QOTW .... tasered while sleeping

Quote of the Week found at Truth...Not Tasers [LINK]

"The Edmonton Police Service changed its use of force policy that year to clarify that officers can no longer use tasers on people who are sleeping."

Well that's nice. And it reveals the sick truth about tasers, doesn't it?

Those sleeping subjects must be some of those "thousands" of lives saved as mentioned by the Solicitor General of Alberta [LINK]. Because if it wasn't for the police being equipped with tasers, then the police would have simply shot those sleeping people to death (???!!???!!??!!).

What a crock of sheet.


Tasers bring misuse, abuse and overuse to the point where they are a negative force in society.

In the words of the Solicitor General of Alberta: "...thousands..."

Yeah, thousands of something, but what?

Lives saved? Bull!!!!!


"Oh but we've changed the rules now! Everything is now perfect."

Bull!!!!!


Amount of evidence required to fully justify action by Parliament = N

Amount of evidence we now have on hand = ~40N (roughly)

The Feds are here. Are you next?

Here's some news that should scare the living bejesus out of innumerable taser wielding Law Enforcement and Corrections Officers...


The Press-Enterprise (6 April 2010) - Two Desert Hot Springs police officers were federally indicted today on charges that they used a Taser on inmates who were handcuffed. Desert Hot Springs Sgt. Anthony Sclafani, 40, and former Officer David Raymond Henderson, 51, are scheduled to appear in Los Angeles federal court after being indicted by a grand jury, according to the U.S. attorney's office following an FBI investigation.

Sclafani is charged with two counts of deprivation of rights under the color of law on charges that he used a X26 Taser to stun suspects twice in February 2005. In one case, a man was stunned while handcuffed, court documents allege. In a second incident, a woman was doused with pepper spray and Tasered after being taken into custody, according to court documents.

Henderson is charged with using a Taser on a handcuffed suspect in 2004.

Each charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison. [LINK]  via [TNT]

See also LA Times [LINK].


I wonder if word of this will spread like wildfire through the Law Enforcement and Corrections community?

I wonder what percentage of professionals will suddenly realize that they've done worse over the past few years? Perhaps MUCH worse...

Note that these alleged offenses occurred in 2004 and 2005. Five or six years ago. The Feds are probably combing through the files seeing if any other such incidents occurred since then. It may take them years to finish up this investigation into this massive and systematic violation of rights that stems from the lies of stungun salesmen and the clearly-defective training.

I strongly suggest that those folks might want to stock up on sleeping pills. They'll be needing them as they lay awake at 3:00am tonight struggling to remember all those time that they tasered arrestees or inmates already handcuffed (or similar).

Lights will be burning late tonight at The Church of Taser.

"Just obey..." - even while sleeping?

York (Toronto / GTA) police burst into hotel and put a massive beating on two young men. They were tasered numerous times. [LINK] [LINK]

Sick. Disgusting. 'Lawful force' my ass. There is no excuse for such behaviour by the police in this case. Just because they're 'scared' and 'frightened' does not permit them go in and beat people half-to-death.

The pair were charged with obstruction - a classic 'cover charge'.

A complaint and a civil action has been launched. Good. I hope that GTA is forced to pay a 7-figure settlement.

"Tasers save money" - LOL

TRIBUNE-REVIEW (Saturday, August 23, 2008) - A North Braddock man shocked awake while sleeping on his couch by police officers using a taser gun has reached a settlement Friday... North Braddock officials agreed to pay Shawn Hicks...

... $100,000.

Hicks said he came home around 2 a.m. on July 28, 2007, and fell asleep in the living room of his Stokes Avenue home. Less than an hour later, according to the lawsuit, Officers Gerald Kraly and Lukas Lauricia came inside the house and repeatedly shocked Hicks with the taser, even after verifying his address on his driver's license. ... [LINK]

Attorney Paul Krepps, who represented North Braddock, said, "The defendants are not admitting any wrongdoing."


Well, the $100k check is more than sufficient admission in itself. But thanks for the amusing attempt at spin.

So what exactly goes on during taser training? Are the trainees' brains extracted at the start of the taser training session, or towards the end?

How tasers save money...

Man Sues Easton Police Over Taser Incident - Easton, PA and its police department have been slapped with a million-dollar lawsuit. Elijah McNeil claims he was shot twice with Tasers and kicked in the head during an incident last October. The suit claims McNeil was sleeping at the time, and not posing a threat to the officers. He's asking for at least $1 million in damages. ... [LINK]

But it's true. Tasers do save money...

Easton, PA - Settlement negotiations have begun in a $20 million lawsuit filed by the widow of an Easton police officer who was fatally shot by a colleague. ... In March 2005, Officer Jesse Sollman was accidentally shot and killed in the Easton police station by Officer Matthew Renninger. [LINK]

I have to agree that $1M (grotesque taser abuse) is considerably less than $20M (tragic gun accident) {{ROLLS EYES}}.

US Media on "Avoiding Chest"

Taser International must be holding their breath, hoping not to awaken the sleeping US media.

Their new Taser Man taser Targeting Guidelines ...

Fair Use / Fair Dealing claimed

...are making dozens of headlines in Canada and Australia, one in the UK [LINK], and still a firm ZERO in the USA (except for a few bloggers and such).

NYPD stumbles across new guidelines

The US media has been sleeping as Taser International issued new taser Targeting Guidelines.

Finally, the story has broken.

Gothamist (October 18, 2009) - "Taser International Inc. has issued a warning about taser chest-shots, suggesting that law enforcement officers aim their tasers at perpetrators' backs, arms, or abdomens. In response to the warning, the NYPD brass has formally ordered officers not to shoot tasers at suspects' chests. ...

...A source also tells the News that Taser International did not actually notify the NYPD about the warning." [LINK]


Really? Taser International didn't bother to explicitly inform them? Wow.

Fair Use / Fair Dealing claimed

Risk of VF with X26...

The Taser Analysis Report [LINK]:

"...for a typical X26 [with darts on chest] (A04; pulse duration: 0.060 ms; body current: 2.12 A) the probability of ventricular fibrillation is estimated at about 5% (if Taser pulses trigger extrasystoles)..."

And that's for a non-defective X26 taser - given certain conditions.

I'll bet that if someone crunches the numbers a bit further (weighting non-defective and defective tasers by their frequency), adjusting for the other real-world factors and conditions, then they'll find that these theoretical results really do match the real-world results that we see, and that I've been reporting on in this blog.

Which is: X26 taser - with darts on-chest - low end of single digits


Taser folks must be sleeping under their bed these days. It must be terribly frightening to realize that there has been a major monophasic f_ck-up with the X26, and the plaintiffs' lawyers are now armed with enough ammunition to blow Taser International and their minions into the next galaxy. They'll live to regret their aggressive promises of essentially-perfect safety as exemplified by the infamous IEEE Spectrum puff-piece.


I wonder if their Insurance Company is following this news. Hmmm... Do you think that their liability insurance rates might be about to skyrocket? Anyone interested in a taser that costs $80,000 each (wild ass guess)?


Hey and note this! The Taser Analysis Report is concentrating on the exact part of the X26 taser waveform that I've been harping on about for the past year or so. That damn monophasic pulse, unique to the X26, found just after the visually-distracting arc phase. See [LINK] [LINK] and many more...

A big fat told-ya-so to the pro-taser forces.

Conga Line forms here...

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.