Man Dies in Taser Attack: Should Cops Be Allowed to Carry Tasers?
SodaHead News
2011/05/03 15:00:00
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Tasers seemed like a great idea when police forces started introducing them to their arsenal more than a decade ago. Why not put a weapon on your hip that can immobilize a perp and not kill them, but potentially save the men and women in blue from accidentally killing someone who may not be armed or as dangerous as they first appeared to be?
That's all fine and good, except when the Tasers themselves end up killing suspects. The Hartford-Courant reported on a man who died in police custody on Sunday morning a short time after being Tasered by officers. According to reports, the unnamed man was creating a disturbance in the lobby of St. Mary's Hospital around 12:30 a.m. and was arrested and put in the back of a cruiser.
When the man continued to be combative he was Tasered and then became unresponsive and attempts to resuscitate him failed. He died a short time later in the hospital and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
This is not the first time a suspect in Connecticut Police custody has died after being Tasered and there are increasing calls to have the weapons banned in the state.
Do you think police use of Tasers should be allowed?
That's all fine and good, except when the Tasers themselves end up killing suspects. The Hartford-Courant reported on a man who died in police custody on Sunday morning a short time after being Tasered by officers. According to reports, the unnamed man was creating a disturbance in the lobby of St. Mary's Hospital around 12:30 a.m. and was arrested and put in the back of a cruiser.
When the man continued to be combative he was Tasered and then became unresponsive and attempts to resuscitate him failed. He died a short time later in the hospital and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
This is not the first time a suspect in Connecticut Police custody has died after being Tasered and there are increasing calls to have the weapons banned in the state.
Do you think police use of Tasers should be allowed?
Top Opinion
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CharlesG BN-0 2011/05/03 15:43:36
Tasers, with their documented 25% rate of being ineffective, make a poor choice for dealing with actually violent subjects. They are however ideal for electro-torturing subjects into compliance (being more portable than booster cables and damp sponges).
Tasers are used about *** one hundred times *** as often as police have used their guns. It's an overuse ratio that varies with jurisdiction and varies with time, but it's a good round number.
So what's the point about tasers being "better than a gun"? Seriously, if you understand that tasers are not actually used to replace lethal gunfire, then what's the point or your statement?
Most of the deaths reported after TASER use are from many other underlying conditions and most of the people probably would have died even if the TASER was not deployed.
Newer versions of TASERs are even more effective and safer. TASER International is striving to produce a tool for law enforcement that can be as effective and as safe as possible.
Also, better double-check your facts. Even Taser International now (as of 1 May 2010) admits the risks of cardiac effects, and risk of death.
They also settled with Butler for $3M due to his brain damage caused by taser induced cardiac effects. Butler survived, but his heart stoppage cannot be explained except due to the cardiac effects of the taser hit. Taser International tired to keep this settlement secret.
Jerry you are right, no study has adequately examined the impact of Tasers on potentially at-risk individuals -- people who have medical conditions, take prescription medications, are mentally ill or are under the influence of narcotics. Rigorous, independent, impartial study of their use and effects is urgently needed to determine what role Tasers may have played in the 351 deaths and to determine appropriate guidelines for future Taser use. In light on this and a few lawsuits Taser International is now recommending that police officers not directly aim for the chest to avoid the risk of heart-related injuries and to reduce their potential exposure to liability through police brutality lawsuits.
In 2008, a US District ordered the company to 6.2 million in damages to the family of Rob C. Heston. The company downplayed the most recent decision, since this has their first loss after 70 wins. Steve Tuttle, spokesman for the company stated this:"We do not believe the jury's decision is supported by the facts presented during trial, including expert testimony of world-class experts who testified on the scientific and medical evidence,"
It is not the company's fault, but the po-po's fault for using this great device when people talk back or ask Why.
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ALL POSTERS HERE NEED TO KNOW THIS: Taser International now (as of 1 May 2010) admits that tasers can cause cardiac effects and the risks include death. They've buried this updated legal warning deep within a training package, and are trying to keep it on the hush-hush.
They also tried to coverup the $3M settlement to Butler for his cardiac near-death caused by the taser hit. The cardiac effects caused him permanent brain damage and taser International settled for $3M AND tried to gag the settlement.
I noticed Jerry stopped posting. . .I am for getting real criminals off the street and keeping law enfocrement safe. Just keep everyone informed about the dangers of the devices LE uses.
Ethics 101:
The ethical rule is: "First! Do no harm."
The horrifying counter-example would be to harvest organs from newborn babies. This would do "more good than harm" as one baby could save many, many lives. But it's a perfectly unethical, evil and despicable suggestion. I would fight against anyone that ever makes ethics into a mathematical balancing act as you've suggested.
The evil with tasers is the false claims that they are inherently safe. They are not. They can be very dangerous to the point of risk of death. The stungun salesmen spread false information about the risks.
If tasers are ONLY used on the violent, then that risk is a non-issue. But when they're used to persuade uncooperative, then you bring risk of death where it does not belong. And they're used on the merely uncooperative at a frightening rate.
Look up "Student Tasered at Kerry Speech"
He was physically and verbally resisting arrest at the time he was tasered.
He had asked a question and demanded an answer, his microphone was turned off when he became verbally abusive of John Kerry. When police moved in and ordered him to leave he became verbally abusive and (I am guessing at the charge only here ) he was arrested for disorderly conduct and he resisted and was tased.
I don't mind scenarios but do not paint the police as the bad guy when the student got what he was asking for.
Since the taser-proximal death toll is nearing 700, you do the math.
Specific implications appear to include:
• Implication: TASER International sues MEs who disagree with TASER. This is simply not true. In the two instances that TASER have brought legal action regarding MEs, the lawsuits were to correct scientifically baseless opinions that resulted in very negative consequences to numerous entities and people.
• Implication: TASER’s first step to correct an ME’s incorrect opinion is to sue. This is simply not true. In the two instances where TASER has brought legal actions regarding MEs, TASER went to great lengths over long periods of time requesting that the MEs do the honorable and ethical actions of correcting their scientifically baseless and very harmful opinions.
• Implication: TASER has sued MEs for financial damages for implicating an ECD as causing or contributing to a death. This is also not true. TASER has sued one ME in his personal capacity for making, what the ME would later admit to be, reckless s...
Specific implications appear to include:
• Implication: TASER International sues MEs who disagree with TASER. This is simply not true. In the two instances that TASER have brought legal action regarding MEs, the lawsuits were to correct scientifically baseless opinions that resulted in very negative consequences to numerous entities and people.
• Implication: TASER’s first step to correct an ME’s incorrect opinion is to sue. This is simply not true. In the two instances where TASER has brought legal actions regarding MEs, TASER went to great lengths over long periods of time requesting that the MEs do the honorable and ethical actions of correcting their scientifically baseless and very harmful opinions.
• Implication: TASER has sued MEs for financial damages for implicating an ECD as causing or contributing to a death. This is also not true. TASER has sued one ME in his personal capacity for making, what the ME would later admit to be, reckless statements on national television.
FACT:
• Since its founding in September 1993, TASER International has brought legal action regarding MEs in exactly two (2) instances:
o Summit County, Ohio Medical Examiner. The lawsuit was to have three ME’s opinions corrected by the court as directed under state code. The action did not seek personal damages, and did result in the court finding the MEs’ opinions regarding the ECDs not supported by scientifically reliable evidence.
o Dr. Roland Kohr. Dr. Kohr was sued for his defamation of TASER on national television in connection with the James Borden case in Indiana, not for his faulty autopsy report. Dr. Kohr was provided numerous opportunities to publically correct his statements prior to litigation being commenced.
The primary case in question involves the Summit County Medical Examiner, which ruled the TASER ECD as a primary cause of death in three consecutive TASER Temporal Death (TTD) cases. An independent statistical analysis strongly supported evidence of bias beyond any reasonable doubt. Due to these findings, 15 law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians were sued, five were charged criminally, and one of those five was charged with murder. TASER International, joined by the City of Akron, Ohio, sought legal relief under the Ohio law that allows for independent judicial review of a Medical Examiner’s cause and manner-of-death opinions. After a four-day legal proceeding in which numerous experts testified — including three forensic pathologists and two cardiac electrophysiologists — the court found that there was “simply no medical, scientific or electrical evidence to support the conclusion that the TASER® X26™ ECDs had anything to do with the deaths of Dennis S. Hyde, Richard Holcomb, or Mark D. McCullaugh. The Medical Examiners failed to present any evidence of the use and effect of TASER devices.” As a result, the court ruled that the Summit County ME must change its autopsy findings in these three cases to remove all references to the TASER ECD as a contributing cause of death in three cases in which three men died during confrontations with law enforcement.
TASER International did not seek any monetary damages, and there was no personal monetary risk to the medical examiners in question. Neither the City of Akron nor TASER International had any financial motive in this case. The company was no longer a defendant in any lawsuits regarding these cases as TASER had already prevailed in the related civil cases. The case to request a legal review of the autopsies was filed based on principle, and to support the defense of officers whose careers and civil liberties were at stake.
TASER did seek damages in the case against Dr. Kohr, as this case involved an individual engaging in what appeared to be a campaign of defamation in the public media.
The suggestion that it is improper to use the appropriate legal channels to challenge potentially erroneous findings in any profession must assume the entire profession is above reproach, and error free. While TASER International holds the medical examiner profession in very high regard, the presumption of perfection is simply not reasonable for any profession. There must be a procedure for review and correction, and in Ohio, this procedure is exactly the one followed by TASER International. The review process found TASER’s position to be correct.
TASER International is providing a valuable tool to reduce injuries and protect life in a highly dangerous and litigious law enforcement environment. TASER has been, or is, the defendant in more than 100 lawsuits related to claims of death or injury. TASER has never initiated the legal cascade. We do not have the luxury of allowing unsubstantiated, personal, non-scientific opinions to set precedent, lead to poor public policy positions or perceptions, or destroy the lives of people like the law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians in Ohio and Indiana.
We are proud to say that, directly because of the legal proceedings that corrected the autopsies’ findings, one Summit County deputy sheriff was recently acquitted of a murder charge and criminal charges were dismissed against two other deputies (criminal charges still remain against two deputies). We feel the truth of the matter, especially in matters involving charges of murder, is more important than egos or the sanctity of opinions which cannot be supported by science and evidence held to the crucible of cross examination.
We are frankly appalled at the suggestion that any entity, be it a person or corporation, should be asked to sit silently while accused of murder when it has facts and evidence to prove otherwise.
Where do we go from here?
TASER has worked very hard to provide information, facts, statistics, scientific summaries, etc. to MEs to provide them with accurate scientifically based information to be taken into consideration in arriving at an objective, logical, evidence and scientifically based opinion to a reasonable degree of medical, scientific, and professional certainty.
We all should be in agreement that in this context the primary objective is for the ME to arrive at objective, logical, evidence and scientifically based opinions that are clearly and unambiguously stated to avoid the potentially severe repercussion of misperceived statements.
I don't need a medical examiner to tell me the obvious.
They are used on someone already given the chance to stop what ever illegal activity they were doing. Would it be better to use their side arm, which most certainly would be lethal.
We give the police all kind of defensive weapons to protect themselves and enforce the laws, then tell them when,where and how to use them.
Some people do not want to comply with the law or the law enforcers. You can use the baton on them but you can't hit them in the neck or head or genital area. You cannot use lethal force unless you or another is in danger of sustaining serious bodily injury or death. They can use pepper spray if the distance is not to great and there is not a lot of wind or rain. The taser works very well at subduing an other wise out of control subject. (unless they are hyped up on drugs)
If the baton is used and a subject is fighting and catches a baton in the temple, death is a possible result. Should we ban batons. If pepper spray is used on a subject and they happen to be asthmatic and a death results shoud we stop using pepper spray. Count the times a taser is used and the # of deaths and what could have been used instead. Any death is sad but remember it was the subjects choice to keep fighting or causing the need for the police in the first place.
taser him multiple times. What a shameful thing.
Good chance if he was not responding to the tasers because he had so much drugs in his system that the drugs are what actually killed him.
http://orlando.injuryboard.co...
Turns out he was tasered 19 times. That's excessive no matter how you look at it. I question your logic that if multiple taserings don't work ( "Perhaps subject was so high on drugs...") then he should be tasered over and over again.
A taser is not a toy and the human body can only take so much. He was someone's son and is now dead.
What I found is that you must have done some digging to get the link you did (or wanted).
Your article did nothing but blame the police not much on the events leading up to it.
I typed in Nashville man tasered 19 times and got a string of references, below are the first 4 Headlines I got. This young man was high on LSD and weed ( I will defer on the weed because unless laced with another drug is not the problem). He died basically because he was on drugs (LSD) and they tased him. The drugs caused his death not the tasers, so say the coronor.
Read this and take heed... If you take drugs and you are out of control and the police are called there is a good chance you will be tased. Since the officers are not MD's or mind readers they don't know what your problem is, other than you are out of control. So they cannot use a side arm (obvious reasons) and pepper spray is not going to work on someone in that state and a baton could definately end up being a lethal weapon in this case and just not a good choice, the taser is still the best option to subdue the subject.
It is terrible that someone lost their life but for as long as I can remember the saying was "DRUGS KILL"
1)Police Didn't Use Excessive Force, S...
What I found is that you must have done some digging to get the link you did (or wanted).
Your article did nothing but blame the police not much on the events leading up to it.
I typed in Nashville man tasered 19 times and got a string of references, below are the first 4 Headlines I got. This young man was high on LSD and weed ( I will defer on the weed because unless laced with another drug is not the problem). He died basically because he was on drugs (LSD) and they tased him. The drugs caused his death not the tasers, so say the coronor.
Read this and take heed... If you take drugs and you are out of control and the police are called there is a good chance you will be tased. Since the officers are not MD's or mind readers they don't know what your problem is, other than you are out of control. So they cannot use a side arm (obvious reasons) and pepper spray is not going to work on someone in that state and a baton could definately end up being a lethal weapon in this case and just not a good choice, the taser is still the best option to subdue the subject.
It is terrible that someone lost their life but for as long as I can remember the saying was "DRUGS KILL"
1)Police Didn't Use Excessive Force, Says Jury END
2)Lawsuit Dismissed In Fatal Taser Case END
3)Federal Jury: Police Officers Did Not Use Excessive Force After Tasering Man 19 Times Leading To His Death END
4)Man tased 19 times and dies, jury finds force not excessive END
If I can add a what if... What if in his drug induced craze he managed to kill someone before the police stopped him, would you still be so adament about the use of tasers.
It did not happen in this case but it has happened.