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, October 13, 2010

The power of video - lessons learned

Late-2007 to mid-2008 - The video of Robert Dziekanski being tasered-to-death at Vancouver Airport really destroyed the long-term 'good will' of Taser International in Canada. I believe that it's safe to say that most Canadians (of those that are informed) believe that Taser International are scum.

Late-2010 - The August 2008 video of Kevin Spratt being taser-tortured is burning up the news media all across Australia. All the associated dirty little secrets are now being forced into public view: Who knew what and when? Mr. Spratt was tasered another 11 times during a second taser-torture session. Tasers are being used about a thousand times per year (just in Western Australia?!?). People with mental illnesses are bearing the brunt of these incidents.

In both of these national-impact cases, the video is the key factor.

And in both of these cases, release of the video to the public was delayed (by the authorities) to the maximum possible extent.

There are many important lessons to be learned from these cases.

One the most important would be that allowing police video from any video recording system to be stored off-site, in a distant server farm controlled by the deceptive stun gun salesmen, that business model is a non-starter.

Fugetaboutit.

Political leaders would have to be naive morons to sign-up to that concept.

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