SIMPLY SHOCKING.

SIMPLY SHOCKING.

(Amnesty International, Adam Spencer Johnson, Allen Kephart)

(Matt Stevens, Lee B. Vittinghoff, Jeff Black, Donna Anderson, Electronic Village)

(Russian Times, Steven DiJoseph, Richard Winston, James A.  Cronin, Frazer Chronicle)

Tasers were first introduced to police departments as non-lethal compliance weapons to be used to subdue non-compliant/dangerous suspects. The devise was invented by NASA researcher Jack Cover when in 1969 he began developing a stun gun. By 1974 Cover had completed his device, which he named after his childhood hero Tom Swift (Thomas A. Swift electric rifle.)

Because the early Tasers used gunpowder as a propellant, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) classified the devise as a firearm in 1976. During the 1980’s law enforcement agencies became aware of the gun and its use as a law enforcement tool soon followed.

Between 2001 and 2012 there have been more than 530 police-initiated Taser Deaths documented by Amnesty International. The same organization also found that 90% of those people who died were unarmed and a majorities were black or Hispanic.

A Taser works by shooting two metal barbs into a person’s body (do not shoot a person in the chest,) where the shooter deliver 50,000 volts that incapacitating a person’s neuromuscular system. The experience is extremely painful and can cause death. If I were shot with a Taser…..I’d become one of those statistics…..a dead statistic…..I’ve had open heart surgery…..and people like me would succumb to just a short jolt.

SOME SOBERING FACTS

According to Doctor Douglas Zipes, a cardiologist and electro-physiologist at Indiana University called the Taser weapon’s connection to heart attacks obvious. Zipes said one electrical shock from a Taser Gun can cause a person’s heart to race between 400 and 600 beats a minute and send the victim into cardiac arrest…..I get light-headed when my heart rate hits a hundred and twenty.

Jon Firman, research director at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, acknowledges some people have died after a Taser was used, but said a two-year study by medical experts for the National Institute of Justice confirmed that the weapon is safe when used properly, and therein lies the problem, how, in the heat of battle, can we rely on a beat cop using his Taser in a proper manner?

Another study by law enforcement found that less than 0.25%, (1 in 400) risked death when a Taser was used. And the threat for significant injury was also low, 0.15%, (1 in more than 500.) I understand that police work, and what they encounter on a daily basis sometimes calls for snap decisions that could mean life or death…..but gee, shooting two metal barbs into somebody…..I just don’t know.

There also is pepper spray, rubber bullets and bean bags, and also choke holds (choke holds which cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain), but their use has diminished since the middle 1990’s after a number of deaths.

But it seems as if the use of Tasers needs to be revisited by all branches of law enforcement as stories of abuse overuse and multiple police officers Tasing the same victim become more prevalent. In addition racial profiling as well as people with mental or emotional issues are routinely dealt with, by administering a short burst of 50,000 volts.

Using a Taser to immobilize an adult seems like a good idea when you consider the alternative would be to pull out a service revolver and kill somebody. But continued (over-zealous) law enforcement personnel are obviously taking Taser-use to a whole new level. Not only have adults been killed in confrontation with police…..but children have also.

And age or gender makes little difference to some in law enforcement, a 76 year old black man and a 62 year old woman were Tased in separate incidents, and both lost their lives. Stories of teenagers, autistic kids as young as 11 have been Tased and lived while others, like an unarmed 16 year old boy who stood 5’-2” and weighed 130 pounds ran from the cops, was chased down and Tased to death by six police officers.

Taser International who manufactures the majority of domestic Tasering, the M26 and the X26 mechanisms, with annual revenue over $1.6 million a year defends the stun-guns, saying that the Taser is not designed to stop a target through infliction of pain, but works by causing instant immobilization through muscle contraction.

However law enforcement talks a completely different story with regards to how much pain is administered by being stunned. They also use just a fraction of the normal discharge during training events, and still are incapacitated. “It felt terrible, it hurts, and it’s like being punched 100 times in a row, and it was the most profound pain that I’ve ever felt” just a few of the comments from police officers that I ran across during my research.

LIGHT UM IF YOU GOT UM

There are good cops, and unfortunately there are bad cops, there are cops that most everybody wants’ to work with, and then there are those officers that nobody wants to even be around. Mostly the bad cops grab the lion’s share of the headlines while the good cops just do their duty.

Giving some of these jokers a Taser is like giving a firebug a box of kitchen matches in a barn-full of hay and leaving the building. Predictably the barn is engulfed in flames, and the cows, pigs, chicken and farm cats get burnt alive.

To “Serve and to Protect”…..a cop-shop motto goes right out the window when these bad cops get their hands on any kind of weapon. “Light um up, torch um, or fire-um up” are just some of the terms that are used whenever the use of a Taser is being considered.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the United States is becoming a police state, and for whatever reason we seem to be the only ones who don’t understand it. Whenever a person falls down from a punch, a push, or in this case a Taser jolt, three things can happen, an injury, a death, or submission. Its why hitting somebody in the face over some trivial argument or issue is never, ever advisable.

Oh yea there is a fourth thing that can happen when somebody hits the deck in an altercation, a police department, or a city, or county, and in some instances a state can be sued for abusive or unreasonable force. The same can happen if a private individual hits somebody in the head and knocks them to the floor, but you’d have to leave the police department, a city, county or state out of the lawsuit.

Welcome to the 21^st century and our brand of law enforcement…..after all, we’re the ones who put up with these dangerous shenanigans that some in law enforcement practice.

HAVE A NICE DAY!