Phoenix Man Dies After Being Tasered (24 Yr Old)

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005050316440001150542&dt=20050503164400&w=APO&coview=

A man suspected of assaulting a police officer died Tuesday after being shocked multiple times with Taser stun guns during a struggle with police, authorities said.

The 24-year-old man had run out a back door of an apartment when officers tried to arrest him early Tuesday, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Randy Force said. A female officer caught up with the man and shocked him.

When the suspect continued to resist, another officer shocked him with his Taser, Force said. Police did not say exactly how many times the man was zapped.

The man, who was not immediately identified, went unconscious and was pronounced dead later at a hospital, Force said.

Seems like there's at least one death a week.

Why are they using these if they are causing this many random deaths?

I fear.

...are using tasers. 73 deaths?

It's a scary way to go, and media seem to love running it, but I doubt it's statistically significant compared to, say, deaths resulting from poor prison health care, for example, or gang-related deaths. :shrug:

Of course, death by "falling down stairs in prison" isn't as likely to make the news. :(

...except you are comparing these death rates to convicted and imprisoned folk...not those at liberty who have been convicted of no crime...one would think killing one of those would be a bad thing...

Of course. Innocent people die all the time, however. I'm just skeptical because it's an issue that pushes a lot of buttons and gets an awful lot of ink from a media that doesn't have a good track record of reporting on things that actually matter.

Cut it in half or more, say there are 2,000 police departments with dozens of officers each, using tasers 365 days a year on 25 calls a night...

:shrug:

but what possibly is being ignored here is the fact you have a dead person from the use of "non-deadly force". As a police officer, I am quite disturbed by the number of deaths being attributed to this device. While our department currently does not possess these items, it is being considered for use in the not too distant future. Personally, I do not want to be responsible (legally or morally) for the death of someone, regardless of how "well intended" my actions were.

...and yet, we find 73 deaths from the use of police tasers.

And it's apparently the same one being used by Amnesty International ("In the past three years, more than 70 people have died in the USA and Canada after being struck by M26 or X26 tasers.") in their November '04 report. If you look at the source, you'll find this little paragraph:

"The Arizona Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, has identified 73 cases in the United States and Canada of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In eight cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone's death. In 18 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor."

I'm guessing the others coronor's reports were not available, but assuming the 8:18 ratio continues, that's ~22-23 deaths. Considering Tasers have been in use since at least the early '90s, you're looking at ~1 Taser related death per year.

These Taser guns are giving cops too much power. It takes almost nothing to shock someone into submission (or death). It's way too easy.

It reminds me of the Abu-Ghraib situation. They abuse their power because, well, they can.

I'm not saying the cops are bad people. Studies have shown that just about ANYONE given absolute power and control will eventually abuse that privilege and continue doing so, even if it results in death.

If it's true that he continued to resist, perhaps they had no choice. Any death deserves a full investigation, but police do need a way to restrain certain law breakers. Let's not underestimate the difficult situations many police officers often find themselves in. Any time you violently resist arrest, you are putting your health at risk.

Please don't get me wrong, I think it is a terrible situation. Are tasers adjustable? Certainly not all individuals require the same dose.

It's called handcuffs.

You can't walk up to some guy holding a knife and slap cuffs on him. Not unless you're very brave (and stupid).

...show me where anyone in this charade EVEN alleges a knife???

...not to this case, where yes, they still had to subdue the man before he could be restrained:

"The 24-year-old man had run out a back door of an apartment when officers tried to arrest him early Tuesday, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Randy Force said. A female officer caught up with the man and shocked him.

When the suspect continued to resist..."

...as defined by a group of police type folks who chose to electrocute him....large surprise they now define him as a threat...if I had killed someone I'd describe them as scary too...

Edited:spelling

What on Earth are you basing that on? You're assuming guilt.

...of times by the police. Do you want to tell us that you believe his death was accidental? If you are, you need to tell us "what on Earth are you basing that on".

"The 24-year-old man died after being tasered an unknown number of times by the police."

See, the man was shocked an unknown number of times. Was it two? Three? Three dozen? Again I ask (and you didn't answer), what on Earth are you and catnhatnh basing your claims on?

"Do you want to tell us that you believe his death was accidental?"

Yes. Until a coroner's report and/or investigation is out, I'm assuming the cops are innocent. That's the way our justice system works here in the US, you see.

"If you are, you need to tell us "what on Earth are you basing that on"."

I'm basing it on:

1. Innocent until proven guilty.
2. The low rate of police abuse.
3. a. The very low rate of Taser-related deaths.
b. The even lower rate of deaths caused by Tasers. (See #48)
4. The guy was resisting arrest.
5. The apparent lack of any motive to kill him.

I should have used quotes. He asked how the cops are supposed to restrain someone.

They seem to have revolted against their human creators or something!

These tasers took away his life. The police use them on suspects, allegedly innocent until proven guilty. They use them on protesters, etc. By the way if you have not read Richard North Patterson's Conviction; it broke my heart. What a picture of America it paints. His last one, Balance of Power, took on the NRA and the gun lobby; this one capital punishment. Patterson, an American hero.

Nasty stuff and sometimes the cops get sprayed themselves when subdueing suspects, but I don't think it kills as frequently as these tasers seem to be doing.

I think they need to make the taser a weapon of last resort just before their firearms.

Perhaps there needs to be new training in escalation of force before they give them tasers. And perhaps more work needs to be done on taser lethality.

1.5 million scoville units.

Average heat level in Scoville units for a jalapeno pepper: 3500 to 4500.

Jesus.

that tasers were more effective than pepper spray?

I guess I am wondering if pepper spray ever killed anyone.

that it relies on pain compliance. The problem arises when you run into someone immune to OC or someone that feels no pain due to being on certain narcotics. That is a very dangerous situation. These are the cases when a Taser should be deployed.

But what about mace? Is it ineffective on drug users?

tasers recently, and I can't remember where. I'm gonna figure it out, though, because it was VERY good...

If this guy really did assault a police officer, he was VERY FORTUNATE that shooting him dead on the spot was not the first reaction. If being shot with a Taser is rolling the dice, especially if you have some pre-existing heart condition you don't know about, being shot in a vital area presents a much higher chance of immediate death.

Unfortunately, this does not at all excuse many, many other cases...

....Did you miss the spot that says he's DEAD...Tell me once more about luck PLEASE...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

...No it AIN'T...Again semantics,but critical ones...not "less than lethal", merely Less Lethal...ie:they kill LESS often...and while we allow cops to apply these like they are passing out handshakes and smiles folks who in the past might have taken a thumping or pepper spray discomfort are DEAD instead.This was originally designed to replace shooting only....would you accept a cop shooting someone FIVE or more times????? What is the controversy here other than abuse of force??

Edited:for spelling

This is not restraint, it's murder.

do you have to use the Taser. Sounds like this young guy was hit way too many times. He's had to have already been down at some point, then all it took to stop his heart was 'one more time.'

Officers applying an instrument designed to provide a level of force considered to be "less than deadly" cannot be in anyway construed as "murder". Please take one chill pill and call me in the morning.

Regards

Let's go with the 73 deaths total. I don't know when Tasers first came out, but they've been around awhile. Now add to that that the city of Phoenix alone used the taser 164 times in just 6 months*. That's ~320 times a year in a city of 1.3 million. Assuming that you can extrapolate that to the whole US population of ~295 million, that comes out to about 72,000 times per year. Even if there were 73 deaths per year, you'd be looking at a ~0.1% fatality rate. Assuming tasers have been out just 5 years, it drops to 0.02%. (And that of course is assuming that the 73 deaths are all attributable to the Taser.) Anyone know when they first came out? (Or better yet, a more accurate measure of how many times they have been used?)

* http://www.taser.com/documents/phoenixshootingsdecrease.pdf (Yes, it's Taser.com, but it's a PDF of an article from a Phoenix Newspaper)

...how many officers fired their guns and how often???

I don't have those stats, but for Phoenix, the number was 8 (16/year), which was half that of the previous year (which they attributed to use of the Tasers). Not that you can compare the two directly; Tasers are used on uncooperative/violent people as well as life or death situations. Guns are reserved for life/death situations. So a comparison isn't really possible unless you're looking at fatality rates. Which I'm going to guess you don't want to do, because the Taser will probably win that hands-down. ;)

but give me all three thru the introduction of the taser.Weapons fired, pepper spray, and taser...years involved,...etc...

I don't have the gun or pepper spray stats (and I'm not going to bother looking them up at this point). And again, you can't compare the three directly (certainly not pepper spray, which I can't imagine is the first thing a cop will reach for in a life-or-death situation).

My entire posting is about cops using excessive force...in point of fact I only asked to show that cops are now using tasers to REPLACE pepper spray.The three numbers would prove or disprove this.You quoted how many taser uses??? I'll bet the city would not put up with that many cops discharging weapons...

My point was that the Taser and deaths related (not necessarily caused by, but played a factor in) to it are a miniscule number. As for excessive force, well:

In 1991 (latest stats I could find; these are all per 1000 officers):

Handcuff/Leg Restraints: 490.4
Chemical Agents (Mace or Cap-Stun): 36.2
Electrical Devices (TASER): 5.4

I realize this doesn't really answer your question re: the replacement of chemical agents (do to the age of the data). It does show that Tasers have been in use for at least 14 years, so that 0.02% I calculated is almost certainly significantly HIGHER than the real fatality rate of TASERS. (I didn't bother calculating it; the use of Tasers has grown, so a straight-line average is probably introducing as much error as it would eliminate at this point. Doing so would also the number in favor of my position.)

Back to your point: The rate (again, this data is 14 years old, I know) of complaints for excessive force was, "a rate of 11.3 complaints per 100,000 population". Furthermore, of the age 16+ population of the US in 1999 (209,350,600), 43,827,400 had contact with the police. Of these 43.8 million contacts, 421,700 resulted in the use of force, or ~1% of all police encounters result in the use of any force. So while I certainly would never condone the use of excessive force, you need to keep it in perspective here--you're looking at a slice of 1% of all police encounters. Granted, that can still add up; if--total guess here!--5% of all forceful encounters result in excessive force, that would still be 21,000 incidents. Correspondingly, 1% would be 4,200 incidents.

"The three numbers would prove or disprove this."

How? What do guns have to do with non-lethal force? Non-lethal weapons are a bridge between the use of melee weapons (hand-to-hand, baton, etc.) and deadly force. I don't believe they're supposed to replace either and have seen nothing to suggest they are being used as such.

"I'll bet the city would not put up with that many cops discharging weapons"

I assume by "weapons" you mean guns. And no, they wouldn't because guns tend to kill people much more frequently than tasers. Justifying the use of a TASER and a gun are two different arguments, thus rendering the comparison here of "abuse" rather difficult to make.

All data came from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ndcopuof.pdf

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpp99.pdf

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ph98.pdf (I didn't use this one here, but you might find it interesting; it covers justifiable homicides by law enforcement .)

What's your point?

In situations where people are suicidal, for instance. Chemicals wouldn't necessarily be effective enough to stop said people. Tasers incapacitate (more or less) instantaneously and totally. But no, if the officer's (or someone other than the suspect) life is in danger, I imagine they'd almost certainly reach for their gun. Which again, makes the comparison between the three kind of silly...

...device. Is that a fair or unfair statement?

Trying to smother a subject with a blizzard of statistics is a tactic usually employed by the NeoCons when they want to hide something.

...but there are. Just as how no one should die from food poisoning or reactions to medicine. No system is perfect. But as the stats seem to indicate, Tasers are a relatively safe means of subduing suspects, with a fatality rate well under 1-tenth of one percent.

"Trying to smother a subject with a blizzard of statistics is a tactic usually employed by the NeoCons when they want to hide something."

:eyes: Or it could be the numbers don't lie and that Tasers are in fact relatively safe...

...People are being ELECTROCUTED.This is what they are dieing of.Not all of them or every time, but how long till one of yours or a neighbor's squares off against a cop and DIES instead of a night in a holding cell. Jesus Christ...these folks are trained in hand to hand combat and supposedly taught how to handle a crisis...and instead people are electrocuted??? Understand almost never are the officers alone...there are almost always multiple witnesses to these "unfortunate deaths".Maybe one in a hundred of these "suspects" is so wild and dangerous as to make it a hazard for even multiple trained officers to subdue a suspect...is this what we are seeing???

So is Media_Lies_Daily:

"This is what they are dieing of."

Let's look at "your" own source:

The 73 cases article links to here: http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special43/articles/0915taserlist16-ON.html

"The Arizona Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, has identified 73 cases in the United States and Canada--so again my 0.1% is too high for another reason--of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In eight cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone's death. In 18 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor."

I don't know where the missing 47 cases lie, but it certainly seems that the original number of 73 is grossly misleading; as of now there are only 8 confirmed cases (over 14 years) where the Taser was confirmed to have been a "cause, contributing factor or could not be ruled out" in a death.

How odd... :sarcasm:

Beth DeFalco
Associated Press
May. 4, 2005 04:38 PM

A father whose son died after being shocked multiple times with Taser stun guns is questioning police officers' repeated use of the weapon on his son, who by his father's account was healthy.

"There was no weak heart or illness issues involved with my son," Terry Graff said. <snip>

Tasers have been touted as less lethal than other ways of subduing combative people in high-risk situations. But the weapons have come under increasing scrutiny as a number of deaths have been blamed, at least partially, on the devices.

According to a recent Amnesty International report, there were 103 Taser-related deaths in the United States and Canada between June 2001 and March 2005. In several cases, medical examiners have cited Tasers as a contributing lethal factor for drug users and people with pre-existing conditions. <snip>

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0504az-taserdeath04-ON.html