An opinion (which can be traced to having originated from Taser International):
(it's Taser's latest claim - their previous claims have all been shredded too.)
Charles Momy, president of Canadian Police Association said, "...[tasers] certainly enhance ...officer safety." [LINK]
The facts:
Officer deaths in Canada are UP (by 4x) coincident with the spread of tasers. This is a fact.
Tasers really started to become more common beginning in about 2003. Violent deaths of police officers in Canada (excluding accidents) has skyrocketed by a four-to-one ratio starting exactly then. See graphic below. Back-up and source links can be found here [LINK] and here [LINK].
The evidence, taken at face value, suggests that tasers are actually killing police officers in Canada. Of course that's not true, but it's no sillier a claim than Taser's.
(By the way - taser-associated deaths in North America also jumped to a higher rate begining in 2003 coincident with the introduction of the X26 taser. And studies of Coroners' Reports indicate that 27% to 37% of those taser-associated deaths had some link to the taser usage.)
What has obviously helped to save police lives (I'm being serious here) is the vast increase in public scrutiny starting in late-2007, when four or five people in Canada died after being tasered. Police deaths have gone to zero, and stayed there all through 2008 (!), within a few weeks of Mr. Dziekanski's killing.
Something changed and changed hard within the policing community. Maybe this was when police in Canada first began to grasp that they've been sold a bill of goods on taser safety. And so they naturally started using more old-school de-escalation techniques and using less tasers. Taser usage statistics showed a sudden sharp decline in many localities, and officials couldn't explain it.
I can explain it. Four or five people in Canada dropping dead after being tasered during late-2007 can make an impression.
No comments:
Post a Comment