In 1993, TASER International’s founders, brothers Rick and Tom Smith, developed devices that use “proprietary technology to incapacitate dangerous, combative, or high-risk subjects who pose a risk to law enforcement officers, innocent citizens, or themselves in a manner that is generally recognized as a safer alternative to other uses of force.†The website claims that the TASER technology “saves lives every day, and the use of TASER devices dramatically reduces injury rates for police officers and suspects.â€
Hmm. If that is true, then why has there been an increase in the number of deaths and serious bodily injury to people who have been tased INCREASED? Why did a Canadian man recently die 4 days after being tased? Why did a Polish immigrant die at a Vancouver airport last month after being tased? Where are the lives being saved? Where is the evidence proving that the use of tasers reduces injury rates for police officers, as their website asserts?
In Utah, a driver was recently tased for asking an officer why he was being stopped. He refused to sign a speeding ticket because he didn’t understand what offense he had committed or why he was being pulled over. The encounter, captured on the police car camera on September 14th, is the latest in a long string of incidents involving the unacceptable use of Tasers by officers on citizens whom the evidence reveals are in no way threatening, acting unlawfully or resisting co-operation.
There are countless people who have been and continue to be harmed by this dangerous weapon, who do not fit into the “dangerous, combative, or high-risk†category, — yet time after time police officers choose to use this hazardous device when there are more appropriate tools at their disposal.
Is it lack of training? OR could it be that certain officers have a “us- against- them†mentality, and view most people of color and lower income folks as threats?
Yes, the climate in society has upped the danger factor for police officers, but we must remember that those who choose to go into that profession assume the risk. The police academy is supposed to TRAIN individuals on the proper way to apprehend people, and how to discern when and how to use the appropriate weapon.
The question that I pose is this: are we as a society becoming numb to the atrocities suffered by our community at the hands of law enforcement? In light of the rise of crime in certain communities, have we fooled ourselves into believing that those who find themselves victims of police brutality somehow deserve what happens to them? Do we also naively believe that more cops equal safer streets? If that were accurate, why is the crime rate in Oakland rising, when there have been additional cops put on the streets?
What we need is a guarantee that those officers who patrol our streets will do so with no malice and will assess a situation properly before reaching for their taser guns and deciding to shoot first and ask questions later.
7 Comments
Not going to stop. There is a race war brewing in this country. Its underbelly is apparent. There also exists a class war and a religious war.
If we do not begin to police ourselves again in low income neighborhoods we will feel the brunt of all of the above brewing confrontations. We must unite quickly and sophisticatedly. That is, family member to family member, neighbor to neighbor, scholastic organization (in the likeness of Silence the Violence) to employment organization, etc.
First off, Charles Rey did not answer the question but rather used the article as a launchpad for his own racial agenda. After looking over Mr. Rey’s website, it does indeed appear that he is a racist posing as a civil rights advocate. Thanks for stepping forward Charles!
As for the article, I think it raises several interesting questions. Prior to the Tazer, there was the gun, the baton and pepper spray. As we all know, those three weapons have all been used abusively. The tazer however is very attractive to police because it usually doesn’t kill, it doesn’t look as violent as a baton beating (especially on video), and it doesn’t blow back like pepper spray. Do tazers save lives? Maybe. They certainly save people from being shot or beaten. They also save the police from looking worse on tv…or on blogs.
Many of those who die from the tazer are overweight or have heart problems from drugs or a bad diet. This is also a good thing for cops since there’s no way the police could have known a person had a bad heart. Indeed, the obese are usually blamed for being the way they are. So these deaths are often seen as a freak accident rather than misconduct.
Underlying all that, however, is cops not wanting to work. Many police departments do not have tazer manuals or, if they do, don’t follow them. There certainly is a taze first ask questions later policy because tazers leave limited injuries which can hurt departments.
It’s hard to say if tazers are totally evil. If you’ve ever seen people freaking out on the streets, you can understand that it can be a pain to get them under control. All people, regardless or color or wealth, are large, intelligent and violent animals. It’s tough to get someone like that under control, particularly if they have mental issues or are intoxicated. Someone is almost always going to get hurt.
I think that blindly upping the quantity of cops on the street is really a bandaid solution for a gunshot wound. Actually, more like a bandaid tainted with battery acid. I would say that putting out as many cops as possible means that they have less training and education on very important subjects such as the use of force. This would probably lead to an increase in overuse of force, and then probably create more crime as a reaction to abusing policing. This is really counter-intuitive.
I think the best alternative is to work on the education system of officers. It needs to be more clear when to and not to use force, and these guidelines need to be enforced more strictly. This would mean training police officers to use this kind of force as a last measure. There is a good reason for that: tazers are very powerful, and police are not respecting them. I know a former policewoman who had to get tazered before she became a policewoman, and she is one of the most sensible women I know. I think that a better trained police force with more checks against abuse (ie. enforcement of guidelines) would lead to better policing and less backlash.
So really I guess my view is that the tazer is just a tool that could be used for very effective policing. However, the laziness of many police officers (I feel sort of bad saying this, as a policing job is hard and stressful, and I imagine sometimes it is hard to make a clear decision, especially in the time of action) prevents it from being used correctly. Whether the convenience of the tazer encourages this behavior is hard to determine.
We are all “products” of american society. The fundamental question is, “What type of society creates people that ‘need’ to be tasered?” Why is it that this society, purportedly the most advanced and “developed” society on the face of the earth to date, disproportionately, percentage wise, imprisons more of it’s citizens than any other developed or undeveloped nation in the world? These are the questions that begs for indepth analysis and examination.
To be honest, I cannot fathom why anyone should be tasered. Whether the cops know the medical condition of the victim, or not, if someone is pregnant, has a heart problem, or any other medical condition should be all the more reason not to taser anyone – period. For someone with an extreme medical condition, being tasered would be certain death. How ludicrous to use the alibi “the cops didn’t know” as if ignorance of someone’s medical condition somehow allays guilt.
I ask, “What kind of world do we live in in 2008 whereby differences between America and other countries cannot be resolved without dropping bombs on them?” Violence begets violence, so would it be too far a stretch of the imagination to ascertain why our society, American society, is so violent? After all, we have more artillery and war effects than any country on the face of the earth and you wander what is wrong with the world. America is what is wrong with the world. America exports violence for profit and violence is a homemade very profitable industry stateside also. And we wander why “tasers has gone wild.”
I respectfully disagree with Mr./Mrs. Sadiku,
I challenge you to find a single year since the dawn of the human race where several wars have not raged at the same time. No social movement has ever actually stemmed violence. You can’t honestly say that violence surprises you or that America is solely responsible for it. Humans invented violence and it continues to be one of the most powerful ways we express ourselves.
To say that we are products of a society takes responsibility away from ourselves and lays it on a vague perpetrator who takes on whatever shape or color we desire. The problems we have in our cities comes from our homes, not from the police stations and not from city hall. To blame the police is insane, they’re just reacting to communities begging for crime prevention and baffled why those same communities then criticize them for “profiling” and “using excessive force.”
If you can’t fathom why someone should be tazered, then you certainly could never fathom someone being clubbed, shot or beaten. Possibly you can’t fathom someone being put in a cage for the rest of his or her life. If that’s true, you do not understand people. People, when they are drunk, angry, stupid, insane, driven by ego, driven by greed are horrific and dangerous. It is the responsibility of the police to stop these people with the least possible violence, but stopping them is the main goal.
Police prefer tazers because they are supposed to be non-lethal. It is a fact that not knowing of someone’s medical condition does, actually, allay guilt. Take for instance an allergic reaction to a medication. You only get guilt with excessive use or advance knowledge of a persons frail condition.
John Mullagen says,
“I challenge you to find a single year since the dawn of the human
race where several wars have not raged at the same time. No social
movement has ever actually stemmed violence.”
Sadiku’s response, “Why is it that we’ve become so technological advanced, but we cannot solve the violence problem? What is it that precludes ‘humans’ from being able to stop wholesale killing and bombing entire cities and communities? This is absurd. We can build space stations and entire cities that literally exist on ships – aircraft carriers – but we can’t come up with a global policy to refrain from dropping bombs on entire cities full of humans. Do Americans value human life? Does American foreign policy promote peace in the world? My answer is a big fat NO!
Within America’s prisons violence proliferates and is silently and unabashedly condoned. A blind eye is turned on this insidious feeding frenzy that is allowed to flourish and grow. How is this when the very reason for purportedly imprisoning a large number of humans is because of their violently behavior? Furthermore, America will send troops anywhere to “violently” overthrow a “hostile” or contrary regime – ala Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Korea, etc.
John Mullagen says, “The problems we have in our
cities comes from our homes, not from the police stations and not
from city hall. To blame the police is insane, they’re just reacting
to communities begging for crime prevention and baffled why those
same communities then criticize them for “profiling†and “using
excessive force.â€
Sadiku’s response, “The police and city hall officials have homes in the cities, so I may infer that the same violence emanates from these homes, or at the very least from the neighbor’s home? How can you in a sane moment turn a blind eye to all of the police violence and “unjustified” killings and beatings that African Americans are subjected to on a daily basis by any big city police department? That is irrational insanity? I can say with unrelenting confidence that African Americans are disproportionately the victims of “tasing gone wild.” Frankly, the police overreact zealously to very simple situations. I worked in the police department, and have witnessed innumerable situations that didn’t warrant the level of brutal response exacted, which is one of the reasons that I left – quit! Believe me, I am not the only ex-insider whom has talked about this. Their is an entire ex-police officers organization dedicated to the cause of “outing” policy brutality – violence.
Please do not make excuses for violence wherever it exists and we could possibly end up with a better world.
I must respond to Sadiku point. America holds 1/5 of the worlds population and holds in it’s prisons or jails 1/4 of the worlds convicted. Now, I am pointing this out because it begs consideration. If we look at this from an ecological, economic and social standpoint there is definitely a problem with this picture. Why are we a society that criminalizes so many behaviors in an attempt to create a safer world. We use violence to enforce our laws on every level. We teach violence to our children through television programs, movies and video games. We are a reactive society based on pro-active excuses. We are driven by the corporate media and the advertising companies that appeal to our id, our need to satisfy our most basic instincts. We have over-developed our id to the extent that in many ways it drives our current existence.
“The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex, and aggressive impulses. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure–pain principle; it is without a sense of time, completely illogical, primarily sexual, infantile in its emotional development, and will not take “no” for an answer.” Wikipedia
When we begin to analyze the component of man that accepts and ultimately perpetuates violence in a society by rationalization of violence, ie “humans express themselves through violence” or choice, ie “it is important to fight terrorism beginning in Iraq” or even by excuse, ie “it is human nature” that is when we realize that we are not advanced, or leaders in the world or even civilized at all. We are animals driven by our basic nature.
I don’t accept that we are animals driven by our human nature. I believe that some of us use our intellect to question our fellow man. Why must you kill and dominate and justify war? Why must we continue to fail on a moral scale? Why in the twilight of our existence do we still continue justifying the mental state that has led us to this sadly proud and ignorant state in our current American culture.
“The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Benjamin Franklin
So here we are and it is what it is. So for you Mr. Mulligan things may be working out just fine, but please recognize that for millions of others things are not working out fine and we are not able to make excuses for human abuses in this current point in history. We are not able to make excuses and rationalize the number of convicted prisoners in this country and frankly I don’t think any of us want to pay the taxes to house these people. So let’s quit arguing about whether there is a problem, accept that as a human there are problems with other humans and then band together to use our amazing imaginations and innovation to solve these problems thus creating the type of society that BENEFITS EVERYONE and EVERYONE CAN BE PROUD OF!