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.



Thursday, June 18, 2009

Discrepant messages from Taser International ?

"If one ping-pong ball hit to the head does not kill you, 1,000 probably cannot either." - Taser International [LINK] [LINK]

"Prepared by: Mark W. Kroll, PhD ... Published: 3/25/2007"

"Electricity does not build up in the body like poison. If an electrical current does not electrocute someone in 2–5 seconds, it will not electrocute the person with a longer application. Thus, longer applications have no materially different effect on the heart."


Taser document 'Warnings - Law Enforcement.0408' makes no specific mention of any health (or death) risks associated with repeated taser exposure. They do recommend minimal exposure, but do not provide any health (or death) warnings associated with that recommendation.

The word "death" appears three (3) times in the above-referenced warning document, and the only associated warnings of risk of death are with use of non-approved parts, or from the startle response where the victim might fall down and bang their head.

There is no other warning of risk of death. None.


And yet... ...this just in:

"...the warnings and training by the stun gun's American manufacturers that multiple use on a person is dangerous." [LINK]


The above discrepancy is the muddled safety message from Taser International that I'm talking about.


And there is still plenty of scope for Failure to Warn lawsuits regarding the risks when taser darts hit the victims' chests, and are repeatedly cycled.

An analysis by Montreal biomedical engineer Pierre Savard, made available to [CBC], suggests the chances of someone dying after being hit with a police taser increase the more times they're stunned. [LINK] [LINK]

If there's no connection, then this correlation is pretty-well completely inexplicable.


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