Taser Understatement of the Decade - "It's clearly not a magic bullet."

In response to reports of an incident where one or more tasers were completely ineffective, Taser International spokespuppet Steve Tuttle abandoned the Corporate lie that tasers are "...safe and effective", and was forced to let slip a brand new admission:

Mr. Tuttle stated that tasers are "...clearly not a magic bullet."

No sh_t Einstein.


...Donald Barry Minter of Martinsville... Another officer shot Minter with high-voltage stun gun darts, but he apparently wasn't fazed. ... An officer broke the car window and blasted Minter again with Taser darts. Again, he was unaffected. ...Police shot Minter twice more with Taser darts -- again without effect... [LINK]

Since the various tasers were ineffective, ineffective, ineffective, ineffective, police were forced to shoot the subject dead. According to the report, the killing was perfectly justifiable on all levels.

Tragic, unfortunate, sad. But I don't see any legal, ethical, nor moral issues associated with the police...

...Except focused on the obviously and repeatedly-ineffective tasers. That's simply loaded with legal, ethical and moral issues.

"Not a magic bullet..."

Street-level death lottery is a more accurate description.

Ineffective taser (3 times) - deputy killed with own gun

GREELEY, Colo. -- Hundreds of men and women, many in uniform, gathered in Greeley Monday to remember a Weld County deputy killed in the line of duty last week. A memorial service for Sam Brownlee was being held on the University of Northern Colorado campus in Greeley. At the end of a high-speed chase Tuesday, the 43-year-old Brownlee was grappling with an accused car thief who fought through three attempts to subdue him with a Taser stun gun, investigators said. Somehow 20-year-old Ruben Reyes was able to grab Brownlee's gun and shoot him three times before another officer shot and killed Reyes... [LINK]

Taser was ineffective once.
Taser was ineffective twice.
Taser was ineffective thrice.
Perp grabs deputy's gun and kills him with it.
Perp is then killed by another deputy (with a gun).

It seems to me that the ineffective taser (and the over-selling deception that accompany it) lead to an escalation that resulted in two deaths.

The stun gun salesmen told us that tasers are "...safe and effective...". They have much to answer for; especially concerning their deception about the rate of ineffective deployments. See this post [LINK]. As usual their bald-faced deception endangers lives. And now an officer (and a perp) are dead.

--

My condolences to the family and friends of Deputy Brownlee.

This shouldn't have happened.

This needn't have happened.

Another ineffective taser deployment results in shooting

To be honest, I'm having difficulty keeping all these incidents straight. When I see yet another "taser ineffective" headline or news report, at least the third one in about as many days, even I (the world's greatest skeptic) have difficulty believeing that the new headline represents yet another ineffective taser incident. I have to check the details several times to convince myself.


LEOMINSTER — Authorities continue to investigate the shooting Friday of a man who allegedly brandished a knife at police officers. Authorities said a police officer shot the man about noon Friday after an attempt to subdue him with a Taser electroshock weapon didn’t work. ... [LINK]

See also [LINK].

UPDATE - The Worcester district attorney's office has identified the man shot Friday by Leominster police as Joseph Graham, 19, of Fitchburg. ... [LINK]

The public safety issue here is that the police often have a wide choice of options available to them. But having swallowed the hype that the taser is "safe and effective", they often turn to it too quickly. This choice is often an escalation in the level of violence. Then when the taser is ineffective, they're left with fewer options. This is how rates of police gun fire can go up with deployment of tasers.

Tasers that are ineffective can be extremely dangerous.

It is certainly something that should be tracked and considered when calculating the karmic balance of weapons that are proving to be neither reliably safe nor reliably effective.

Taser "tickles" terrible teen

Continuing the series of news reports of inexplicably ineffective taser deployments:

"...Deputies attempted to use taser to stop the [very naughty and rather stupid 14-year-old] teen. The taser had little effect on the teen. The teen told deputies that the taser felt like he was being 'tickled'. ..." [LINK]

There have been several (more like: several-squared) similar reports of potentially dangerous ineffective taser deployments over the past couple of weeks. Given a bit of bad luck, having an ineffective taser can lead directly to tragic consequences.

Why so many reports of ineffective tasers?

Is anyone in the law enforcement community concerned?

Have the authorities in the USA neglected to purge their taser inventory of the 10 to 12% of out-of-spec taser failure rate discovered by the Canadian public broadcaster CBC, and repeatedly confirmed by police jurisdictions all across Canada? Did Taser International ever issue a memo to US clients, or did they just go all-denial on us?

If I recall correctly, their only half-hearted attempt to explain away certain of these failures (high output) was to nit-pick the value of the test load resistor used, in spite of it reportedly being the exactly-correct OEM-specified value, AND in spite of their previous (and contradictory) statement that the taser operates as a "constant current source" and the magnitude of the output current waveform should therefore be insensitive to the exact value of the test resistor used.

And if the taser output is not a "constant current source", then the output current would be an inverse function of the essentially-random resistance value presented by the tasered subject. Thus the taser waveform current would be allowed to vary from ineffective at one extreme towards potentially-deadly at the other.

These are the sorts of discrapancies that a Federal taser regulatory body would eat for lunch.

The oversight approach being employed now is to let the media and interested researchers (both professional scientists and citizen bloggers) investigate and track this sort of corporate shinanigans.

The unregulated approach is "interesting", much like living in a town with no Fire Department would be "interesting", but I personally think that the traditional approach of applying some government oversight might be better for all concerned.

Report: "X26 Tasers have had a greater than 25 per cent failure rate"

It's simply amazing how often we are exactly correct...

We've noted before that there seemed to be a very high rate of reports that tasers were ineffective. Ineffective tasers puts the poor officer into a situation that has suddenly become violent, but his taser ain't working.

We figured the rate of ineffective tasers was significant, by the fork-tongue stungun salesmen denied it.

Now this:

Police figures show the X26 Tasers have had a greater than 25 per cent failure rate since they were reintroduced in 2010. [via TNT]

That's a very dangerous level of unreliability.

Search this blog for "ineffective" [LINK].

People have been KILLED because of ineffective tasers.

Taser ineffective (twice!), and gun doesn't kill

This post might look like a repost of a previous post titled "Taser doesn't work (twice), gun doesn't kill (twice)" [LINK].

But no, it's yet another example of the sort of real world incident where tasers are ineffective for various reasons. And the police revolver worked fine, its use appears to be perfectly justified (according to the report), the subject was stopped, the officer protected (no thanks to the ineffective taser), and the injured subject will reportedly recover to face charges.

...The man (Richard Anthony Malczewski Jr.) jumped to the pavement and ran toward the officer. ...the officer deployed a Taser, but the man pulled the prongs from his skin and continued to charge. ...[etc.]... The officer ordered the man to stop. When the man continued to assault the woman, the officer deployed a Taser for a second time. And again, the electrical charge from the Taser did not seem to affect the man. Police said he pulled the prongs from his body and picked up an unknown object. The man began waving the object over his head and ran toward theseveral times, the officer fired his gun several times, striking the man at least once. [LINK]

See also the AP story on the Washington Post [LINK].

Repeat after me: 'Unreliable and ineffective P.o.S.'

Putting the lives of our brave police officers in danger.

Report states that he pulled the prongs out. Prongs (plural). Implies a good two-dart hit.

Taser "...was ineffective..."

{ROLLS EYES}

CASPER — ...Colbey Emms exited and fled the wrecked Cadillac he is accused of stealing, officers shot him with a Taser, but it was ineffective. He was eventually subdued by multiple officers... [LINK]

At least the police in this incident were more-or-less heroic in their ability to subdue the subject using reliable non-lethal methods. Too often an ineffective taser leads to use of deadly force.

I wonder if this rate of ineffective tasers is going to lead the police to a new arms-length relationship with the stun gun salesmen.


Update: Here's another one. "...When police arrived, they deployed a taser on Powell however, that didn't stop him from taking off again. ..." [LINK]

Taser ineffective at least 5 times, uses car

I was tempted to entitle this post Moth + Light when I saw the number of times the police tried to use the ineffective taser.

See story at [LINK].

At least we can be thankful that an ineffective taser is a safe taser.

Traffic incident escalates via ineffective taser to deadly shooting

A Sandusky Police Department patrol officer fatally shot and killed Kent Kramer, 30. The officer first discharged the taser, but it had no effect. The officer then resorted to using their gun, killing Kramer. ... [LINK] [LINK]

A police spokesman explained that the taser was probably ineffective due to Mr. Kramer's "heavy coat".

No word if this explanation will lead officers in cold climates to consider first trying other approaches before relying (life and death) on the randomly-ineffective taser.

Ineffective taser leads to death of Deputy

Ineffective taser, two dead.

Deputy Killed: Setting the Record Straight [LINK]

The death of Deputy Sam Brownlee is a tragedy for Weld County. ...
1) Deputies chased a known felon and gang member, Rueben Reyes...
2) ...A taser was reportedly utilized. However, the taser ... was ineffective...
3) ...Reyes apparently saw, and took, the opportunity to pull Deputy Brownlee's weapon from its holster. Reyes then shot Deputy Brownlee three times [killing him]...
4) Another officer then shot Reyes three times [killing him]...

The deputy chose to rely on the unreliable taser, and it cost him his life.

The perp saw that the gun wasn't being used, and took it.

Perhaps if the officers had approached Reyes with their hands on their guns, then perhaps the situation would have turned out better. Obviously it couldn't have turned out any worse.

Reliance on tasers is ill-advised.

UK Most Wanted Raoul Moat shot with taser, and then kills himself with shotgun

(Welcome UK Readers. This blog about tasers has nearly 2000 posts on the subject of tasers, and the many false claims made by Taser International. Canada has been slowly dismantling the "tasers-R-safe" and "taser are effective" claims that have resulted in over-reliance on tasers, and huge problems including unnecessary death.)

UPDATE 1: See The Telegraph (UK) [LINK]. Everything being reported most-easily explained by my hypothesis of how it unfolded. But others are apparently unwilling to make the logical and obvious leap to map it out as I've described. Mark my words and we'll see...

UPDATE 2 - Two, not one, tasers were fired and yet he still managed to use his shotgun to kill himself. [LINK] Time to review the promises-to-truth ratio of Taser marketing.

Another [DOUBLE] entry for the Taser International FAIL-blog.

Sky News - Police have confirmed they shot Raoul Moat, 37, with a taser stun gun (UPDATE: XREP [LINK], twice) during last night's stand-off with Britain's most wanted man. [LINK] [ALSO]

News reports indicate that Moat killed himself with a shotgun.

So assuming that the police didn't fire the taser at Moat after he was already dead, then is it reasonable to assume that the police attempted to use the taser but it was, apparently, ineffective (twice)?

Furthermore, is it reasonable to assume that the attempt to use the ineffective taser might have actually prompted Moat into ending the standoff by killing himself?

The above sequence seems to be the simplest explanation that matches the reported facts.

(Others have pointed out the possibility of involuntary taser-caused muscle reactions pulling the trigger. That's certainly possible, but perhaps less likely.

UPDATE 3: Or is it? [LINK])

If so, then from a 'Taser-Use Policy' point of view, these news reports indicate a massive FAIL for depending on the unpredictable taser given such circumstances.

To be clear, I'm not overly-disturbed by Moat ending his own life - tragic, but he was the author of his own destiny; plus-or-minus other factors... ("steroid addict" [LINK]).


But it is EXTREMELY important to mark down a massive Taser-Use Policy "FAIL" if the use of the taser was, 1) ineffective (twice?), and 2) led directly to, or even allowed, gunfire.


Police weapons that are so consistently unreliable (some reports have the rate of ineffectivity as high as 30%) are dangerous in so many ways, to everyone in the vicinity.

Remember: Taser International claims that tasers are ...safe and effective.... I bet that they won't be issuing a glowing press release about how their product didn't accomplish anything as promised by the marketing.

Effective?

(Safe?)

And WTF is this? [Star]

"Failing safe" could be deadly

Seven of the eight tasers that failed in the British Columbia round of testing "failed to produce a pulse rate high enough to meet manufacturer's specifications." Taser would probably claim that these tasers failed safe since the output was apparently lower than specified.

But is it safe to have a weapon that is experiencing a ten percent failure rate, even if many of those failures are on the low side?


What happens when your taser doesn't do what it is supposed to do?

Sometimes in a stand-off, the police might have the option of simply waiting, negotiating, or using normal calming and de-escalation techniques.

But the police have now all been brainwashed that the taser can solve all manner of situations quickly and easily (sic!). So they decide to use the taser. And then it doesn't work. Now what? You can't really go back to de-escalation at this point. "Oh, sorry about that attempted tasering. Did it hurt? Sorry. How about we try talking again?"

So, given unlucky circumstances, the subject ends up being shot dead.


Here is just one example of how an ineffective taser was involved in a fatal shooting [LINK].

(Note - the only evidence that this particular incident was a case of a failed taser is that it was ineffective - perhaps there were other factors...)

In at least some of these sorts of cases, de-escalation techniques might have been the better option.


Failing safe could be deadly.


Would you accept bullets where every tenth bullet was a dud? Would you accept pepper spray where every tenth can was filled with root beer? Would you accept a baton where every tenth baton was made of balsa wood?

It's a crap shoot. For all concerned. Things might not work out as you expect. An example of a so-called high-tech tools that apparently are not quite ready for prime time.

Even if we grant Taser International every possible consideration, a ten percent failure rate is pretty high. And this is over and above the rate of darts missing target.

Tasers: Unreliable. Untrustworthy. Potentially ineffective in some unspecified percentage of deployments.


And why the hell does it take CBC to break this story?

Where were all the highly-qualified Master Instructors? Didn't anyone notice that 10% of all tasers were not firing at 19 Hz? 15 Hz rate (for example) can be compared to 19 Hz rate by ear. Anyone paying attention? Duh!

Where was Taser International? Helloooo?

Where was the Canadian Police Research Center?

Where was the US NIJ?

Where are the Federally-approved standards?

Where are the equipment qualifications?

Where is the calibration cycle?

Where is the test equipment?


Geesus H. What a bunch of nitwits...

Taser ineffective, struggle ensues, man shot dead

[Police say that] Deputy Michael Medina shocked Charles Roy, Jr., 37, with his Taser, but the stun gun appeared to be ineffective. Roy grabbed the Taser from Medina. Then Medina, fearing for his safety, fired his gun, hitting Roy once [killing him]. [LINK]

Why was the taser ineffective?

Why are tasers so unpredictable?

Why do police put their naive faith in unreliable tasers?

If Medina had simply drawn his gun and aimed it at Roy (at the appropriate point in the escalation of violence), how would Roy have reacted at that point? Would he have taken the situation more seriously and immediately surrendered?

Is it possible that the reliance on the taser actually cost a life?

Would the simple and reliable gun have been a more predictable choice?

Note - the issue here is NOT with Deputy Medina. Bless him. I'm glad he is okay. He is perfectly entitled to defend himself.

The issue is with the stupid, unreliable, dangerous-to-all taser. The issue is with the over-selling of this defectively-conceived product. The issue is with the infiltration of scummy, bought-and-paid-for, taser salesmen into the law enforcement community.

Go to your local "Taser Expert", back him into a wall, and poke him in the chest a few times. Ask him why he's taking money and putting officers' lives at risk with his incomplete and misleading misinformation.

'Shooting blanks' could be deadly

I've made this point before [LINK][LINK], but it is worth repeating. The issue is that when tasers fail on the low side and are therefore 'ineffective', it doesn't necessarily follow that they have 'failed safe'.

Here is why:

People have been killed by police gun-fire when the taser application was "ineffective". One is left to wonder if the subject might have survived if the police had used de-escalation techniques instead of relying on the taser. [LINK]

An argument can be made, quite reasonably, that ineffective tasers are extremely dangerous because of the potential for escalation and subsequent death by police gun fire.

The context of this is with respect to the near-constant 10% (+/-) failure rate of tasers when tested by CBC, British Columbia, Quebec, and now Alberta.


But it is critical to keep your eye on the main points:

Even when tasers are within specification, there is not universal agreement that they are essentially perfectly safe (cardiac effects). There are some studies that indicate that the risk is nowhere as low as Taser claims. The linear relationship found by Prof Savard between number of taser cycles and RISK OF DEATH is actually pretty strong evidence of a cause-and-effect link (unless people that plan to die somehow self-select themselves for additional taser cycles, and in a linear fashion - such an excuse is stretching the bounds of "logic" well beyond the breaking point).

And the issue of torture-by-taser. Overuse, abuse and misuse.

"After ineffective taser attempt, police shoot man"

...officers surrounded the suspect in a neighboring back yard and the man threatened to shoot himself. After convincing the man to holster his weapon, officers deployed a taser, which was ineffective. Chief Steve Robinette could not address the reason why the weapon did not work. "We hope to determine why it was ineffective through the course of the investigation," he said. After officers deployed the taser, the man unholstered his gun. According to reports, officers fired at the man in order to protect themselves. He was apparently hit in the torso and the hand. ...[LINK]

Unreliable and dangerous (to all present) weapon.

Taser International claims it is "generally safe and effective", and utterly refuse to acknowledge the risks.

Taser International's gift to the world...

Chicago Sun-Times [LINK]
Chicago Tribune [LINK]

Summary:

Chicago Police ...responded to a domestic disturbance ...found a man (Alvin Nash, 44) holding a knife to his own throat... Officers ordered him to drop the knife, and a taser was deployed when he did not comply. He was not affected by the taser. He simply pulled the wires out. Because the taser was ineffective, the subject was then able to move and subsequently held the knife against the neck of a woman, reportedly his wife. Strike one against taser.

Officers again ordered him to drop the knife. When he failed to comply again an officer discharged a taser for a second time. Again, the taser did not affect the subject. He again pulled the wires out with his hands. Strike two.

The man then lunged at officers with the knife, prompting an officer to fire his weapon, fatally wounding him. Strike three.

Just like the immediately-previous post [LINK], the taser as a weapon is proving to be ineffective and unreliable. And this lack of effectivity is endangering the lives of everyone involved: the police, bystanders and victims, and even the subject.

The outcome in this incident is the worst imaginable, with a taser-induced detour towards an outcome that might have been even worse.

What's going on with all the ineffective tasers?

I have read that certain tasers (such as the X26) can be loaded with new software via their overpriced battery packs.

Pure speculation: I wonder if Taser International has released new software to turn down the power output in order to improve the inherent cardiac safety; and now we're discovering that there's no overlap between "safe" and "effective".

I've got no evidence on this possibility, but it's something that the Federal Regulators can add to their list of things to check when they finally take an interest in the ECW Industry of essentially one.

Taser dangerously ineffective (twice)

Officer shoots man - Police: "Tasers didn’t stop him"

The suspect [UPDATE: Anthony Donald Chavez] was combative with the officers, refused to comply, and was tasered twice. He continued to resist actively, tried to gain possession of one of the officer’s guns. He was very aggressive toward the officers. One officer fired his gun during the altercation, he said. The 38 year old man is expected to survive his injuries. [LINK]

See also: Taser ineffective, Longmont cop shoots suspect [LINK]

Taser ineffective. Twice. Situation escalates. Officers' lives endangered. Man shot, but he is expected to survive.

A bit too much faith in the promises (safe, effective, reliable) made by the stun gun salesmen?

International forum takes aim at Taser use

Police from across Australia will share ideas and lessons on the use of Tasers at an international forum opening on Queensland's Sunshine Coast today. The Queensland Police Service is hosting the event.

[LINK]

Setting appropriate 'Taser Use Policy' is extremely easy, once you start with the correct assumptions:

1) The stun gun salesmen are not to be trusted. They are not true friends of the law enforcement community. If you make the mistake of naively accepting their advice, you will experience nothing but grief.

2) Tasers are not reliable weapons. There are constant news reports about ineffective taser deployments, reports of subjects pulling out the darts, and reports of some subjects even laughing-off the effects. Obviously a dart can miss, but these reports include other unexplained failures. These reports, from the real world, indicate that policy should consider this level of ineffective deployments in determining when use of such an unreliable weapon might be considered rational.

3) Tasers can kill. Directly. Even with healthy adults. But perhaps even more so with those already in crisis. Even Taser International has been forced to acknowledge the risk of death (Training Package, 1 May 2010), but they continue to downplay the magnitude of the risk.

4) Tasers are a form of torture. Oh sure, when they work they can be used to incapacitate, but note this: they accomplish this using electrical shock that is simultaneously excruciatingly painful. This electro-torture is part of the equation; failing to consider the pain as part of policy would be a sub-human decision. (If you get your jollies causing people to suffer excruciating pain, then please find another line of work.)

Combining the above, it becomes obvious that tasers are being overused, misused, and abused.

The remaining slice of taser deployments that are simultaneously rational, useful, moral, ethical, legal, and practical is actually very thin.

After the Canadian Braidwood Inquiry, use of tasers in B.C. dropped by a huge ratio, something like 90%.

The Peanut Gallery suggests that tasers ineffective due to PCP

...officers tried a Taser on the still-resistant suspect, police said. It, too, was “ineffective”...

[LINK]

The comment section associated with above news report includes many pundits proposing that PCP drug users are not susceptible to tasers.

The problem with this otherwise-reasonable suggestion is that it does not align with The Gospel according to The Church of Taser.

Their official worldview is that tasers work directly on the muscles and do not rely upon a pain response. According to their detailed explanations, a taser should (for example) still incapacitate even a freshly-dead corpse. That example is a perfectly fair restatement of their claims about how tasers work.

Thus a taser should be exactly as effective against someone whacked-out on PCPs as it is on anyone else.

So the PCP suggestion is wrong..,

Unless, of course, the Taser folks are full of sh_t...

Fortress Tactical helpfully explains why tasers can be ineffective

Fortress Tactical wrote:

There are several reasons for ineffective TASER deployments. The most common reason is lack of a circuit, which is required for a TASER to do its job. This is not TASER failure, but simply the product of any given scenario. If you miss with one or both probes - no circuit. If a wire breaks during a fall or struggle - no circuit. If a probe is pulled loose during a fall or struggle - no circuit. If your target is wearing loose clothes - no circuit. If your target is wearing thick clothes - no circuit. If your target is overweight - insufficient muscle groups are affected. If you're too close to your target - insufficient probe spread. If your battery is dead - no power. If you used improper batteries - insufficient power (older models). [LINK]

Mr. 'Tactical' was attempting to explain how tasers are a viable self-protection option, and then proceeded to score an own-goal by helpfully listing just a few of the many reasons why tasers are not a reliable option.