A nice articlein Reason by Radley Balko. This one on police TV shows and use of force. Of course, there isn’t “always a good time to use a Taser,” as the multitude of viral web videos depicting taserings of grandmothers, pregnant women, and children will attest. TLC’s ad campaign is offensive, though merely the latest iteration of a genre of…
Tag: tasers
“Excited Delirium”
Can you die from it? Does it exist? The Taser company, not surprisingly, says yes. Because if and when people die from “excited delirium,” there seems to be a good chance it will happen after being Tasered. Laura Sullivan of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” has a good report on this. Here’s part one and part two. (Thanks to…
$12,500 in Seattle Taser Settlement
A homeless felon in Seattle gets $12,500 for being tased twice simultaneously by two officers. That’s just what I don’t like my tax dollars going to. I’m not saying the cops didn’t follow procedure and their training. I am saying that procedure and training are wrong. [A] judge ruled that the two officers … were too quick to use their…
Tasing Naked Man
A man at a concert, probably tripping, is naked. He ends of getting tased. I’m generally against the use of tasers. And I particularly oppose the use of tasers as a compliance device. Especially when the suspect is unarmed. Even more so when the suspect is unarmed, naked, and there are three burly officers involved. And yet, I think this…
Good Taser Use
I’ve said that Tasers are overused and too often lethal. But here is a perfect use–as an alternative to lethal force. Well done, BPD. The Baltimore Sunreports: Baltimore police use Taser to subdue armed woman November 17, 2008 Baltimore police used a Taser last night to disable a woman who was wielding a handgun in front of a house in…
Taser use draws fire from Amnesty International
The Boston Heraldreports: The stunning rise in Taser use has drawn the fire of the local Amnesty International chapter, which says Tasers were supposed to be a non-lethal alternative to gunfire. “Now it seems clear that police departments are using Tasers not as an alternative to lethal force but to get compliance.” Amnesty International says that since 2001, 320 people…
Lieutenant in Taser incident commits suicide
I just heard on the radio that Lieutenant Pigott, the lieutenant who, one week ago, ordered the man on the awning in Brooklyn to be Tased, shot himself. That’s very sad. The lieutenant, I believe in good faith, made a bad decision that violated departmental rules. Allpolice officers violate departmental rules. I know I did. And not always in good…
More on the Tase
The Timessaysthe LT who ordered the Tas is getting in trouble. Supposedly the Posthas a video. I wonder if it will change my mind. Here’s the link. Hmmmm…. Unfortunately the video doesn’t clear much up. It doesn’t show the interaction between the light bulb and cop on the fire escape. That’s what I want to see. Was the officer being…
Oh, Taser. How you kill.
In an instructional manual for Taser use. This picture seems like an example of what notto do. Don’t Taser naked men standing on ledges. But it’s not that simple. Here’s story in The Daily News. The police were tying themselves to the fire escape to try and grab the guy. The guy takes a large fluorescent bulb and starts hitting…
Police officer indicted for Taser death
This is rare: “A grand jury in a small Louisiana town last week took the rare step of indicting a police officer for repeatedly shocking a handcuffed suspect with a Taser.” Here’s the story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Race is involved. The tased guy was black. The officer, who was fired, was white. Meanwhile, in Houston. It turns out that…