Frontiers of free enterprise

Marketing of tasers - the gizmos that deliver a paralyzing, 50,000-volt shock to the victim - is expanding. What's being expanded, however, is not so much the marketing as the market. From CBS News in Chicago on Monday:

Taser stun guns are back in the news again. Despite the scores of injuries and deaths associated with the police taser, Taser International, the leading manufacturer of tasers, is now aggressively targeting a new audience and you might be surprised to learn that it's you.

In a promotional taser video, an eerie voice tells potential taser buyers why the X26C is the weapon for them - "It's the most powerful non-lethal weapon ever developed."

Taser International believes the future of the high-tech weapon lies in the millions of citizens who want to protect their homes and families but don't want to buy a firearm.

Yes, that's right, soon you, too, can protect your home! yourself! your family! with the latest thing in high-tech crime deterrence. What's more, there is no background check involved and no training is required! Does that concern you? Don't worry! Taser International is right there in its concern for safety, you betcha: Purchasers of the $1,000 devices are offered one hour of personal instruction and a DVD training video. Both are, of course, entirely voluntary.

I've written about tasers and the questions raised about and by them several times before. And the questions continue to pile up:

- Last fall, Amnesty International, which opposes tasers, issued a report documenting nearly 100 deaths in the US alone since June 2001 from police use of this "non-lethal" weapon. Recently, AI upped that number to 103. (The version sold to police packs more of a wallop and has a longer range than the model intended for general public sale.)

- On Wednesday, AP reported on the case of a 110-pound woman who was tasered nine times in the course of being arrested in a dispute over her stay at a motel in Florida.

- Also on Wednesday, local news told of an Orlando, Florida police officer being charged with misdemeanor battery for tasering a suspect who was tied and handcuffed to a hospital bed in order to force him to give a urine sample.

- Yet again in Florida (Is there a pattern developing here?), on Tuesday a Santa Rosa County sheriff's deputy resigned to avoid being fired for excessive use of force in an incident from August: After a car chase, the suspect pulled over and put both his hands out of his car window, indicating surrender. The deputy walked up to the car and tasered him. He was the second Florida cop to quit under threat of being fired for abusive use of a taser in the last month.

One of the fears critics have about tasers is that, as I've argued previously, they encourage the use of a weapon and the infliction of pain not only in situations where lethal violence otherwise might have been employed but also in situations where no violence otherwise might have been employed. They become weapons of convenience rather than protection. The experiences in Florida seem to confirm precisely those fears.

Footnote: One wonders if this, from Reuters for Wednesday, had anything to do with the decision to broaden the market:

Taser announced Jan. 6 that the SEC was investigating the company over statements about the safety of its stun guns and a distribution deal struck in December 2004.

That deal increased suspicions because it happened late in the fourth quarter and raised questions about when Taser planned to book revenue from the agreement.

Last year Taser was among the hottest stocks on the market. On a split-adjusted basis, Taser shares shot up more than 375 percent, hitting $33.45 Dec. 30.

Ever since news of the SEC investigation, the stock has been on a steady decline. Taser shares closed down 3.3 percent to $7.64 Wednesday.

That's a 77% decline in stock price in less than four months and puts it below where it was before last year's soar. That's not good news. Well, yeah, it is good news. Just not for them.

Shocking developments

Updated Tasers. You've heard of them. They shoot out darts connected to wires. When they strike someone, they deliver a five-second, 50,000 volt blast of low-current electricity, disabling the victim for up to 30 seconds. They are vital in police work as they provide an alternative to firearms - and because the risk of harm from an electric shock comes from the current, not the voltage, they are safe, indeed harmless. They save countless lives every year.

Or so the manufacturer tells us.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the assurances of harmlessness is still under question. Back on April 29, the Florida Sentinel (quoted here) reported that

[e]arlier this month, Alfredo Diaz of Orange County became the 44th person nationwide to die after he was shot with a Taser stun gun by law officers. ...

Mark Silverstein, the Colorado ACLU's legal director, asked police to limit their use of the stun guns because of safety questions.

Silverstein said there's plenty of proof that Tasers are associated with a growing number of in-custody deaths, may be lethal to people with certain medical conditions, and may contribute to a death, even if the death is not immediate. ...

Silverstein said agencies have been purchasing these weapons based on the word of the manufacturer that they are safe.

"They have relied on the assurances of the manufacturer, who obviously has a vested interest in selling as many devices as possible," he said Tuesday.

More damaging was this, from the Toronto Sun for July 19:

Medical examiners have found Taser electric stun guns may have played a role in at least five deaths, contradicting manufacturer's claim that the weapons never killed or injured anyone, a Phoenix newspaper reported yesterday. Examiners in three cases involving suspects who died in police custody cited Tasers as a cause or a contributing factor in the deaths, The Arizona Republic reported. In two other cases, Tasers could not be ruled out as a cause of death.

Taser International ... created a report detailing 42 cases of people who died after being shot by a Taser. The company claims the guns were cleared every time.

The company, however, didn't have the autopsy reports at the time and relied on media accounts and anecdotal information from police for most of its analysis, the Republic found. The newspaper reported that Taser's report omitted details that contradict claims.

And just yesterday, the London Free Press (Vancouver, Canada) reported that

Amnesty International said proof has mounted at an alarming rate over the past year the weapon should be banned until more tests are done.

"Most of the testing that's been done by Taser International has been on police officers or people in the military, people in good health," said Hilary Homes, a campaigner for Amnesty International in Ottawa.

"When using it on someone in a weakened state, especially someone with heart problems, this is where we start to be concerned."

In intense police situations, she said, it's often hard to assess people who might be threatening to the public or themselves. Drug use and medical conditions may or may not be obvious. ...

About 50 people have died after being shot with Tasers in North America, most in the U.S. It is not approved for use in Britain and only recently have some Canadian police forces started issuing them to officers.

But what actually got me thinking about this again (my original post was on March 7) was not so much the safety issue per se as this, which I came across by chance on a website called Prison Planet. It's from the Arizona Daily Star for May 25:

A veteran South Tucson police sergeant is under investigation for firing his stun gun to subdue a handcuffed 9-year-old girl.

At the request of Chief Sixto Molina, the Pima County Sheriff's Department is trying to determine if the sergeant committed a crime when he sent a jolt through the child's body. ...

The sergeant was one of at least two officers who responded to a call from the Arizona Children's Home, a school for special needs children, on South Eighth Avenue, he said. ...

Molina said one officer initially responded to the call from the school. That officer requested assistance from another officer and specifically asked that the second officer bring a Taser.

He said the girl was handcuffed at the time the weapon was used.

Now, I don't care how disturbed she may have been, are you telling me that two grown men could not subdue a handcuffed 9-year-old girl without use of a weapon? The Taser wasn't necessary, it wasn't for the officers' safety, it wasn't in lieu of a gun - it was a convenience.

Episodes like that are starting to come up with distressing regularity.

May 13, the Indiana Daily Student, an "auxiliary enterprise" of IU Bloomington:

A Monroe County jailer has been charged with two counts of felony battery in the case of a Bedford man who died while being booked into jail.

At a hearing Wednesday at the Monroe County Justice Building, Judge Marc Kellams said he found probable cause for the arrest of jailer David Shaw, who used a Taser gun to repeatedly shock James Borden last November. ...

[Borden], who was under house arrest for operating while intoxicated, had been seen wandering near a local convenience store Nov. 5, where employees called police to report his unusual behavior. ...

The next day, Borden was evaluated by EMS personnel, who determined he needed medical treatment, but instead, police arrested Borden and escorted him to the Monroe County Jail.

Upon his arrival at the jail, Borden was shocked at least half a dozen times by Shaw, who said Borden was being "uncooperative."

CBS News has a followup here.

June 16, KMBC-TV, Kansas City, MO:

A police officer used his Taser gun on a 68-year-old grandmother in her home Tuesday night, KMBC's Donna Pitman reported.

Louise Jones said it happened after she pulled up to her house near 50th and Euclid and saw a police car. She honked, and an officer got out of the vehicle.

"He said he could give me a citation ticket for honking my horn. I said it was an accident. It's not like I laid on the horn; I honked, right in front of my house," Jones said.

Jones said the officer went to a call at another home, then returned to her house to give her a ticket for honking.

"He grabbed me and I jerked away from him, and he said, 'You assaulted me,'" Jones recalled.

Police said Jones wouldn't cooperate and hit the officer. That's when the officer pulled his Taser gun and shocked her, Pitman reported.

Jones said the officer shocked her twice in the chest with the weapon.

July 13, WEAR-TV, Pensacola, FL:

The SCLC is probing the July third death of a Pensacola man who was hit with a taser four times while in police custody in Destin.

The common threads through these and other reports are Tasers being used multiple times, frequently on people already in custody. Tasers were promoted, as I said at the top, as an alternative to guns, as a weapon to be used in extreme situations of actual danger either to a member of the police or the public.

But from the very beginning, my concern has been that precisely because they are being promoted as "safe" and "harmless," in fact aggressively promoted as such by the manufacturer, use of them will become routine, that they will not be seen as weapons of protection and necessity but of control and convenience. And clearly, that is happening. An article about the devices in USA Today for July 13 had this:

"From anecdotal stories, we believe police are using it in situations where they're just trying to get compliance from people," says Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch, a watchdog group in Portland.

But it's not even necessary to rely on anecdotes. Note that in the case of Louise Jones, police said it was because she "wouldn't cooperate." What's more,

Police Capt. Rich Lockhart said it is the policy of the Kansas City Police Department "to use the Taser (gun) when someone is being passively resistant, refusing to obey verbal commands."

The Indiana Daily Student article said that in his probable cause finding,

Judge Kellams pointed out while Borden was uncooperative, he never expressed or acted out a threat to himself, an officer, or another person - one of the Correctional Center's own directives for using Tasers.

And in covering the Diaz case, the Florida Sentinel added that

other Central Florida agencies are quick to praise the controversial weapons.

"We used them a couple of times when we first got them, and then the word got out," said Groveland police Chief T.R. Merrill, who says Tasers are a deterrent. "We've got less people running from us now."

That is, the devices are being used exactly in the way opponents feared: as a means of "obtaining compliance" - meaning meek, cooperative, submission.

And the potential for abuse grows with every new wave of fear from the War on Terror^{(c)(tm)(pat.pend.)}, every new acceptance of every new limitation on our liberties, every new acceptance of the "post-9/11" argument, and every new police force that obtains the "safe" weapon.

And it grows with technology: A little over a year ago, in its May, 21, 2003, issue, New Scientist magazine reported on a prototype of the "Plasma-Taser."

In the first image, a spray of dark gas is seen approaching a human-sized target. In the next, taken a fraction of a second later, there is a lightning-like flash of electrical discharge intended to incapacitate the targeted person. ...

The Plasma-Taser will not need any wires because it fires an aerosol spray towards the target, which creates a conductive channel for a shock current, claims [corporate developer] Rheinmetall. The company refused to comment on exactly how the weapon works, but it says the aerosol material is non-toxic. ...

The advantage? A Taser is a single-shot weapon of limited range: the Plasma-Taser can fire repeated shots over greater range. ...

Steve Wright of the Manchester-based Omega Foundation, which monitors non-lethal weapon technology, is concerned about the potential misuse of electric shock weapons. "Such new technologies enable systematic human rights abuses to be more automated, so that one operator can induce pain and paralysis on a mass scale," he says.

I said it in March, I say it again. The movement for nonlethal alternatives in police work is a good one. Tasers should not be regarded as part of that effort.

But then again, maybe we shouldn't worry all that much, as the magic of the marketplace will balance everything out in the end. Sharper Image announced earlier this month that it plans to offer personal Tasers in its catalog.

The guns are legal for use in California by individuals and are already for retail sale at uniform shops where cops, mail carriers, bus drivers and others buy their uniforms and other accessories, [Sgt. Steve] Dixon [of the San Jose Police Department] says.

Be the first one on your block to "harmlessly" drop a neighbor at 50 feet.

Updated to include the link to my March 7 post.

A shocking return to the death penalty

A few posts down I addressed the death penalty. But that penalty can be imposed in other forms long before trial.

Raw Story links to a story from Saturday's Cleveland Plain Dealer reporting on yet another excuse being made, another whitewash of, deaths related to police use of tasers. This case is particularly disturbing because it goes a little further than others.

Summit County Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler must delete any reference that Tasers contributed to the deaths of three men, a Summit County Common Pleas judge ordered Friday.

The deaths of Dennis Hyde and Richard Holcomb, who were on drugs and in an agitated state when police shot them with Tasers, should be ruled accidental, visiting Judge Ted Schneiderman wrote in his ruling. Any reference to homicide or "electrical pulse stimulation" should be deleted from death certificates and autopsy reports, he said.

That is, this is not a case where an examiner refused to find taser use contributed to a death, it's a case where in response to a suit by Taser International the judge ordered the county medical examiner to change her professional conclusions and report something other than her actual findings - bluntly, he ordered her to lie to protect the interests of the Taser corporation.

The Arizona Republic reported on Friday that this is part of an aggressive campaign on the part of Taser International, which

increasingly is targeting state and county medical examiners with lawsuits and lobbying efforts to reverse and prevent medical rulings that Tasers contributed to someone's death. ...

Many medical examiners, who are charged with determining the official causes of death, view the Scottsdale-based company's efforts as disturbing, the spokesman for the National Association of Medical Examiners says.

"It is dangerously close to intimidation," says Jeff Jentzen, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. "At this point, we adamantly reject the fact that people can be sued for medical opinions that they make."

Taser International takes the position that any medical examiner who says being tased contributed to a death is by definition unqualified to make that determination, while arguing in court that its own hand-picked and company-paid witnesses are unbiased experts. It insists that it is impossible for the taser to do any lasting harm and particularly that it's impossible for it to induce heart failure, that instead the deaths are caused by a mythical state called "excited delirium,"

used to describe deaths of suspects who become so agitated by drugs, psychosis or poor health that their bodies shut down during struggles with police.

That is, they become so "agitated" that they just ... die. No exact reason, no actual direct cause, they just die. They just do. Not our fault. Not at all. Oh, there're claims that it's an "overdose of adrenaline" and some such, but even the claimed condition's proponents will admit that can't be proved even by autopsy, so why that should be more than idle speculation is unclear.

What is clear is first that cops and medical examiner allies have been using this excuse for excessive force for decades - even though it is a diagnosis which is not recognized by any medical manual or respectable medical organization - and second that the common factor in virtually all (if not all) cases of "death due to excited delirium" is the victim having just been in a struggle with police, including, often enough, having just been tased. Claims of coincidence can carry you just so far.

What's more, the assertion that tasers can't affect the heart are untrue according to research reported in the May 1 Canadian Medical Association Journal, which found that if the barbs strike such that the current flows across the heart, it can induce reactions. In the typically restrained language of scientific papers, the researchers said

it is inappropriate to conclude that stun gun discharges cannot lead to adverse cardiac consequences in all real world settings.

By the way, the same issue of CMAJ has a lead editorial called "Tasers in medicine: an irreverent call for proposals," which notes, among other things, that almost all research on the "safety" of tasers has been sponsored by the Taser corporation itself (a pattern it is repeating with research on "excited delirium") and refers to

a small group of dedicated researchers who diligently write letters to journals pointing out flaws in studies reporting harm from tasers. Unfortunately, some of these researchers occasionally neglect to mention their participation on TASER International’s medical advisory board or board of directors.

The whole has a fair amount of dry wit and is well worth reading.

The bottom line fact is that, as I have said more than a dozen times, tasers are dangerous weapons designed to inflict disabling pain and which all too often prove deadly - and which have, exactly as I predicted, become a weapon of domination, one intended to induce meek submission, no longer (as they supposedly were intended to be) an alternative to lethal force but an alternative even to no force. And the risks associated with their use will continue to increase as more police forces obtain them precisely because cops are falsely trained that they are "safe." As a result, and as experience has shown, police simply cannot be trusted to use tasers in the way their proponents insist is their purpose, as a last resort. They should be banned.

Footnote: Thanks go to Excited-Delirium for the link to the Arizona Republic story, to Truth not Tasers for leading me to Excited-Delirium and for tipping me to the CMAJ article, and to Tasered While Black for pointing me to Truth not Tasers.

Another Footnote: Truth not Tasers has the text of a solid editorial from the Globe & Mail (Canada) on the CMAJ findings and an official inquiry into tasers opening in Canada; the original is behind a pay firewall. It also has a list of 342 people - 322 Americans and 20 Canadians - who died shortly after being shocked with tasers by law enforcement personnel. The list continues to grow.

And a Third Footnote: To show just how impartial and unbiased he was, Judge Schneiderman of the Ohio case went even further in the case of the third man, one Mark McCullaugh:

McCullaugh, who had a history of psychiatric illness, died in Summit County Jail on Aug. 20, 2006, during a struggle with deputies who used Tasers and pepper spray. Five sheriff's deputies were indicted in his death.

Schneiderman ordered Kohler to rule McCullaugh's death undetermined and delete any references to homicide and the death possibly being caused by asphyxia, beatings or other factors.

Note that this went beyond the scope of the suit, which only related to the use of the taser, and that again, the judge is ordering the medical examiner to change an official record to reflect his desired conclusion. In this case as opposed to the first two, police officers had been charged - and the judge was in essence ordering that evidence be changed in a way that would exonerate them.

Which surely was the right thing because as we all know, cops can never be guilty of anything.

Now, this is a shock

This item is from over a month ago, from an October 1 AP story, in fact, but I thought it important enough to bring up even after this extended time.

Phoenix - Taser International Inc. has voluntarily changed some of its broad safety claims and limited its use of the word "non-lethal" in an effort to appease Arizona officials concerned about possibly misleading marketing, officials said Wednesday.

The move by the nation's largest maker of stun guns comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission investigates the company and as the Arizona Attorney General's Office conducts its own inquiry into safety claims. ...

In January, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said his office was probing claims Taser has made about safety studies on its products.

The "company officials," it seems, must have been employing some new meaning of the word "voluntarily" of which I've previously been unaware. But to continue:

According to Taser and the Attorney General's Office, the stun gun maker submitted a list of language changes the company has already made, including an 18-point "product warning."

Among the changes, Taser explains that it uses the term non-lethal as defined by the Department of Defense - which doesn't mean the weapon can't cause death, but that it's not intended to be fatal.

Other changes include substituting the phrase "leave no lasting after effects" to "are more effective and safer than other use-of-force options." ...

Amnesty International has compiled a list of more than 100 people the group says have died after being shocked in scuffles with lawmen.

Taser maintains that no deaths have been directly caused by the weapon alone.

That last statement is significant because it is a major step-down for the company, which previously insisted the weapon was innocent in all such cases. This statement, however, admits both that it could be an indirect cause of death and that it could be a direct contributing factor.

Meanwhile, the SEC is

conducting an expanded official investigation of claims Taser has made about safety studies; an end-of-year sale analysts have questioned because it appeared to inflate sales to meet annual projections; and the possibility that outsiders acquired internal company information to manipulate the stock price.

I've said all along about Tasers that they are dangerous weapons. In some ways they are more dangerous than guns in police hands. Not because they are inherently more deadly - they are not - but precisely because their supposed safety would lead them to be used almost casually, as a convenience, a method of enforcing dominance without effort, employed not only in situations where potentially deadly force would otherwise be used, but even in cases where little or no force would otherwise be used. Which is exactly what has happened.

As far as I'm concerned, the suckers should be banned and the sooner Taser Inc. is run to ground, the better.

Footnote to the preceding

The Globe & Mail (Canada) reported a few days ago that

[t]asers pose potentially fatal health risks that studies proving their safety don't take into account, a U.S. doctor told the B.C. taser inquiry yesterday.

San Francisco cardiologist and electrophysiologist Zian Tseng became interested in the use and effects of tasers after a taser-related death in San Francisco in January, 2005. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Tseng suggested tasers could induce cardiac arrhythmia[, which would not show up on an autopsy]. ...

Much of the scientific justification for the safety of tasers is based on formulae that don't examine their use in the "real world," Dr. Tseng said.

"What's not allowed in these theoretical calculations are worst-case scenarios," he said. "Tolerability in healthy volunteers under optimal conditions does not mean safety."

Dr. Tseng also noted several flaws in and concerns about the "safety" studies on tasers:

- Many of the studies were financed by Taser International; in at least once case, researchers were company employees.
- They used simulated stun guns, not actual tasers.
- The heart rate of subjects was monitored before and after the shock but not during it.

Note, too, that in all the videos I've seen demonstrating the device, in every single one, it's applied to the back, not across the chest. So to sum up, the claims for the "safety" of tasers are based on studies financed by Taser International, sometimes done by Taser International employees, performed on prepared, healthy subjects who are likely somewhat apprehensive but surely are not terrified, agitated, exhausted, intoxicated, or stoned, who are not shocked repeatedly, who do not have heart conditions, but who are shocked in a way least likely to affect the heart in a test that does not gather evidence at the time the heart is most likely to be affected.

Pardon me if I don't find that establishing a convincing record about real-world effects.

Footnote: Dr. Tseng also said that shortly after his interview appeared in the Chronicle,

I was contacted by [Taser International, Inc.] directly to reconsider my statements to the media," he said. "They even offered to ... give me grant money for research."

(Brackets in original.)

I suppose he should consider himself lucky they didn't sue him.

Shocking developments

According the manufacturer, over 4,000 police departments in the US are now using tasers. Tasers are guns which instead of bullets shoot wire-connected barbed projectiles that can impart a painful and temporarily-paralyzing electric shock to a victim.

A lot of people sing their praises, says Sunday's New York Times, because they give police a nonlethal way to defuse situations that otherwise might lead to bloodshed.

There are, however, real concerns. One is the potential for abuse.

But as the Taser spreads rapidly, it is raising questions about whether the weapon, which can also be applied directly to the skin as a stun gun, could be abused by the police. The Taser zaps suspects with 50,000 volts of electricity, disabling them for five seconds at a time. Critics say the weapon is ripe for abuse because the shock leaves no obvious mark, other than what looks like a small bee sting. Human rights groups in the United States and abroad have called Tasers potential instruments of torture. ...

[C]ritics and watchdog groups say the Taser could be used to torture suspects and prison inmates to extract confessions or taunt them, and Amnesty International has called for a ban on their use pending studies on their long-term effects.

Another is the fact that even though

police say that 50,000 volts is a safe amount of electricity to absorb and that suspects shot with a Taser recover immediately,

I have no idea why we're supposed to regard police departments as experts on the physiological effects of electric shock. (In fact, voltage is not the real issue with regard to harm; even the little shocks you get from touching a doorknob after scuffing your feet on a carpet can be several thousand volts. Current in the more serious concern. Just 30 milliamps - that's 0.03 amps - through your heart could kill you.) In any event, there are real risks in using the device. People have died in the wake of being hit by tasers, although police invariably claim other causes unrelated to the device.

The thing that concerns me the most, however, was not really mentioned in the article, except once, indirectly.

"Surely it's better than being killed," said Dan Handelman, a founder of Portland [OR] Copwatch, a group that has been critical of that city's growing use of Tasers over the last year. "But it's not necessarily an acceptable replacement because it's not being used - at least in Portland - in place of lethal force, it's being used for compliance."

The infliction of pain, sometimes intense, to "secure compliance" - better described as meek and unquestioning obedience - is well-established practice among police forces everywhere. With the increasing availability of tasers, especially combined with repeated assurances that they are safe and even "humane," will come the increasing temptation to use them routinely, no longer in lieu of lethal force but in lieu of persuasion and patience, no longer against someone posing a physical threat but against someone giving "a hard time," no longer for protection but for dominance.

The movement for nonlethal alternatives in police work is a good one. Tasers should not be regarded as part of that effort.

Footnote: Supporters of tasers say there's nothing to fear regarding abuse because of built-in safeguards.

Each Taser, which is powered by batteries, has a data port that records each shock and is used by police departments when they prepare incident reports, allowing supervisors to count how many times a Taser was fired.

So our protection against abuse by police is internal police reports? I feel so much better.

Update: Minor edits for clarity and correction of typos

Shocking science news

To protect and to serve, to protect and to serve, just keep repeating it, over and over. Maybe you'll believe it in spite of it all, such as this from AP for July 1:

RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled 'bots for the police and the Pentagon.

By adding Tasers to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corp. says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool.

Yep, it's a robot armed with a taser. They still have to be guided by a human, but it makes the use of tasers one step more a standard procedure, one step easier, as now the shooter doesn't even have to be anywhere near the victim in order to deliver a 50,000 volt shock - repeatedly, if they so desire.

It's not even the first example: A rival company already makes a track-wheeled robot that can be fitted with a taser with a laser-dot aim.

John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org is concerned that it's a step on the road to a time when autonomous robots would decide on their own when to use force, even lethal force. Admittedly, it's hard to be reassured on that score when a company executive says "Right now, we have no plans to take any robot with a lethal-weapon approach to the market," emphasis of course added, but my real concern remains what it has been since the beginning, that instead of how they were pitched, as a next-to-last alternative to lethal force, tasers would become a first alternative, a convenience, a way not to avoid violence but to "secure compliance," i.e., enforce meek submission to orders.

I maintain that the history bears that out. I've noted numerous cases before, and here's another, this one from May and found via Left End of the Dial:

Waxahachie [Texas] resident Allen Nelms says a call to 911 to get medical attention for his diabetic seizure got him Tasered by police instead.

He said he still has no answer as to why police broke down his door with their guns drawn before shooting him multiple times with a Taser as he lay in bed.

Nelms, 52, is not only diabetic, he's partially disabled and has rheumatoid arthritis. Early in the morning of April 28, he was having a diabetic seizure, prompting his live-in love, Josie Edwards, to call 911 for paramedics. Instead, a police officer arrived, asked what was going on, and called for backup.

A half-dozen cops arrived, kicked in the couple's front door and with guns drawn stormed the bedroom where Nelms was lying in bed. They screamed at him to get on the floor, ignored his pleas that he had called for medical help, not the police, shot him at least three times with tasers, and handcuffed him, relenting only when paramedics intervened as the cops went to pull the taser barbs out of him.

In her statement, Edwards, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is on oxygen, said the cops were "laughing." They also demanded to know what she was doing there and upon being told she lived there, they wanted to know

about what time Nelms came home and if he was drunk or on drugs, if he ever got into fights or if he had hit her.

Nelms said he'd never before had a problem with calling for paramedics and had no history of violence during seizures. After he was checked over, the police and paramedics left. No charges were filed.

Nelms and Edwards filed a complaint, which resulted in a bored one-paragraph response five days later that claimed an internal investigation had determined that - wow, as much of a shock as the taser hits - the cops had acted properly.

Footnote: The case isn't over yet; local attorney Rodney Ramsey has filed notice with the city on Nelms’ behalf to preserve all documentation and evidence relating to the incident.

“I don’t care if I make a dime on this case. I don’t care if this costs me money,” he said. “I want to know what policy says you can kick somebody’s door down and Taser them for asking for medical help. This is not going to happen in this town anymore.”

Ramsey said he wants the names of the officers involved in the incident and that he will renew his efforts to see a citizens review board of police established in the city....

Footnote two: Another real shocker: Nelms is black. Mister Injustice Roberts, any comments?

Are you shocked?

Everybody, it seems, is talking about the incident at the University of Florida when a student named Andrew Meyer who was aggressively questioning speaker John Kerry was arrested and tasered.

About half of the focus has been on the student and about half on the cops with some room left over to sneer at Kerry for what more than one called "sonorously droning on" as the incident unfolded. Dealing with those in reverse order and so getting to my real concern last (wait for it), I first want to offer a mild defense of John Kerry.

There are a number of news accounts of the incident, but they tend to start at different points and so some things get lost. One is that when Meyer first went to the mike - and apparently he did push to the head of the line - he vocally complained that members of the audience did not have enough time to question Kerry, which may well have been true: After Kerry spoke for 45 minutes, there was a time of, if you will, official questions from one person, leaving the audience no more than 25 minutes for Q&A. At that point, campus police went to remove Meyer but Kerry intervened, saying he should be allowed his question. He answered a question from across the hall and then went back to Meyer.

Meyer asked three questions - why did Kerry concede the 2004 election in the face of evidence of foul electoral play (referring to Greg Palast's noteworthy book Armed Madhouse), why is there no move to impeach Bush to prevent an attack on Iran, and was Kerry in the Skull & Bones Society at Yale along with Bush - but did so at considerable length and even at that point seemed in no mood to relinquish the mike. His mike was cut off, campus police moved in on him, and the struggle began. At that point, Kerry can be heard on various videos saying "It's all right, let me answer his question."

Now, what Kerry should have done at that point is gone down off the stage, up to the cops, and said "I said it was all right!" and insist they let Meyer go - and then he should have said to Meyer that he will answer his questions but in return Meyer had to agree to surrender the mike when he, Kerry, was done.

He didn't. But he did enable the questions to be asked at all and did at least make some objection to the police action by saying that it was okay and he would answer them. He indicated later that "I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption," which at least implies he thinks the police overreacted.

One other thing: Some have written about Kerry "droning on" (he was actually answering the question about the 2004 election) while Meyer was "screaming in pain." Okay, but remember that the videos are taken just feet from Meyer. Kerry, who was using a sound system, can barely be heard in the background. What makes anyone think that Meyer's cries were any more noticeable or intelligible where Kerry was than Kerry's voice was where Meyer was?

Enough of that. There has also been some commentary about Meyer himself. Some of it, as Jon Swift astutely pointed out, came from conservatives denouncing the Left's suppression of free speech until it sank in that Meyer is to the left of Kerry, at which point all bets were off and all of the commentary from all sources, it seems, was intended to label him just a troublemaker who got what he deserved. Well, yes, he was an obnoxious loudmouth - the screaming for help that began when the cops tried to hustle him out of the hall, i.e., even before he was actually arrested, and the subsequent appeals to onlookers to follow the cops because otherwise they'd kill him made him look particularly boorish to me - but no, no way did he get what he deserved or deserve what he got. The police acted hastily, stepped in unnecessarily, were overly aggressive and violent, and bottom line were responsible for creating an incident where there need not have been one.

On Countdown, Rachel Maddow was asked if upon first seeing the video, she thought "overzealous campus police who went too far or loudmouthed activist looking to make trouble who was dealt with?" She answered "Yes." That's exactly my take on it, which is why my real focus, my real concern, is one one particular point:

The taser.

The goddam em-effing taser.

Once again we see the police whipping out a taser like some cliché old-West gunslinger to intimidate and punish rather than to protect. There is no doubt from the multiple videos that Meyer was first threated with being, and then was, tasered for nothing more than failure to cooperate. In fact, while it's hard to be certain, this video seems to show that he was already handcuffed when he was tasered; clearly he was on his stomach with his hands behind his back. He was handcuffed and shocked despite his clear statement that if released we would leave quietly (which getting him to do was the original point, supposedly). They tasered him not because they had to but because they could.

But maybe they couldn't. According to the Ocala Star-Banner's account, University Police Department Captain Jeff Holcomb

said there would be an investigation into whether the officers used force appropriately, adding that employing a Taser gun would only be justified in a case where there was a threat of physical harm to officers.

Which there very clearly was not. He was very painfully shocked with 50,000 volts not because he was a threat, not because of any danger he presented to the six campus police on him, but because he refused to actively cooperate, meekly and submissively, with police demands. This was the deliberate infliction of physical pain not in self-defense but as punishment for resistance. And frankly if it was up to me the cops responsible would not only be fired, they would be prosecuted for criminal assault. Perhaps we can at least hope for some kind of reprimand, although the University may be trying to fashion an out: One report which I can't locate now (so no link) said one cop was injured - so we may well be treated to a claim that the six of them feared for their safety in the face of this one kid lying face down on the floor.

It's far from the first case where tasers have been used in such a way. Sold by the manufacturers on the grounds that they offer an alternative to potentially lethal violence, they have from the beginning been something else. They very first time I mentioned them, 3¹/₂ years ago, I declared that

[w]ith the increasing availability of tasers ... will come the increasing temptation to use them routinely, no longer in lieu of lethal force but in lieu of persuasion and patience, no longer against someone posing a physical threat but against someone giving "a hard time," no longer for protection but for dominance.

That is, they would become weapons not of protection but of convenience, used not to save lives but to save effort, to secure not public order but passive obedience. And that, in fact, is exactly what they have become, as incident after incident after incident has shown.

From AP last month:

In a confrontation captured on videotape, a hospital security guard fired a stun gun to stop a defiant father from taking home his newborn, sending both man and child crashing to the floor. ...

"I've got to wonder what kind of moron would Tase an adult holding a baby," said George Kirkham, a former police officer and criminologist at Florida State University. "It doesn't take rocket science to realize the baby is going to fall."

[William] Lewis, 30, said the April 13 episode began after he and his wife felt mistreated by staff at the Woman's Hospital of Texas and they decided to leave. Hospital employees told him doctors would not allow it, but Lewis picked up the baby and strode to a bank of elevators.

He was confronted by security guards, one of who, within 40 seconds of the encounter, prepared to use his taser. The hospital defended the guards, claiming Lewis "became verbally abusive by using vulgar expletives," behavior it called "threatening." Yes, oh my gosh, he used vulgar expletives! I'm sure they were things neither guard had ever heard before!

And, as it all too typical in this case, who got charged? Lewis, of course, charged with endangering a child, I assume by dropping it when he was tasered. That was so bogus that a grand jury refused to indict him.

More recently, this is from the New York Daily News for Monday (via AmericaBlog):

A retired 20-year veteran of the NYPD said yesterday that cops used excessive force against his son when they zapped him four times with a Taser, hit him 15 times with a nightstick and put him in a choke hold.

Retired Lt. Alexander Lombard said his son, Alexander Lombard 3rd, 17, was beaten by cops after they arrived at a "community sponsored" barbecue at 126th St. and Park Ave. last month. ...

But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement that a police sergeant "employed a Taser against the suspect's ankle" to subdue him after responding to a large disturbance at about 3:30 a.m.

Which is curious since the photo accompanying the story shows what sure as hell looks like taser burns on Lombard's side. If the cop didn't know the difference between Lombard's ankle and side, I strongly suspect there are two other more traditionally-compared parts of his own body about which he is equally confused.

[Noel] Leader, [co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care,] who went with the father and son to file a complaint with the Internal Affairs Bureau, pointed out that disorderly conduct was the sole charge against Lombard.

"The mere fact that he was hit with a Taser four times," Leader said, "and there's no resisting arrest charge, no criminal possession of a weapons charge - it's evident to me that this incident did not justify use of a stun gun."

An amazing number of them don't. Far, far too many. Tasers have become (if they were not always) exactly what I predicted from the start they would be: Weapons not of last resort save guns, but of first resort, weapons used not for self-protection but for securing passive obedience, weapons of control and cruelty that express not a cop's concern for their safety but their inability to control their own frustration. They should be banned.

Footnote: Perhaps an unnecessary one since this seems to be getting spammed into comments on this, but under the heading Frontiers of Free Enterprise comes a website (to which I will not link) that the day after the incident at the University of Florida was hawking "shirts, hats, buttons, stickers and more" reading "Don't Tase Me, Bro'" and "What Did I Do?"

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 2: The case of Kim Potter and Duante Wright

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 2: The case of Kim Potter and Duante Wright

Kim Potter                             Duante Wright

Okay, let's get to this.

On December 23, Minnesota local cop Kim Potter was convicted of first- and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of 20-year-old Duante Wright during a traffic stop in April. You probably recall this was the case where she shot him, thinking, she said, she was using her Taser, a claim that at the time was widely mocked by civil right activists and the local community and numerous places on the left.

Potter was jailed immediately after the verdict with sentencing set for February 22. I don't know why it should take two months for that, but that's the date.

Overall, I think the best reaction came from the ACLU, which tweeted "This verdict is still not justice. True justice doesn't come one verdict at a time. Real justice means that these situations do not happen in the first place."

I'll get to my own take on this outcome later but first, I want to talk about something else, something that this case raised for me when it first hit the news in April, something I have talked about before but which has gotten far too little attention and to which this case should draw attention but I fear won't: the fact that the screwed-up way we train police in this country leads to, produces, cases such as this one.

Because the fact is, we are teaching police to be afraid. We are teaching, and I mean actively teaching, cops to be in constant fear of instant death, to be prepared to shoot first and ask questions later, to feel it's not only their right but their duty to avoid to the extent possible any degree of risk even when that means just shifting the risk onto non-cops.

One notorious example is the so-called "21-foot rule" or "Tueller drill." Even though it was only intended as a training exercise, it is actively taught in some police academies and widely accepted informally among police forces. It is the idea that someone with a bladed weapon who is 21 feet away can attack and kill you before you as a cop can unholster your gun and get off a good shot. Not only has it been debunked, it has been twisted and distorted to mean that if you are carrying a blade within 21 feet of a cop, they are justified in shooting you on the grounds that they felt they were at immediate risk of death; no actual aggressive move on your part is required.

There is the widely-used "Bulletproof Warrior" seminars from Illinois-based outfit called Calibre Press, seminars which press the idea that "officer safety" is the overriding consideration in any interaction with non-cops and pushes the implicit notion that general public views cops as their enemy.

There was the so-called "research document" promoted by the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association a year ago that called Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists "terrorists" who were plotting "extreme violence" and described civil right protesters as "useful idiots."
    
We are both formally and informally, officially and unofficially, teaching police to be afraid. We are teaching them to be scared all the time. We are teaching them to think of every non-cop as a potential suspect and even a potential assailant.

That's why, for example, to cops there are police and there are "civilians," a term that by default defines the police as a military force, an army. It's why in any encounter with police we will likely be regarded as a "suspect" and therefore by definition dangerous to some degree or another.

It's an overall pattern, and overall way of thinking, that gets instilled in cops that leaves them in a constant state of stress. And note I didn't say alertness, I said stress.

I've talked about this before, how in watching videos of shootings by police, I was struck by how often the cops sounded scared. I particularly remember the video of the killing of Philando Castile in 2016. The cop has the gun, it is pointed at Castile, who is sitting and obviously unarmed, but I clearly recall thinking that despite that, the cop sounded terrified - and that wasn't the only example.

Which brings us back around to Kim Potter and Duante Wright. I'm going to revisit something I said in the spring, shortly after this hit the news, because, as I said at the time, it demonstrated what I maintain are multiple things wrong with how we train police. Some of what fllows is quoting that earlier post.

We start the incident with the male cop, Potter's partner, approaching Wright's car after he was pulled over. The cop approaches the car with his gun out and demands Wright get out of the car. Immediately: Why is his gun out? The tension is mounting before anything even happens.

Wright says "For what?" and the cop answers "I'll explain to you when you get out of the car." Again: Cops are taught they they have to be in control of the situation, to dominate the situation, at all times. Why couldn't he have said "You have an expired inspection sticker," which is supposedly the reason they pulled him over in the first place? Why couldn't he just answer the question instead of responding, in effect, "Be quiet and do what I tell you" and so raising the tension further and giving Wright cause not to cooperate but to fear cooperation? So why? Because that's what cops are taught: to be in charge and accept nothing other than passive submission.

Wright starts to get out of his car but then tries to get back in. Potter runs up to join the other cop. There is a struggle. The tension is stretched to the limit. Potter is heard shouting "I'll tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!" - then a bang and a second later, "Holy shit, I shot him."

In the wake of this, the police chief said he believed Potter intended to use a Taser but mistakenly drew her gun, a claim that was, as I said, widely ridiculed.

And on its face, it does seem absurd. A cop's gun is about a pound heavier than a Taser, is a different color and an at least somewhat different feel.

So here's the question: Did I believe, do I believe Potter told the truth? Did I believe, do I believe that she shot Daunte Wright thinking she was Tasering him? The answer is yes, I did and I do. And again it relates to failures in how we train police.

Most police departments, including the one here, require that officers carry their guns on their dominant side and Tasers on the opposite side, which is supposed to lower the risk of confusing the two. But the instant I heard that, I said "That's wrong, that's ridiculous, that's the opposite of what it should be." Because under stress, in a high-stress, adrenaline-pumping situation, you are going to default to your dominant hand. Having your gun on your dominant side is going to increase the risk of tragedies such as that of Daunte Wright.

Betsy Brantner Smith of the National Police Association said it's called "slip and capture" and likened it to getting into a rental car, going to start it up, and reaching for how you start your own car before realizing that's not where you are.

It's also called "muscle memory" and you know damn well you have experienced it. Hell, I had my current car for six months before I finally stopped reaching for the gear shift in the wrong place. You've experienced it, you know you have, and you weren't even under stress.

What's more, this is certainly not the first time this has happened, of a cop shooting someone thinking they were firing a Taser. There are documented cases of it. So can I believe that Kim Potter shot Daunte Wright believing at that moment that she was Tasering him? Yes, I can. Because of the way she was trained. That, it shouldn't need to be said but probably is, does not excuse it. In the immortal words of Mr. Spock, "I understand. I do not approve."

So if I were the sentencing judge, what would I do? I have genuine sympathy for Kim Potter. I believe it was a genuine mistake - something on which, I will note, it seems most observers now agree. Not, however, some places on the left; the Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, used the term "murder," which while technically legally correct, still carries a heavy connotation of deliberateness, something made explicit by Color of Change which said of Potter "her actions were not accidental," which if it means anything at all it means they're saying she shot Wright on purpose.

I also noted more a recent video, from the body cam of a cop who arrived soon enough to see what happened but not soon enough to be involved, showing the immediate aftermath of the shooting, showing Kim Potter on the ground, crying, her remorse both immediate and extreme, extreme to the point where that cop took her gun for evidence but let her hold his - and then went back and took his gun back because of fear of what she might do as she leaned on a fence going "I just want to die."

So I do have genuine sympathy for her. But at the same time, we can't let this go. We can't let it pass. She made a mistake and she's sorry, but someone died. There has to be punishment; there have to be consequences.

So with all that in mind, if I were the sentencing judge I would go for 3.5 years followed by several years of probation and community service and I would very likely say she could never again be a cop. Anywhere - none of this going to another jurisdiction and getting hired there. Anywhere.

I guarantee you that for some people that would not be nearly enough and some news accounts say prosecutors intend to push for something close to the maximum of 15 years to "make a point." But I think that would only add another tragedy to a tale that already had enough of them.

Because the point I would make is that while it is true as we so often say that we can't address police violence and brutality without addressing racism, particularly in our police forces but in our society as well, it's equally true that we can't address police violence and brutality without addressing the screwed-up way we are training them to think.

The shocking truth

Every time there is an incident involving an injury caused by a Taser, the company vociferously denies any connection between its oh so safe device and its results. No matter what happens, it's always someone or something else's fault. But the cases keep trickling in. The Indianapolis Star for last Friday reported that

[a] Taser stun gun used on an Indiana man by a Chicago police officer this year caused the 54-year-old man's death, though drug use was also a contributing factor, the Cook County medical examiner's office said.

Ronald Hasse received a five-second electrical burst from the Taser, followed by a 57-second charge, Dr. Scott Denton, a deputy medical examiner, said Thursday.

A 57-second charge? A 57-second charge? That's not "stunning" someone, that's not "subduing" someone, that borders on, if it doesn't cross the line right over into, outright torture.

Taser International jumped on the autopsy's conclusion that Hasse had an extremely high level of methamphetamines in his blood; a company PR flack said he was "bewildered" that the drugs weren't listed as the cause of death. But

[t]he drug probably would not have killed Hasse without getting "pushed over the edge" by the stun gun jolts, Denton said.

And the simple fact is that despite the high level of speed, Hasse didn't die until he was shocked.

Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline stopped the distribution of an additional 200 Tasers after Hasse died. He did not halt the use of the weapons by police, however. ...

Meanwhile, officials in the suburban Chicago community of Dolton initiated a federal class action lawsuit alleging Taser misled them with campaigns emphasizing the stun gun's safety.

The lawsuit filed in Chicago last week contends the device has never been "adequately or independently tested" and has been involved in deaths around the nation.

The village wants a refund of the $8,572 it spend on the Tasers, the lawsuit says.

Good for them and let's hope they are able to carry this through to victory.

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5, Page One: Some thoughts prompted by the Derek Chauvin conviction

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5, Page One: Some thoughts prompted by the Derek Chauvin conviction

I was happy that Derek Chauvin was convicted for the murder of George Floyd. I have to say that because of my overall feelings about the US criminal injustice system it feels rather creepy to say this, to say I was happy someone was convicted of murder, but I was.

I wasn't really surprised when it happened. First because the case appeared overwhelming and the fact that the usual "split-second decision" excuse was unavailable left the defense reduced to a string of "could be"s lacking any real basis coupled to the notion that some undetermined one of those "could be"s just happened by some truly remarkable coincidence to kill Floyd at the same time his neck was being crushed into the pavement. Second, because the jury came back so quickly, usually a bad sign for a defendant.

I was a little surprised that it was on all three counts - I more expected the jury to convict on two of the charges to give an impression, as juries often wish to do, of really working through the implications of all the testimony. But this jury obviously and I'd say correctly thought that unnecessary. The evidence was that overwhelming.

Which - leave it to me to find the downside - may become our societal means to ignore the broader meaning of the case. Precisely because the abuse was so blatant, precisely because the indifference to human life was so obvious, precisely because the evidence was so overwhelming, overwhelming to the point that even other cops testified against Chauvin, which is almost unheard of, precisely because of that, we can and I fear will dismiss it as an outlier, as not reflecting the day-to-day reality of how black Americans are treated by cops so very differently from how white Americans are.

Which is why the less shocking but for that very reason more important case is that of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, shot and killed by police in Chicago on March 29. It's important because it's a more common one, one where it is not completely cut and dried with no room for questions and so one where all the usual excuses are trotted out, all the usual justifications are cited.

Derek Chauvin

Based on body cam and surveillance video of the event, it appears Toledo had had a gun - notice the past tense - which he might still have had when he was confronted by the cop. At a command to "Show me your effing hands," he turns and raises his hands. They're empty. So either he had already ditched the gun or he tossed it as he turned. Doesn't matter. He gets shot. He later dies. And another unarmed black person gets buried.

To the police, this was an "armed confrontation" and prosecutors initially claimed a gun was in Toledo’s hand when he was shot. The body cam forced them to drop that particular line, but the assertions that the cop was "100% right" are already echoing and the "split-second decision" banners are already being waved.

And the result will likely be that the cop involved will face no charges and not even departmental discipline. Which makes Adam Toledo more revealing than George Floyd - because that is the usual result: In 98.3% of killings by police from 2013-2020, no charges of any kind were filed - and in those that were, only a quarter resulted in convictions.

Meanwhile black people are three times more likely than whites to be killed by cops - and those black victims are more likely to have been unarmed than the white ones, figures doubtless driven in significant part by the same racism that has black males perceived - especially by whites - as bigger and more menacing than whites of the same height and weight and black boys as older than they are. 13-year-old Adam Toledo was described in the initial police report as being between 18 and 25.

Reformers often call for "improved training" but as others have pointed out, that will not solve the problem of the racism driving much of the difference in treatment.

And yes, that's true - but training does impact that problem and it does relate to the overall question of police violence and brutality because not being black is not absolute protection against that. Just ask the water protectors from the Dakota Access Pipeline encampment or for that matter pretty much any '60s antiwar protester.

The fact we need to face is that the way we train police makes brutality more likely. And I'm not referring here to "we should teach them de-escalation techniques" or some such, not to what we should do, but to what we do do.

Adam Toledo

And the reality is, we are teaching police to be afraid. We are teaching them to be scared all the time. We are teaching them to think of every non-cop as a potential suspect and even a potential assailant. One notorious example is the so-called "21-foot rule" or "Tueller drill." Even though it was only intended as a training exercise, it is actively taught in some police academies and widely accepted informally among police forces. It is the idea that someone with a bladed weapon who is 21 feet away can attack and kill you before you as a cop can unholster your gun and get off a good shot. It has been debunked but still leaves police with the feeling that anyone within 21 feet of them is a potential threat.

But it's not just that rule, it's an overall pattern, and overall way of thinking, that gets instilled in cops that leaves them in a constant state of stress. And note I didn't say alertness, I said stress.

I've talked about this before, how in watching videos of shootings by police, I was struck by how often the cops sounded scared. I particularly remember the video of the killing of Philando Castile. The cop has the gun, it is pointed at Castile, who is sitting and obviously unarmed, but I clearly recall thinking that despite that, the cop sounded terrified - and that wasn't the only example.

All of which brings us to the killing of Daunte Wright by cop Kim Potter in a suburb of Minneapolis on April 11. This was the case where the cop shot him with her gun, supposedly thinking she was wielding a taser. And it demonstrated what I maintain are multiple things wrong with how we train police.

First off, the male cop who first approached the car had his gun out and demanded Wright get out of the car.

Wright says "For what?" and the cop answers "I'll explain to you when you get out of the car." Right off: Cops are taught they they have to be in control of the situation, to dominate the situation, at all times. Why couldn't he have said "You have an expired inspection sticker," which is supposedly the reason they pulled him over in the first place? Why couldn't he just answer the question instead of responding, in effect, "Be quiet and do what I tell you" and so raising the tension and giving Wright cause not to cooperate but to fear cooperation? Why? Because that's what cops are taught: to be in charge and accept nothing other than passive submission.

Daunte Wright

Wright starts to get out of his car but then tries to get back in. Potter runs up to join the other cop. The tension has already soared. Potter is heard shouting "I'll tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!" - and then a second later, "Holy shit, I shot him."

In the wake of this, the police chief said he believes Potter intended to use a Taser but mistakenly drew her gun, a claim widely ridiculed by civil right activists and the local community.

And on its face, it does seem absurd. A cop's gun is about a pound heavier than a taser, is a different color and an at least somewhat different feel.

So here's the question: Can I believe Potter told the truth? Can I believe that she shot Daunte Wright thinking she was tasering him? The answer is yes, I can. And again it relates to failures in how we train police.

Most police departments, including the one here, require that officers carry their guns on their dominant side and Tasers on the opposite side, which is supposed to lower the risk of confusing the two. But the instant I heard that, I said "that's wrong, that's ridiculous, that's the opposite of what it should be." Because under stress, in a high-stress, adrenaline-pumping situation, you are going to default to your dominant hand. Having your gun on you dominant side is going to increase the risk of cases such as that of Daunte Wright.

Betsy Brantner Smith of the National Police Association said it's called "slip and capture" and likened it to getting into a rental car, going to start it up, and reaching for how you start your own car before realize that's not where you are.

It's also called "muscle memory" and you know damn well you have experienced it. Hell, I have a car I've had for six months and I've finally stopped reaching for the gear shift in the wrong place. You've experienced it and you weren't even under stress.

What's more, this is certainly not the first time this has happened, of a cop shooting someone thinking they were firing a taser. There are documented cases of it. So can I believe that Kim Potter shot Daunte Wright believing at that moment that she was tasering him? Yes, I can. Because of the way she was trained. That, it shouldn't need to be said but probably is, does not excuse it. In the immortal words of Mr. Spock, "I understand. I do not approve."

And it also doesn't mean that racism was not a factor in the killing of Wright, if only because our society is such that it's difficult to completely ignore race in any interaction between blacks and whites.

So yes, it's true that we can't address police violence and brutality without addressing racism, particularly in our police forces but in our society as well. But it's also true that we can't address police violence and brutality without addressing how we are training them to think.

Big shock

Or a bigger shock. Or, to be technically accurate, more shocks. AP for January 21 reports that

Taser International Inc. has changed how one of its stun gun models delivers its electric charge after some police officers said some combative suspects had been able to regain partial mobility while they were being stunned, the company said Friday.

The change will make the X26 stun gun about 14 percent more powerful, The New York Times reported.

Apparently, the device now gives a rapid series of shocks lasting two seconds followed by a slower series for two seconds. The change will result in the rapid series of shocks continuing for the entire five seconds.

Laughably, even though the result will be to subject victims to a greater number of shocks and is specifically intended to prevent the possibility of someone "regaining partial mobility" during the attack, the company denied this was a case of making the device more powerful, likening it to a "software upgrade." I wonder if anyone reminded the company flack making the announcement that software upgrades are frequently described as making the application "more powerful."

Footnote: Taser Inc. is the target of various probes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Arizona Attorney General have said they are looking into claims Taser has made about safety studies for its stun guns. The SEC also is reviewing a $1.5 million, Dec. 31 sale by Taser to a firearms distributor that some analysts have questioned because it appears to inflate sales to meet annual projections.

That last item interests me because it carries the implication that the buggers aren't selling as well as the corporate honchos expected, which I would regard as good news.

When you wish upon a (sheriff's) star

Many people, me among them, have long called for the development and distribution of non-lethal weaponry to police. While I've always been against the Taser, others have pushed it as a means to defuse situations that would otherwise turn violent. To those people, I would say be careful what you wish for. From the Miami Herald for November 13:

A Miami-Dade police officer used a Taser to stop an unarmed, 12-year-old girl who was running away from him after she was caught skipping school, police acknowledged Friday night.

The incident happened Nov. 5, just over two weeks after other Miami-Dade officers used a stun gun to restrain a first-grader.

According to the police report, officer William Nelson got a complaint that some hooky-playing kids were swimming in a pool, drinking, and smoking cigars. When he got there he found the girl, apparently drunk, and told her to get dressed so he could take her to school. As they approached his squad car, she took off running. He chased her but being unable to catch her, shot her with his Taser, dropping her with a 50,000 volt shock.

He justified firing "for my safety along with [the girl's] safety." (Brackets in original.)

Right. A drunk 12-year old girl running away from him is a threat to his safety. He must have gotten that from the PBA manual under the heading "defensive maneuvers" - in the chapter "Avoiding Blame for Screwups."

In the earlier case, involving a 6-year old, the police justified the shooting because, they said, the boy was holding a piece of broken glass and threatening to cut himself. Okay, grant the situation at face value. What would the police have done if they didn't have Tasers? Shot him with a gun? Let's say that's unlikely. So what would they have done? Maybe patience? Persuasion? Calling in someone who knew the boy and knew how to handle him? A quick rush to grab him and the glass before he could use it on himself? What?

Whatever it was, why didn't they do it? Why did they resort to the Taser? This reveals the problems with such devices: They become substitutes not only for more violent actions - which is their supposed function - but for less violent ones as well. They become conveniences, something easy to reach for when things don't go easily otherwise. Dealing with a disturbed 6-year old, much less a drunk 12-year old, is difficult and frustrating. So just ZAP! knock them down and problem solved.

Instead of just defusing situations, Tasers become a constant temptation for police to escalate the level of force they employ. I say dump the suckers.

Footnote: I previously posted about Tasers on March 7 and July 26.

But don't count on it

The Policing Board in the UK

has formally endorsed the chief constable's decision to deploy Taser stun guns[, the BBC reports].

Twelve guns were given to specialist police teams in a pilot scheme in January. ...

The chief constable will decide if the weapon should be used on a permanent basis after an equality impact assessment is completed.

The decision was taken in the face of a legal challenge to be heard in January and a call by Sinn Féin for the action to be deferred until after the judicial review.

In defense of the move, police officials pulled out the usual clichés:

The DUP's Peter Weir said it was a "logical move".

"Would the opponents of Tasers rather that police officers were forced to use handguns in every situation where a Taser should be used?

"Or perhaps they would like to make it impossible for the police to use necessary and proportionate force in order to defend innocent members of the public?"

This kind of sneering dismissal is not only bullshit, it's not even original bullshit. It's run of the mill bullshit that presents guns as the only alternative to tasers and suggests that opposition to tasers equals opposition to public safety. It really reads, "You're either with us or you're with the criminals! Why do you hate innocent members of the public?"

But if the record of tasers was one demonstrating that it only gets used in cases where otherwise guns would be used, there would be minimal opposition. The point, the point, the point - the point that never seems to register with these chowderheads is that tasers are frequently, mostly, used not as an alternative to deadly force, but as an alternative to any force, often enough to no force. Used instead as a means of domination, of humiliation, of intimidation, as punishment for resistance, as a convenience rather than a necessity.

Meanwhile, Great Britain is not the only place experiencing tasermania. Police in the Australian state of New South Wales are expanding their deployment of tasers.

Specially-trained police officers at this year’s Bathurst 1000 [auto race] will be equipped with taser stun guns after Commissioner Andrew Scipione yesterday announced the weapons would be issued to general duties police officers across the state. ...

Until yesterday, the weapon was restricted to the NSW Police Force’s riot squad and elite tactical operations unit, but now general officers with special training will be able to carry the weapon.

As has become typical, the decision to expand the use of tasers, which were described by local police commander Lionel White as "just another tool," came before, not after, a NSW Ombudsman report into their safety, which is not expected to be presented to the NSW parliament until later this month.

Footnote: Scipione said tough police procedures would avert the sort of deaths that have been associated with the weapons.

“We have really strong ... procedures that govern the way we use these devices and it can’t happen here[," he said.]

They had "strong procedures" in New York, too.

Maybe this is the one that will get them thinking

Maybe a different kind of tragedy is what's required to move them. From Reuters:

A New York City police lieutenant committed suicide on Thursday, eight days after ordering the use of a Taser stun gun against an emotionally disturbed man who then fell to his death, police said.

Lt. Michael Pigott had been on desk duty since the September 24 incident, when police responded to an emergency call saying that a man, Iman Morales, 35, was behaving erratically in his Brooklyn apartment.

Police chased Morales naked through the building and then he stepped onto a ledge. After a standoff, Pigott, a 21-year veteran of the police department, ordered a sergeant to fire a Taser at Morales.

Morales fell 10 feet (three meters) to the sidewalk and died of severe head trauma.

Pigott was stripped of his gun and badge and put on desk duty for violating department rules against using a taser in "in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface." He was described by colleagues as "torn up" over the incident and he said he was "truly sorry."

Apparently, he was. On Thursday morning, he went into a police locker room, got another officer's gun, and shot himself in the head.

The sharp edge of this double tragedy is that Michael Pigott, the man who realized the enormity of what he had done, who apparently knew there had to be consequences, it couldn't be brushed off, became his own second victim, one more sufferer, physically and mentally. And at the same time, those who would dismiss what happened to Morales, just like those who shrugged off the cases of Pastor Al Poisson, of Andrew Meyer, even of Robert Dziekanski, undoubtedly sleep quite soundly.

But this time a cop died. So maybe, just maybe, it will make them think a little.

Current events

This story is a few days old but I just came across it yesterday via Truth Not Tasers and it seemed worthy of mention.

According to the Asbury Park (NJ) Press, the Attorney General's Committee on Less-Lethal Force is considering allowing the use of tasers by police in the state. The panel is being heavily lobbied by - of course - Taser International and - of course - the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police, the latter of which said through a representative that

[i]f there is a way that officers can perform their sworn duty without employing deadly force, then we have a moral obligation to do so.

Interestingly, that "moral obligation" did not seem to revolve around saving lives but about sparing police the trauma of shooting someone, which "often require[s] thousands of hours of counseling and support to overcome."

Typically, supporters of tasers arranged for a parade of witnesses who "trumpeted the praises" of what they described as a "tool" rather than a weapon and downplayed its effects, saying it

said sends small projectiles onto a suspect's skin, scrambles the nervous system for about five seconds, then leaves one blinking but unharmed.

They also presented it as something used only in the worst situations. Aside from the NJFOP's connection of the use of tasers to avoiding "deadly force," there was this:

Toms River's Frank Rogers, a retired deputy superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, told the panel the weapon allows an officer to stay safely away from a suspect while still disabling the person without having to use a conventional gun.

In short, the same old bullshit. Fortunately, there was some skepticism among panel members.

One panel member, Robert Davison, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Essex County, said he worried police might rely on the Taser when time and talking might restore calm to a chaotic moment.

Dentist Maryam Seluki of Willingboro said she opposes such weaponry. "These have a great potential for being lethal and for being abused."

Meanwhile, Tom Smith, CEO of Taser Int., claimed in response to being asked if being tasered was painful that "We have had people describe it as pain. We've had people describe it as pleasure." However, he didn't specify whether the latter group consisted of people being tased or of people doing the tasing.

He also said that New Jersey is the only state where the use of tasers is banned. Another good thing to be said for my old home state. May it lose that honor only by becoming, initially, "one of a few" states to ban the suckers.