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.



Saturday, January 10, 2009

What's been going on lately?

More of the same.

Except I notice that there are many more stories being published each time a taser is used to make an arrest. It's almost as if the police forces of North America have undertaken a pro-taser PR campaign to highlight each time someone is arrested and a taser is involved.

Unfortunately for the pro-taser folks, many of the taser news stories prove (for example) the point that tasers have almost nothing to do with replacing lethal force.

There are a brazillion examples, here's one:

Norfolk, VA - ...Lawyers for the Hula Hoop Lady of Granby Street (Pamela Brown) filed a lawsuit in Norfolk Circuit Court, seeking $5 million in damages against Officer Nicholas Parks. The lawsuit says Parks violated Brown's civil rights and used excessive force during the incident. The officer used a Taser to shock Brown while attempting to arrest the slightly-built woman. [LINK]

Taser-related Quote of the Week: City Attorney Bernard Pishko said, "We're not defending it as best practice..."

No sh_t Einstein.

Hey, I'll be happy to defend the incident as an example of a typical application of the taser. Which is to say, misuse, overuse and abuse. Tasers are used about 100x as often as guns ever were. Which by itself is more than sufficient information to lead decision makers to put a moratorium in place until the obviously-bad training is fixed.

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