Articles

This article has missed the most important point - how does the Taser compare in terms of dangers relative to the other means for restraining subjects and bystanders. When the lethality of clubs, pepper spray and especially guns are considered, the Taser would compare very favourably as a non-lethal means.

http://www.radiolicensing.com/downloads/Taser%20Warning%207SEP07.pdf
A armed Taser in close proximity to a 2-way radio can fire unexpectedly.

This test is totally bogus.
They never tested a taser. Read it again!
Skin resistance on humans exposed to high voltage is generally understood to be 75 ohms not 400 ohms.
Pigs are not humans they have much more fat surrounding there hearts.
The winner is that graph. Take these numbers of a real test done in the UK and plot them on that graph. Plot
51.8 mA ( M26) and 27.1 mA ( X26 ) on those graphs.

In that corner over there we have tests like this.
In this corner over here we have 310 bodies.
Any Questions?

The section written by Mr. Kroll is very misleading. It amounts to corporate propaganda and I'm ashamed of IEEE Spectrum being associated with it.

Please note that Mr. Kroll is not simply a director of Taser; he also recently sold off about half of his Taser stock pocketing $413,500. This level of financial involvement in the company should be made very clear.

If what Kroll is saying about taser safety were true, then we wouldn't be seeing the relatively large number of 'unexplained' deaths associated with being tasered, and the flurry of lawsuits and other legal maneuvers by Taser to try to keep them that way.

If what he is saying was true, then you could manually insert (fully) the X26 barbs into Mr. Kroll's chest with the positioning shown to be most lethal in pigs, duct tape the trigger down, and let it run until the batteries wear out. I suggest that we try this experiment on all Taser senior staff as soon as possible. I'm sure that they'll all be fine.

These concerns are back-up by independent studies that tend to find more problems than those studies where Taser is involved. There have been several recent studies that indicate that ventricle fibrillation can occur in swine when the barbs are positioned across the chest (Valentino et al, and several others).

Why does the Spectrum article step so carefully around the actual peak current? I calculated it to be at least one ampere, but then read somewhere else that the peak current is actually several amperes (3A in the case of the X26, 15A in the case of the M26). Even this is apparently based on a human model (simple 400 ohms) that probably doesn't reflect the worst case.

If tasers were actually being used as a strict replacement for an officer's gun, then all this concern about the exact level of safety would be completely irrelevant. But, as everyone knows, the taser devices are commonly being used as a pain-compliance device, or as an on-the-spot extra-judicial corporal punishment devices. This misuse stems from them being falsely marketed as being perfectly safe.

This conclusion is backed-up by a CBC News investigation that revealed that tasers do not actually reduce the number of police shootings.

The RCMP watchdog (Kennedy) issued a stern report recommending significant changes in the allowed usages of tasers in Canada. The Canadian public is pretty much up-in-arms about the recent taser-related deaths in Canada. There have been 20 so far, and several in quick succession in late-2007.

There are also other questions that Taser will have to answer sooner or later:

Why does Taser design the devices so that they can be triggered continuously for 2 minutes and 49 seconds as in the case of the late Maurice Cunningham?

Why does Taser assert that "...the taser is safe for use on anyone weighing 60 pounds or more..." (children)?

In a recent case, "...Taser argued that it did not know that the muscle contractions produced by the weapon were strong enough to cause a fracture." So the public are part of the beta testing process?

Why does the article not acknowledge that 'unlikely' multiplied by 226,300 usages per year (620 per day x 365) equals certainty at least several times per year? That's the thing with statistics: 'unlikely' times big numbers becomes CERTAINTY.

Did you (Mr. Kroll) ever write an e-mail that stated, "...apparently solved the energy problem by getting 704 watts out of a TASER device powered by a 30 watt pack of 8 AA cells."? If so, then back to school.

I could go on all day, but this rant should be sufficient to make the point.

I am not going to provide my name nor e-mail address because Taser has already been shown to be lawsuit-happy. I don't want to be dragged into that mess if I can avoid it. But I will not remain silent in the face of this sort of propaganda.

I trust that my points and questions remain valid even in the desire to avoid being sued.

Beta testing a weapon on the general public would be a good way to describe what we are seeing here. I for one am going to guess that I am the FIRST to have metal plates in his body with 17 stainless steel screws running through them that has been "BETA TESTED". I want to hear the response to the question of CONDUCTIVITY on people with metal mechanically fastened to their body. There are many people around with prosthetics and other hardware INSIDE THEM. I was shocked five times against my pelvis using the drive stun mode while in handcuffs at Sea-Tac International Airport. For some reason telling the officer I had screws in my leg and was hurt gave him reason to feel the need to stuff his Taser in my face and threaten to use it on me if I didn't start to co-operate. Well, regardless of pain I got my up off the ground at that point. Again, somehow my trying to tell him I was hurt and had screws in my leg apparently made me some kind of threat. Because now he wouldn't stop pointing it at me with the laser sight aimed while people were screaming at him (including myself) to take it easy "he didn't do anything take it easy on the guy ...his leg is messed up man!!" Well, the situation didn't get better after he pulled the trigger. The result (details left out of my response to this) was the drive stun mode application as commented previously to my pelvis and groin where the plates are located. A circuit was created that resulted in my internal organs actually being shocked. THIS was WAY out of control but not the way the police report depicts the events. I intend to prevail in a legal battle that has yet to begin. I am disgusted with the abuse and misusage of these weapons and intend to make it my mission in life to remove this weapon as a public threat.

I hope you post the above noted information. If not, read and ponder the events noted and consider the other misusage that we never hear about due to the "cover up and make go away" (IE. lie and be something other than a civil servant) type of practices, by law enforcement. These weapons encourage and have made more prevalent some kind of justification to file false information on arrests of none threatening people due to situations escalating above and beyond were they ever should have or WOULD have had Taser not been involved.

While in handcuffs how is someone threat? I for one would welcome a any contact from Taser International's legal department.

The issues surrounding tasers, their use and all-too-common misuse, are complex and sometimes subtle. Also, the arguments presented are occasionally clever enough (at least on the surface) that it takes a reasonable amount of column-inches to carefully and systematically disassemble them. It is impossible to accomplish all this in a typical 200 word comment box.

For this reason, I've been forced to create a website (www.Excited-Delirium.com) where I can have adequate space to be able to take a run at the topic, and some of the related legal and societal issues.

One deeply-interesting higher-level tidbit that I've discovered is the subtle yet critical question:

Lawful 'force' - noun or verb?

It may not be an exaggeration to state that the fate of traditional western-style freedoms, and even the future of The Rule of Law, may hang in the balance with this very simple question.

At the very least, once resolved favorably, it should cause a reordering of those often-unthinking 'Scale of Force' tables used by police, and the addition of a clear demarcation between what can be used on those displaying passive resistance, and those resorting to active resistance or violence.

The website also has 20 Questions that should be answered at some point.

www.Excited-Delirium.com

The Taser is a tool - no different from a firearm, baton, cuffs, or traffic radar. All require training and all can be (and have been) misused.

A lot of the rants against Taser fail to answer a basic question: what _should_ the officer have done? Would L.A. have been better off if Rodney King had been tasered? It certainly would've looked better on TV.

As I mentioned, a Taser can be misused (which is why it records each use). Officers have to explain each deployment (and many deployments occur in view of the police car video camera).

But for law-and-order to prevail, police have to be able to control a situation. They can't spend time debating a course of action when confronted with an unpredictable subject.

And now that we have a lot of female officers, there has to be some "equalizer" short of a firearm. Ditto for many male officers who are not martial arts experts.

It's obvious that many commenters have never been in a situation with an "uncooperative" subect - a person you know nothing about who may or may not have a weapon and who may or may not be willing and able to hurt or kill you. How far do you let things go before acting? What if you act too late? A late decision to act may mean injury or death to yourself or others.

In the case of the "student" in Florida who got tasered at the John Kerry appearance... he was warned and he deserved it. To officers, who had to make a fast decision under stress, he appeared to be a threat to the US senator and other in the room. The police could not afford to "let events unfold". I guarantee that if this idiot had harmed the senator, people would be screaming for heads to roll (probably accusing Bush of sending him there).

An earlier commenter (who claims to have metallic protheses) tells a tale of abuse at Sea-Tac. He fails to explain what triggered the incident. He may have truly been abused he; may well have acted in a manner justifying use of force. We don't know from his post.

The alternatives to the Taser (mace, shooting, baton, hand-to-hand combat) all entail risk. If we're to risk lives, I prefer that officers have an edge.

The alternative is to tell police that, when confronted with an uncooperative subject, they should just walk away. I don't think that would work out too well.

What a fabulous job of gathering research and explaining it to the public. Thank you so much for your effort.