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Tasers are so safe...
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| shaolin_Z |
Here's one for the "tasers are harmless" crew.
| quote: | Man dies after Taser shock by police at Vancouver airport
Last Updated: Sunday, October 14, 2007 | 5:04 PM ET
CBC News
A man in his 40s died early Sunday morning after RCMP jolted him with a Taser at the Vancouver International Airport, police said.
Airport security called the Mounties for assistance after an unidentified man began pounding on windows and throwing chairs and computer equipment in the customs area shortly after arriving on an international flight at 1:30 a.m., Richmond RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre told CBC News.
"We arrived and tried to calm the man," Lemaitre said. "We tried through gestures to get him to put his hands down on the desk … to no avail."
When he ignored orders to calm down, police used a stun gun on the man.
The man dropped to the floor and police said it took three officers to handcuff him. He then lost consciousness and appeared to go into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at the airport, the CBC's Chris Brown reported.
Few other details have been disclosed other than the man spoke an Eastern European language and a flight from Poland touched down about an hour before the incident, Brown said.
Taser devices are controversial because of the dozen North American deaths resulting from their use. There has been debate about how safe these devices are when dealing with certain kinds of people who are delirious or wound up, Brown said.
Police are investigating and a toxicology report will be done to determine whether there were drugs in the man's system. They will be interviewing customs officers and flight attendants, Brown reported.
International arrivals were rerouted but there were no delays in flight schedules. |
Source: CBC |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Don’t Faze Me, Bro? Taser Business Rolls
By Mike Nizza
It’s been three weeks since police heard an unruly student’s plea at University of Florida, and famously did the opposite.
The star of the episode, Andrew Meyer, is preparing his defense; his phrase — “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” — has become “the newest cultural touchstone of our pop-cultural lexicon”; two of the officers involved remain off the job amid cries of brutality; and the law enforcement tool that made it all possible — the taser gun — has been treated to cooing headlines of late.
First, a study reviewing almost 1,000 incidents concluded that Tasers are safe for police to use. And it was not a mixed verdict by any means. Here are the details from Medical News Today:
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99.7 per cent of [those shot with a Taser gun] had either no injuries, or only mild injuries such as “scrapes and bruises”. In 0.3 per cent of the cases (3 people) the injuries were serious enough to require hospital admission. Two had head injuries sustained during falls after the Taser was used and the third was hospitalized two days after arrest with a condition “of unclear relationship to the Taser,” said the researchers in a prepared statement.
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Those figures echoed the opinions of medical examiners, who rarely cite Tasers as a factor in deaths. But they clashed with documentation from Amnesty International, a leading critic of Tasers, which says that more than 200 deaths are tied to the device.
The head of the latest study, Dr. William P. Bozeman, left the question of “whether that risk of injury outweighs the benefits” of Tasers up to the rest of us to decide.
Meanwhile, charges that Tasers killed people were dismissed in Georgia, Kansas and Louisiana. That last one, based on a federal court ruling, led Taser International to serve up a reminder in legalese of how successful they’ve been in fighting off accusations that their supposedly non-lethal weapons killed people:
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This lawsuit represents the fifty-ninth (59th) wrongful death or injury lawsuit that has been dismissed or judgment entered in favor of TASER International.
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And sales of Tasers have hardly slowed since the ugly scene in Gainesville. The day after the tase heard around the world, Taser International, the manufacturer, announced that the United States Forest Service had ordered 700 X26 models, along with “related accessories.”
In October, the U.S. Marshals Service ordered 350 X26’s, and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Cleveland Division of Police ordered a combined 625.
The sales and a steadily climbing stock price led to Forbes declaring a moment in an article with a headline that even The Lede wouldn’t stoop to: “Taser’s Stunning Comeback.”
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...iness-rolls/?hp
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| eROs.au |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
shocking.;) |
So wrong :p |
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| Marc Summers |
This article says nothing about the man's previous health issues. I'd be concerned if it said, "A healthy man in his 40's". Anyone have any information on his health?
I'd rather have Taser abuse, than gun abuse, any day. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
tasers are "less lethal" forms of violence, NOT "non lethal".
| quote: |
SEATTLE -- Tasers and similar stun guns, increasingly popular among law enforcement agencies nationwide, are generally safe for police to use, according a study paid for by the Justice Department. However, the study's author cautioned that the weapons have the potential to injure or kill.
In the review of 962 reported cases of people jolted with electrical conducted energy weapons, a technical term for devices designed to deliver temporarily disabling bursts of electricity, 99.7 percent had no injuries or minor ones such as scrapes and bruises that did not require hospitalization.
The research, presented Monday in Seattle at a national research forum of the American College of Emergency Physicians, were touted as "the first large, independent study of injuries associated with Tasers" by the lead researcher, Dr. William P. Bozeman, an emergency medical specialist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
"These findings support the safety of CEW use by law enforcement agencies," the researchers wrote.
"This is the first time we've got an accounting of how likely it is that you'll be seriously injured by one of these devices," Bozeman told The Associated Press.
"That doesn't mean it's impossible," Bozeman cautioned. "These are serious weapons. They absolutely have the potential to injure or kill people."
Two subjects in the study died, but autopsies found neither death was related to use of a Taser.
Of the three who were admitted to hospitals, two had injuries from falling after receiving the 50,000-volt blasts, which continue for several seconds, and the third was hospitalized two days after being jolted with a condition of uncertain relationship to being jolted, according to the findings.
Minor injuries accounted for 22.5 percent of the cases, but that figure might be understated because some people with cuts, bumps or scratches might not have reported any injury, Bozeman said.
Taser critics say the devices are prone to misuse by police who fire them too readily at people who may be mentally ill, high on drugs or vulnerable because of medical conditions.
"Those statistics were surprising to me, considering the number of injuries, including to police officers, that have been reported," said Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Eugene, Ore.
By July, Amnesty International USA had tallied 250 cases in six years in which people died after being stunned with Tasers, but the group didn't track the individual causes of death.
The study was the latest in a series of good news for Taser International Inc. of Phoenix, which experienced plunging stock prices two years ago amid government scrutiny and wrongful death lawsuits.
The price per share has more than doubled from $8.19 per share on April 25, the day the company announced first- quarter earnings to more than $18.50 in recent days, and second-quarter results in July listed earnings of $3.7 million or 6 cents a share compared with red ink spilling to $9.6 million or 15 cents a share in the same period of 2006.
Bozeman stressed that the findings have not been published in full or undergone formal peer review. Partial findings covering 597 cases were published earlier in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The cases in the study were compiled by six law enforcement agencies ranging from small and rural to suburban to large urban forces such as Las Vegas, each with a defined policy on Taser use, injury reporting and a doctor who works with officers and anyone who is subdued with the devices.
The doctor was responsible for assuring that every Taser use was submitted to the research team without anything to identify people who had been jolted.
"There's no question, really, that any of these injuries were missed," Bozeman said.
Dr. Robert R. Bass, executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and a leader in the college's Tactical Emergency Medicine Section, said he had seen only a research abstract for the first 597 cases.
He found the findings "somewhat reassuring that these devices are somewhat safer than we were becoming concerned about" on the basis of individual reports of death and injury without regard to frequency of use.
The review was paid for by the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department's research and development branch. Bozeman said his research team designed the study, then obtained support from the federal agency and conducted the study without the department's involvement.
"We didn't do it for them. We didn't do it at their direction," Bozeman said. |
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local...ser_Safety.html |
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| venomX |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Here's one for the "tasers are harmless" crew.
Source: CBC |
Notice that the investigation is not over and the toxicology report has not been finished. My friend that works in VPD has told me many times that people can die of even a punch or even from just handcuffing them. There are many states a person can be that can lead to sudden death that are impossible to tell without detailed lab tests. I think it is asking too much from police to have to sacrifice themselves in order to make it impossible for people to get hurt when they are being non compliant.
As far as tasers go you can argue that they cause more damage than a baton or gun. If I had a too chose between having my bones broken with a baton or being shot with a taser, the taser I believe is the better option. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| You don't need to break someones bones to subdue them. Or tase him/her. |
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| shaolin_Z |
Firearms are less lethal than nukes. What's your point? |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Marc Summers
This article says nothing about the man's previous health issues. I'd be concerned if it said, "A healthy man in his 40's". Anyone have any information on his health?
I'd rather have Taser abuse, than gun abuse, any day. |
How about proper training in armed and unarmed combat instead of being a triggerhappy lazy brute? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
You don't need to break someones bones to subdue them. Or tase him/her. |
you havent seen nearly enough rowdy tards if you really think that ;)
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Firearms are less lethal than nukes. What's your point? |
that "omg tasers can be dangerous!" isn't really the greatest expose ive ever seen :p everyone knows they're dangerous.
i know its a horrible concept for some people, but how about following the instructions of the officer(s) (as we are bound to do by law) and the chances of you getting tasered arent that high. i know you criticise (for instance) the bush administration's disregard for the law and legal frameworks, why should citizens be exempt from being forced to follow the law as well? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
How about proper training in armed and unarmed combat instead of being a triggerhappy lazy brute? |
because, with the new emphasis on "service" not "force"- not every police officer is capable of physically restraining every assailant. and like i said, you havent seen enough brawls if you really think its that easy to restrain someone. |
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