer, Micheal Brave, has registered dozens of Internet domain names with the words "excited" and "delirium" in the URLs. He has then pointed these URLs to an outfit that is studying "in-custody" (strangely: only in-custody) deaths via "excited delirium".]

In spite of these efforts, a review of 150 autopsy reports found about one-third had mentioned the taser as a cause or contributor to the death. I don't see any reason why this one-third ratio cannot be extrapolated to the entire 450. And it can only be a low-ball ratio given the factors mentioned above.

We have several cases where healthy young men were tasered and died essentially immediately. Even the famous Dziekanski cases at Vancouver, an incident that rocked Canada to its foundation, was a death by "cardiac arrest" perfectly coincident with the application of the taser for 5 cycles and 31 seconds.

Prof Savard has noted a linear correlation in the real world risk of death with the length of the taser application. More taser duration, more risk of death. The NIJ noted the same unexplained trend.

I've notice the taser's 'Curious Temporal Asymmetry' in that the taser associated deaths occur at a vastly higher rate in the seconds to minutes AFTER the deployment than in the seconds to minutes after the taser is drawn but BEFORE it is fired. You essentially NEVER read about a person dropping dead at the verbal warning before the taser hit.

It's also been noted that the taser associated death rate PER DEPLOYMENT with the X26 taser appears to be much higher than with the older (safer?) M26. In Canada the complete data is being withheld, but overlapping data sets indicate that there was a period of several years (2004...) when the M26 was still being used by the RCMP THREE TIMES more often than the newer X26, but ALL deaths in Canada (where the information is available) were associated with the X26. My question is: Where's the data to support this simple sanity check of their claims of safety?

At this point, the taser debate newbies chime in with such nonsense as:

"It's better than being shot with a gun! Duh!"

In fact, in many jurisdictions the taser is used at a rate about one-hundred times (100x) higher than the historical rate of police gun fire. This is obviously a round number, but it's a good round number.

This issue is that, exactly as concluded by the Maryland Attorney General, Taser International has significantly understated the risks.

This raises an issue with procurement of these devices. What are they buying?

The vendor explicitly claims (and maintains the deception) that tasers are "non-lethal", to quote Mr. Smith "...it won’t kill you...". Sometimes they use the term "less-than-lethal", but one wag quipped that term should be corrected to "less-than-OR-EQUAL-TO-lethal".

But the UN, the US AMA, the ACLU, the Canadian RCMP, the various inquiries, and even some researchers that Taser International likes to selectively quote - they all acknowledge that tasers can kill.

Is it legal for government departments to procure items where there is no common understanding of the prime characteristic? This is not just basic contract law, it is very very dangerous territory and can have real-world negative impacts.

Other recent news is that the 9th Circuit Court with jurisdiction over the western states has just explicitly ruled that a perfectly-typical taser deployment was a violation of the subject's constitutional rights. They explicitly ruled that the taser needs to be moved to the very top of the "non-lethal" (sic) list. They characterize the taser as "the most intrusive form of force" that they have ever encountered.

Taser International has characterized this ruling as essentially insignificant. Their spokes-puppets are spreading lies about the record of the 9th Court (it's not "the most overturned" by any reasonable measure). Meanwhile, legal experts and scholars have universally concluded it is a very significant ruling.

Hopefully this ruling is the begining of the end for the overuse, misuse and abuse of tasers, all committed by officers that have been fully trained and certified by Taser International's vertically integrated propaganda and law enforcement infiltration scheme.

In front of a Canadian House of Commons committee (SECU), the other Smith brother testified that Taser International does not provide draft Taser Use Policy. Meanwhile a survey by ACLU-NC found that 95% of jurisdictions were using policy provided by Taser International.

In Canada, the CBC (public media) undertook a survey of tasers in field use. They found that about 10% were out of tolerance. Various jurisdictions across Canada followed up and they all found a failure rate of about 10-12%. One or more units were emitting MORE output than specified. Most were underpowered.

Underpowered tasers are characterized as "failing safe" by Taser International. In fact, during a stand-off, escalating a non-violent situation relying on an ineffective tasers can lead directly to a death by shooting when the taser fails to be effective. In theory, it could also lead to the death of the officer putting his faith in it. There's no such thing as failing safe with weapons. The stungun salesmen aren't always being completely honest.

I could, quite literally, go on all day.

My blog at Excited-Delirium (don't forget the dash) now has 1500 posts on the subject. Everything is linked back to sources to facilitate independent fact checking. My own ideas and opinions are based upon these facts. My interest in the subject is purely as an interested citizen of Canada - I was outraged by the death of Mr. Dziekanski and several others in quick succession in late-2007 which is when I started the blog.

My blog also links to other blogs providing reliable coverage of the taser-related news.

If you want balance, then head on over to the company's website. Don't miss their 'Cardiac Safety' webpage where their in-house expert compares a 5-second taser hit to being hit with a ping-pong (table tennis) ball. Seriously.

Happy New Year.

PS: Local storage of officer-captured video would potentially be much cheaper. Uploading several GB per day PER OFFICER to some remote underground lair seems like a ploy to convert an equipment purchase into a 'service" with associated monthly fees. The phrase 'better, faster, cheaper' seems to apply to the local storage option, and 'worse, slower, more dear' to their money-making scheme.

"...beam the recordings instantly back to the higher-ups at headquarters..."

That must be an optional extra. The existing system described a docking station back at base. "Beaming" the video "instantly" is not part of the basic feature set presently on offer. And it would obviously require 3G/4G hardware and MORE monthly fees.

Remember this?

Compare this crap-fest (less than six months ago) to what we are now hearing at the Braidwood Inquiry:

Tasers safer than Tylenol, engineer tells conference

CBC News (Friday, November 30, 2007) - A biomedical engineer with ties to the company that makes Tasers insists that the stun-guns are safer than Tylenol.

"You have Tylenol in your home? As far as an electronic controlled device killing you, this stuff is safer than Tylenol," Dr. Mark Kroll said Thursday in Las Vegas.

Kroll, an adjunct professor at California Polytechnic State University who specializes in electrical currents, made his comments while addressing a group of 360 doctors, police officers, lawyers and medical examiners attending a three-day conference on sudden death and in-custody deaths.

Kroll and some of the other medical specialists and law enforcement officials who spoke at the conference stressed that Tasers do no harm, despite the outcry over the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who died last month after RCMP officers stunned him with a Taser gun at the Vancouver International Airport.

The federal government is examining the case, as are officials from Poland and the B.C. Coroner's office.

Kroll insisted Tasers are safe under all circumstances, and have never been proven to have directly killed anyone. He said they don't output enough electricity to kill, even if people are stunned several times.

There are several myths surrounding the stun-guns that are not true, Kroll said.

"One myth is that these devices can affect the heart. That myth has almost died out but you still see it once in awhile," he said.

"Another myth is that they're more dangerous [if the person being hit with a Taser is on] drugs, but one of my favourite myths is that these devices can harm pacemakers."

Kroll said even though he consults with Taser International, the maker of Tasers, and sits on the company's advisory board, he said he does not speak for the company.

Others at the sudden death conference, which ends Friday, also had ties to Taser International — three researchers in attendance are consultants with the company, while Taser paid for 10 of its employees to attend.

John Peters, who directs the U.S. Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths [IPICD], said his organization is not influenced by Taser International, despite the ties.

"We're not funded by Taser, we teach at the Taser academy a couple of times a year, but that's it," he said.

He conceded that his conference did not include the work of researchers who raised safety questions about Tasers.

"Their studies were very small, they were isolated," he said. "I thought it wasn't a good fit."

[LINK]

Kroll's ties to Taser also included stock options potentially worth about a million dollars. He sold about half his TASR holdings on 26 Oct 2007, pocketing $413,500. At the same time, he was sitting as chair of Taser's in-house so-called Medical Advisory Board. [LINK] [LINK]

IPICD is not funded by Taser. But IPICD is sponsored by Taser's lawyer, Micheal Brave. [LINK] [LINK]

A disturbing look inside Canadian prisons

Apparently compliance is achieved using such techniques as pepper spray and tasers.

See the Creekside1 blog regarding Ashley Smith [LINK]

Keep in mind that tasers (M26 and X26) are designed to incapacitate, achieved with waveform currents reportedly about 2000 times what would be required to cause intolerable pain.

So if pain compliance is the goal (ignoring for the moment all the issues swirling around that, addressed below), then at least realize that perhaps tasers (designed to incapacitate) are not a reasonable and appropriate device for pain compliance.

Years ago, there was a Canadian Moment TV ad (public service / history) where Canada's first female MP (Agnes Macphail) brought a prison whip to Parliament and snapped it in order to make her point about inhumane punishment methods in Canadian prisons. Perhaps it is time for a group of modern MPs to get their brave faces on, visit some prisons, and see what's what.


Whips / electronic whips (tasers) - what's the diff?
Seriously, what's the difference?

Hey MPs, your country is rolling backwards. Did someone leave it in neutral?

'We don't like brown people....we have a taser.'

Joke of the Day: Officer motions for motorist to open their car window. Motorist complies. Officer asks, "Good afternoon. Do you know why I pulled you over today?" Motorists offers, "Perhaps it's because you got straight 'D's all through high school?" Sorry. It's just a joke and it certainly does not apply to very many officers.

But when you read yet another news story about a group of knuckle-headed off-duty police officers getting all drunk, stupid, and racist, it makes you wonder.

This time it is not drunk Halifax police in Digby, NS. This time it's slice-of-life morons-in-blue in the Vancouver area.

They said 'We don't like brown people. ... We are the police. You don't need help. If you don't behave … we have a taser.' ...

Three off-duty officers were arrested by Vancouver police as a result of the altercation. The officers belong with the West Vancouver, New Westminster and Delta police departments. [LINK]


Did three drunk off-duty police officer really have a taser in their possession?

If they did, then they MUST be sentenced to something like two years in prison if The Rule of Law is to survive in Canada. Seriously! If these twits really were packing a taser under these circumstances, then they must go directly to jail, and do not pass Go, and do not collect $200.

And that's in addition to all the other criminal charges that must be brought.

Even those in the law enforcement community must agree with this self-obvious conclusion (assuming they take their oath more seriously than their misplaced loyalty to those so-called 'brothers' that would besmirch what little remains of the tattered reputation of policing in Canada).

It's simple: If these slimeballs walk, then this country is doomed. It's that serious.


Next think about the old maxim. If you walk past a haystack and happen to spot three needles, then it's very likely that the haystack contains many more than just three needles.

So obviously, in any group of seemingly fine up-standing brave and dedicated police officers, we apparently have some percentage of idiots that are weekend drunks and closet racists, ready-to-abuse the innocent, walking talking human rights nightmares.

Since the police system is obviously incapable of weeding them out, then they're out there even now.

Hundreds.

Thousands?

And armed with their police-state wetdream weapon, tasers.

And almost certainly more than willing to press charges against their victims as legal cover for their abusive behaviour.

Do you see the problem?

Honestly, good old fashioned guns have a certain seriousness attached to them that taser torture toys lack. Police guns have not really ever been an on-going problem in Canada.

Tasers in this environment are an obvious problem.

Innocent people will be tortured for the amusement of not-yet-detected racist thugs-in-blue, and then those innocent people will be criminally charged as legal cover. And we'll never know about the real story unless it just so happens that an unnoticed camera was across the street.

The only soultion is an immediate taser moratorium until the training and accountablility and ethical standards are brought up to modern standards.