Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Stupidly-flawed and obsolete 'force continuum'

The six-level police force continuum begins with officer presence and builds in intensity to verbal commands; empty-hand control techniques; use of pepper spray, batons or Tasers; less-lethal force such as weapons that fire bean bags or rubber bullets; and finally deadly force. [LINK]

Note the lack of any demarcation between the application of this continuum to a peaceful protester versus a rampaging serial killer. In other words, a perfectly peaceful tree-hugger can get tasered. (And if you think that is okay, then you are - quite simple - perfectly wrong.)

Reportedly, the entire concept of a force continuum is completely obsolete anyway, having been replaced with the standard of objective reasonableness many years ago. [LINK] [LINK]

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