Civil Disobedience = Tasering

Has civil disobedience - that is - talking or smarting off, or even refusing to move when a badge tells you to, degraded into acceptable use of taser? Yes. Tasers have become a tool for gaining compliance, rather than a substitute for lethal force. Very few police departments have rigid guidelines surrounding their use, although a few have reversed approval of the Taser as a compliance tool in the wake of deaths resulting from Tasers.

All the stories and headlines on people being tasered and I see no discipline of the police or follow up stories indicating there was a happier ending to the sensationalized piece that would make popular certain articles, videos, or news segments.

This is one of the problems of the media. They love outrage and raising a fuss to get people worked up but they rarely follow up with how it is resolved the same attention.

For instance in the Andrew Meyer he came out and admitted that the police were did what they needed to.

While it did get reported- no where as much as the incident itself (google and see which you see more stories of).

Another problem is the media rarely reports the police view of the incident. This may be in part because the police are not to discuss such incidents (I'm guessing). What we end up with is outside view of the incident with little context to the police point of view of how they saw what was happening.

but it cannot be denied from anyone paying attention that the police have gone a little Taser Happy.

Actually we can't tell. Yes, we see have many incidents that appear to be a misuse of the taser. What we don't have is any context. What we don't know is how often a misuse case happens in comparison to when the total number of proper uses. 1 in 10? 1 in 100? 1 in 1000? 1 in 10,000? Another problem is even among the cases of apparent misuse are not what they appear so to speak. Nor do we get much follow-up on what happens when an actual case of abuse happens.

This isn't to say that misuse and abuse doesn't happen. When it does it should be deal with appropiately.

Are there specific and consistent standards for police protocol indicating acceptable tasing/tasering situations?

My guess is yes there are. Whether they are sufficient or not may be subject to question and of the course the real question is what is being done to enforce discipline to follow the protocols.

I want to know before I smart off to another cop.

This something you do regularly? Personally in all my encounters with police I figure my best course of action is be polite to the guy with the gun.

the domination of the individual by the state....that's what we are looking at.

Here's the thing, we need to stop thinking taser and start think cattle prod and the picture immediately clears up doesn't it?

Tasers are being used as instruments of torture, to compel compliance, and to enforce control. Police are confrontational and obstreperous. We are cattle, that is the way they think.

Oh, nostalgia for the days or yore when the cops would just beet a man with a billy-club if they gave too much attitude...

Digits,

Well written. Unfortunatly I'm a cop and I didn't like it one bit. I'm warning you Digits, either you stop writing inflamatory crap or I'll tase YOU.

Not really - great stuff :-)

I read through the article and comments and wondered if a policeman would comment, or perhaps a DA, or someone who is intimately aware of the police use of tasers, or pepper spray and while fdbryant3 and Eric Albert offered what I thought were significant points of view, there was still no one from a PD or the legal establishment offering any comment. This is probably due to a kind of imbalance in who reads Digits blog, but surely someone must know a policeman somewhere who would offer an opinion on this.

I live in a small town that actually has it's own police academy and offers them employment when they graduate. When they do, the city cannot afford to pay them particularly well, so they get some experience and then usually move on to larger cities, where economic opportunity is better.

When they first start patrolling on their own, they look to be about twelve years old and dressed up like a policeman for a Halloween party...residents consistently make jokes about them. My own experience has been somewhat removed from humor because I work mostly at night, near a bar, these rather enthusiastic newbies have stopped me several times simply because I am on the road when no one else seems to be. I recently received a third citation for what most people call a "California stop". Without going into my personal problems with this, I would like to relate something consistent about the officers who stop me. They are all afraid. One of them was shaking so hard while talking to me (he kept his hand on the butt of his gun the entire time) I really thought he might drop something. All of them have been afraid though. And I do not think of myself as a particularly intimidating person.

Here is my thought on this. Eric Albert talked about police being instruments of a "class" system; they are. They are also products of that class system and many of them are trying to find their way out of the bottom end of the system. We live, for better or worse, in a racist society and at the same time we have tried and are trying to become less so, but in the meantime the poor, against which most the violence is directed, attempt to fight their way off the bottom. I use the word fight specifically and descriptively. When someone of color or someone in poverty sees a uniform (this applies to firemen as well, believe it or not) they go into a kind of state of fight or flight. Uniform; guilt (usually over nothing); panic; reaction. I think most readers will understand this in the sense I mean. No political leader has helped. No social organization has helped. So this condition exists. What can be done?

fdbryant3 talked about media imbalance in reporting. This is true. There is also media imbalance in promoting reality shows like "Cops", which invariably show the poor and people of color in conflict with uniformed policemen. Iarnuocon spoke of the set of standards for taser use given to police departments. I do not know what, if or how these standards are applied in departmental or individual cases. I suspect they are given departmental standards and then trained in the use of the device, and then, depending on the experience of the individual officer, applied according to his or her personality factors. That, unfortunately, leaves a lot of room for interpretation. And little, if any, time given to training policemen in "reading" people. And far, far too much emphasis given on a kind of "them or us" mentality.

In the US we are surrounded by multiple social problems that raise complex questions about who we are and where we are going as a people and I think that when we are confronted by a situation where policemen are given "instruments of compliance", which tasers are, it would be wise to ask ourselves how that situation came about in the first place.

Policemen are human and subject to all that means. I suggest that articles like this are a good first step toward understanding something about ourselves that runs much much deeper than taser use.

It really is a disturbing trend, very disturbing.

I've been roughed up by cops more times than I care to admit. I'm personally familiar with the amount of force most pigs are willing to use against someone who poses little to no actual threat. They can be such malicious cowards.

The Polish man you referred to in the article, the one who was tased and essentially murdered by RCMP in a Canadian airport, was named Robert Dziekanski. His death was a devastating injustice.

Good article, an important topic.

Wow pixiequix you took me right back to the 60's. We called the cops pigs and everyone over 30 was narc. We lived in a Police State, if they had Tasers in those day's I would probably still be twitching.

I would like to point out that in 100% of these cases the victim was unarmed. If they had been armed the taser would never have been used, the cop would go straight for his gun.

That single fact proves that cops are using them like a cattle prod, to enforce compliance, not to protect the 'public safety'.

Hi, everybody. I'm a private citizen who became interested almost 3 years ago in how police use the Taser, and began "watchdogging" what the state Department of Justice was doing in the state where I live. I've learned a lot about how law enforcement regards the Taser. First, every law enforcement agency decides for itself where in the "use of force continuum" it will place the Taser. This means that different agencies have different policies, and so will use the Taser differently. Some will place it very low, meaning that the Taser will often be used to obtain compliance with an officer's commands. Others will place it very high, up near "deadly force", which means they will use the Taser only after exhausting nearly all other methods of gaining compliance. And some may place it in the middle. The state where I live has decided to establish its own policy for where the Taser fits in the "use of force continuum" which will determine the kind of training that all law enforcement officers in the state receive, after the policy has been approved and new training materials have been developed. At that time, the state's policy will begin to have an effect on how local law enforcement agencies within the state behave, because all the law enforcement officers in the state eventually will have been through a state-approved training course that deals with the use of Tasers, and they all will then have been taught the same state-approved policy. What got me involved in this issue was my suspicion that the Taser Training Course that law enforcement officers who use Tasers currently receive (from Taser International Inc., or someone certified by this company) might not be providing information that is accurate in all respects. If you make an analogy between the Taser and drugs, nobody asks a drug manufacturer to teach people how to safely take the drugs that it manufactures, so why is law enforcement expecting the manufacturer of the Taser to teach law enforcement officers how to use a Taser safely? It's appropriate for Taser International Inc. to provide a course that teaches the mechanics of Taser operation, but I don't think instruction from the manufacturer of the Taser should go beyond that. The safe use of a drug involves two professions that have nothing whatever to do with drug manufacture: medicine and pharmacology. Physicians prescribe a drug for an individual human being, based on their knowledge of both the drug and the individual who will be taking it. Pharmacists originally compounded the drug according to the physician's prescription, though they rarely compound drugs now; today, they mostly just put pills in a bottle and type up dose information on the label, according to the physician's prescription. But the pharmacist is still an important "line of defense" who can protect the patient against an error that a physician might make in a prescription. I think somebody outside the electroshock weapons industry should be teaching the safe use of Tasers and other electroshock weapons. This is especially important because the electroshock weapons industry is largely unregulated. Any of these weapons that uses gunpowder is classified as a firearm and so is regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF). Taser International switched some years ago from using gunpowder as a propellant to using compressed nitrogen; this change meant that the BATF no longer has any regulatory authority over the Taser. (I believe Stinger Systems has now developed and is selling a taser that uses gunpowder as a propellant.) During the 20th century, the USA went from being a country where all markets were "free markets" (meaning UNREGULATED markets), to a country where MOST markets are REGULATED markets. Having regulated markets has allowed commerce to flourish in the USA. The ancient Romans knew all about free markets; the operative rule was "Caveat emptor!" ["Let the buyer beware!"] Why does a buyer have to beware in a free market? Because it is in the best interests of the seller to represent what is being sold as better than it actually is, so it can command a higher price than it may actually be worth. The regulation of markets stimulated commerce because it gave buyers rights that they didn't previously have, and it imposed responsibilities on sellers, which a free market doesn't. In a free market, it is in the seller's interest to misrepresent what he is selling as better than it actually is so that the buyer will be willing to pay more for it. It is therefore the buyer's responsibility NOT to take the seller's word for ANYTHING, but to verify EVERYTHING that the seller says. This is because, once the item has been sold, the seller has the buyer's money, and the transaction cannot be undone (unless both parties agree to undo it--and in a free market, the seller typically WON'T agree).
A lot of law enforcement agencies don't realize they they're engaging in a free market transaction when they buy electroshock weapons. When widespread questions arose about Taser safety a couple of years ago, some law enforcement agencies decided that the Taser was more dangerous than they had thought when they bought it, so they told Taser International Inc. that they'd like to return the Tasers they had bought, and get their money back. (In most regulated markets, the buyer has a right to do this.) But Taser International Inc. refused to "undo" the transaction! Why? Because Taser International is in the business of SELLING Tasers; it is NOT in the business of BUYING Tasers! In a regulated market, laws impose obligations on sellers, and provide protections for buyers that DO NOT EXIST in a free market! In a regulated market, laws typically require a seller to represent truthfully what it is selling, and the buyer can legally recover money paid for a product that was misrepresented when it was sold. But in a free market, the seller is under no obligation to tell the truth about what he is selling, and the buyer has no legal recourse--he can't "undo" the transaction and get his money back--if he makes a purchase and THEN discovers that he wasn't told the truth about what he bought! Now, it's bad enough when a product is misrepresented. But law enforcement agencies aren't buying just Tasers from Taser International Inc.; they are ALSO buying instruction for their officers in the use of the Taser! What guarantee do these agencies have that everything their officers are being taught in the Taser Training Course is true? Correct answer: None whatsoever! [It's a free market, remember?] When it comes to instruction in the use of electroshock weapons, I think the legal situation is the same for all the electroshock weapon companies: training in the use of these devices is unregulated, hence the buyers are being taught WHAT THE SELLERS WANT THEM TO BELIEVE, not necessarily what is actually true. [CAUTION: I am not an attorney, so my opinion is NOT a LEGAL opinion.] Does this mean that the public is being placed at risk by the use of Tasers (and other electroshock weapons) by law enforcement officers? I'd have to say "yes". Think back to the analogy with drugs. If the manufacturer of a drug were the one who was responsible for telling the people who bought its products how much to use, what would it be likely to tell them? It would make more money if more of its drug was bought, so it would be inclined to tell its customers to use a large dose of its drug. (And then, if some of its customers died after taking its drug, it would probably try to find some OTHER plausible cause of death for each customer that died, so as to avoid having its drug blamed for the death.)
See the advantage of getting instruction in the use of a drug from someone other than the drug manufacturer? Especially from someone who has personal knowledge of YOU and how that drug might interact with you and the other medications you are taking? Of course, then you can raise the question that if a weapon like the Taser interacts differently with different people, maybe its use should be reserved for special situations, rather than being generally available for use against EVERYONE.
Taser International has done very little animal testing of the Taser, and admits it. It has required that law enforcement officers be shocked with the Taser during its Taser Training Course, and it has administered no more than a single 5-second shock to officers, sometimes only a 1-second or a 2-second shock.
Law enforcement officers are a select population; they had to pass a physical exam to become a law enforcement officer, for example. The officers who get shocked in this course have NOT been engaged in any strenuous physical activity at the time they get shocked, nor are they in a state of high emotional arousal. In other words, they get shocked under OPTIMUM conditions. Thus they are given the impression that THEIR experience is what ANY person would experience--which simply is NOT true.
Most people who get shocked with a Taser are unlikely to be in good health, and often are shocked at a time when they are either emotionally aroused, or have been engaged in strenuous physical activity, or both. Their risk of an adverse outcome following a Taser shock is much higher than what a law enforcement officer experiences when he is shocked in a Taser Training Course.
Law enforcement officers are taught that the Taser is safe, and they believe it because of their own personal experience. They are not taught, and don't realize, that they are a select group of people for whom a Taser shock is much safer than it is for the people they use the Taser on.
Who pays the price for the mis-information communicated during the training of law enforcement officers in the use of electroshock weapons? Members of the public pay in two ways. Public money is used to buy these weapons. And over 300 people in North America that these weapons have been used on since late September, 1999, have paid with their lives. Wait a minute, some of you may say. There's no proof that all those deaths were caused by Tasers! No PUBLISHED proof, true. But for over two years, Taser International Inc. has been filing defamation lawsuits against those who claim that a Taser has killed a person, or is capable of killing a person. That's a real good way to discourage anyone from publishing information showing that a Taser may be capable of killing a person! Happily, a paper was published recently that shows that the Taser Model X26 can indeed kill: "Acute Effects of TASER X26 Discharges in a Swine Model" by Andrew J. Dennis et al. which was published in the Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, volume 63, number 3 (2007), pages 581-590. A controlled laboratory study was done on pigs. One group of 6 anesthetized pigs was subjected to 2 successive 40-second shocks from a model X26, while another group of 5 anesthetized pigs was NOT so shocked. One of the shocked pigs developed ventricular fibrillation and died. [These pigs were not on cocaine or other recreational drugs that some people take.] There were no deaths in the control group--the 5 unshocked pigs. After this part of the experiment was over, two of the unshocked pigs were subjected to shocks with more extensive testing done on them. One of these pigs also developed ventricular fibrillation and died. So, out of 8 pigs that were shocked, 2 developed VF and died. That's a 25% death rate!
Taser International likes to say that people who have died after receiving a Taser shock have died of the drugs they were taking (e.g., cocaine). This experiment with pigs shows that a Taser shock ALL BY ITSELF can kill a pig, and therefore presumably a person, too. [The physiology of pigs is very similar to the physiology of human beings.] By filing those defamation lawsuits, Taser International Inc. has made it VERY clear that it wants its customers to believe that the Taser is INCAPABLE of killing people. But it is clear from the published paper that I have cited above that the Taser X26 is capable of killing pigs in a controlled laboratory study, and therefore should be presumed to be capable of killing human beings, too. So it looks as though the Taser is really a LETHAL weapon, one that can be used as a nonlethal weapon by those who are carefully trained to do so.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any law enforcement officer anywhere in North American has yet been carefully, explicitly taught how to use a Taser NONLETHALLY! Since Taser International hasn't done extensive testing of its product, it should not be surprising that effective training in the SAFE use of Tasers (and other electroshock weapons) as NONLETHAL WEAPONS will have to come from OUTSIDE the electroshock weapons industry!

It is unclear at the time of writing if the taser was the cause of death at Vancouver airport. The video shows not only was this unfortunate tasered more than once, but the police then treated him very roughly, including on standing on his neck.

If this had been an isolated incident it would have been shocking enough. But it is part of a long running controversy over the use of what was marketed as a "non lethal weapon". The problem, it seems to me was that is was supposed to be better than a gun when used a last resort. For far too many police officers, now they have this device, it is a question of shoot first and ask questions afterwards.

The questions surrounding this incident keep being avoided by the RCMP. Unfortunately for them the evidence collected at the scene at the time by a disinterested by stander is all too clear.

"It is unclear at the time of writing if the taser was the cause of death at Vancouver airport."

Quite a coincidence then, no?

I have a theory about these Taser incidents.

First we need to ask ourselves- why are videos of possible CRIMES by the Police being released to the public so quickly?

We are talking about videos that are taken by on-dash cams on the cruisers, inside the Police Stations and from other public sources.

Normally the cops would seize these videos of evidence, I would think.

Now, I happen to know personally that the "Continuity" Laws have been recently changed by Bush. That Pose Comitatus is no more, and that American military has been practicing Martial Law in various drills and operations. Of course, I also know that Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, was given a contract to renovate some of the Japanese Internment camps, as well as build some new ones (there are hundreds in the U.S). The New "Civilian Inmate Labour Program" means that anyone in those "camps" must work for the ARMY, for peanuts.

Bottom line - They are IMO, preparing the general public for Martial Law and suspension of the Constitutions of BOTH the United States and Canada.

The swift release of these videos (and I have seen too many now) are part of the plan to scare most of us into submission prior to enacting Martial Law.

Perhaps Pakistan was a trial run.

I know, I know, most people will call me Nucking Futs (It's o.k., I've heard it all by now) ...and to them I say go read for yourself.

GO to the White House website and see for yourself....Presidential Directive 51, gives the President dictator powers in the event of an National Emergency...

Google the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" you should be able to download a PDF of the actual document from the U.S. ARMY.

Read the Patriot Act.
Read the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act.
Read the Posse Comitatus Act.
Read the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
Read TILMA.

And if you haven't read it by now...the "Project for a New American Century" document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (written by Cheney, Jeb Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz..etc.)

They are projecting the WE (the people of Canada and the U.S) are NOT going to like their plans to create a North American Union. They're right.

Problem
Reaction
Solution

Infohack placed a very disturbing story on my column that I thought might be of interest to you Digits in regard to Taser misuse.

Alabama: Sober Diabetic Man Tasered, Accused of DUI

11/9/2007 - Police in Ozark, Alabama on Tuesday used a taser on a sober man who was having a diabetic seizure. James Bludsworth, 54, a man with no criminal record, was was slumped over behind the wheel. Because of his condition he was not responsive to police commands.

Police then fired tasers at the sick man three times. A police officer now says that he smelled alcohol on Bludsworth, even though later testing showed no trace of alcohol in his system. Instead of taking Bludsworth to medical care he was booked at Dale County Jail and charged with resisting arrest and driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI)

Note: The guy was having a Seizure + the police Tased him three times ! Just a bit excessive ?

You want to see some sad headlines ? Unreal !

CES 2008: Taser Gun + Rockin' = Fun

What's playing on your Taser MP3 holster? 'Shock the Monkey'?

For those about to shock, we salute you

Opps...that link backfired....well click the top link and hopefully it works, I hope.Sorry !

I should stop, my blood is about to boil I think.....

Some stunned by Taser's 'Playboy' police fundraiser

It is a little old, but sad to look at the things these people go to sell products. They also have Playboy models down at the CES show at the moment in Las Vegas showing off the new Tasers... Very sad.

Gwenny please get one of your policeman acquaintances to comment here on this issue if you can.

I have a Online Friend who is a serving British police officer, on another site I frequent, and tasers were recently mentioned on there.

He hates the things, and reckons that they should not be on general issue, as most younger cops do not realise just how dangerous they can be, and treat them like toys. Very scary.

I was reading pdf files from police departments a few days ago that specifically addressed taser use and my biggest surprise was that some policemen in one city said that having the devices gave them more confidence (in general). This was a very small study, but the idea that policemen need more confidence is disturbing because it confirms something about their level of fear.

One of the major signs that they are preparing for future "Civil Disobedience" I feel.

Wonderful...One more mental Health patient killed by a taser. This is unreal....

A mother whose mentally ill son died two years ago after guards at the Harris County Jail shocked him with a Taser has filed a lawsuit against the county, unnamed sheriff's deputies and the stun gun manufacturer.
Guards used excessive force against him, the lawsuit alleges, when they fired two Taser darts into him and placed the device against his skin to subdue him.

Mother files suit over son's jail stun-gun death

Read that quote carefully, that fired two shots from a distance, and then a third directly against his skin ! 3 Taser shots in all.

Tasers need to be made illegal, they are a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, and it seems that the hands of the police in too many instances are the wrong ones.