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, September 12, 2009

"no evidence", temporal sequence, and pure luck

"Nova Scotia’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Matthew Bowes, a member of the expert panel, concluded that Hyde died accidentally of excited delirium due to paranoid schizophrenia, and that there was no evidence the stun gun caused his death." [LINK]

"...no evidence..." If we assume... (just for the purpose of following the logic to see where it leads)... If we assume that Mr. Hyde was outright killed by the taser, then what postmortem evidence would be expected? Was the postmortem test for VF done? What conclusive test was done to explicitly exclude the taser as a possible cause or contributing factor in this death?

It's not just me asking. The Braidwood Inquiry concluded that listing "excited delirium" as a cause of death is "unhelpful". The US AMA noted that tasers can cause death "directly or indirectly".

Saying that there is no evidence in situations where that may be an expected finding, given the state of the taser and excited delirium 'science', really is unhelpful.

Also, Mr. Hyde was reportedly acting irrationally for hours, then got into a scuffle as an officer approached with a tool/knife (What could possibly go wrong with that?), was tasered_and_required_CPR, and just happened to be revived. He died later during another scuffle, so obviously there is some "separation" in this case - but only because of the after-the-fact heroic efforts by the police officers to revive Mr. Hyde after he was tasered_and_required_CPR.

That tasered_and_required_CPR incident is actually the part of the sequence that speaks to the issue of taser safety.

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