Man dies after Taser shot

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050514/NEWS01/505140385/1077/news01

UNION TWP. - A 31-year-old man died about an hour after an officer with Clermont County's Union Township Police shot him with a Taser gun Friday.

Authorities are awaiting autopsy results to determine how Vernon A. Young died.

While Young is the first person in Greater Cincinnati to die shortly after being shot with the 50,000-volt weapon, he is among a growing number of people nationally who have died after being shot with a Taser.

His death comes amid mounting concern about the safety of the weapon and increased calls for further study into the effects of the weapon.

snip

You're not telling me that the "rigorous" testing done by the manufacturer might not tell the full story on the potentially lethal results of using a Taser? What will we tell the children?

Oops, too late, they're already being tasered.

Taser deaths.

...Clermont County Union Township police officer. What adjectives can be inserted where the "??" are to shead more light on this?

eom

all those people who died after being tasered were probably going to die that day anyway, right?

might have had something to do with it, yes?

someone would suggest reducing their power . . . I'm quite sure that a zap of 25,000 volts would be just as disabling as 50,000 -- and probably save more than a few lives . . .

it's the amps.

those guilty bastards!!!


In all seriousness, folks, what makes you think the tasering was the cause of the death? I'd offer a suggestion....if the cops tasered him, it's possible that they also beat him or put a choke hold on him.

I've been hit with tasers and stun guns literally thousands of times since the 1980s. It's really not that big of a deal.

are you certain there was no relationship or aggravation of that condition?

I had the heart problems because I take crappy care of myself....I eat too much, I smoke too much, and I don't exercise nearly enough. It'd be a real copout for me to say "Oh, yeah, getting shocked is what did it to me!"

Since the jury isn't out on the science yet regarding those amps.

(and I MEAN THIS NEXT statement in the most MOTHERLY way I can express it to my good friend DNR with whom I often spar)

It would be REAL irresponsible of you to that beautiful baby if you continued to be exposed to those tasers without clarifying that with your cardiologist.

:hug: (ya gun nut! :D)

Due to the new job, I no longer am exposed to those shocks as a part of routine training. That's a fringe benefit of moving from the executive to the judiciary.... ;)

BTW, thanks for your concern.... :hug:

you won't defend?

they hurt like hell, and don't have any positive "upside", except maybe to get you to wear shoes.


/notes that you asked....

I oppose the MISUSE of tasers...if you've got somebody subdued and restrained, I oppose using tasers on them. If they are not subdued and restrained and are resisting arrest, I prefer that tasers be used over most other less than lethal options. Why? Because once compliance is obtained and the subject is secured, and you stop shocking them, the pain goes away. That's not true with teargas and batons. The effects of chemical sprays lasts for hours, and the effects of batons can last for weeks.

"I've been hit with tasers and stun guns literally thousands of times since the 1980s. It's really not that big of a deal."

How, pray tell?

Are you a walking joy-buzzer? ;-)

but for someone with a heart prone to fibrillation it could be a death sentence.

Brutha you are full of it!

"I've been hit with tasers and stun guns literally thousands of times since the 1980s. It's really not that big of a deal."

That is pure crap! I have worked as a pro/semi-pro fighter for years, and i love pain, pain is my friend. Now that being said i have been tased too, and let me assure you it was a big deal. Searing pain through every muscle and vein in your body. It feels like millions of knives cutting their way out from the inside, then theres the jerky motion and tremors, the intense pain from having all your muscles contracting and you have no control of them. Granted simple stun guns do not do this, i can handle a stun gun like no ones business, but tasers are entirely different.

I will honestly say i prefer to be beaten with the billy stick, and maced than to be tased any day. Your statement that "it's no big deal" is a huge steaming pile of nonsense.

Oh... but it makes so much moooooonnnnnneeeeeeyyyyyy.

And sometimes, somebody becomes an Angel...(not that I believe in such nonsense, but I wanted to keep with the "It's a Wonderful Life" groove)

claims that tazers are perfectly safe. The study was based on analyzing the effects of a tazer on 28, count em, 28 perfectly healthy young people with no cardiac problems. This good news has allowed the Tazer stock to rebound nicely. Tazer stock had been dropping like a rock for awhile because as we know that when a company's product kills its customers, this is not a good thing.

...one of the principle "Researchers" was a Taser, Inc. employee?


Didn't the SS use Cattle Prods to herd people onto the Dachau Express?


Oh, look! "Just Boyz being Boyz..."

circumstances, like when the only other option would be to shoot the person. I hope the estates of each of the dead win judgments of at least $10 million or more each except in those very limited circumstances.

of tasering somebody or shooting them, they will err on the side of officer safety and shoot them.

The taser is an alternative to a beat-down. All in all, your chances of dying from being tasered are much, much smaller than your chances of dying if you are beaten.

"In such-and-such a condition, where previously you would have blasted away, you should now use your new taser"?

policy is that the taser is used when other forms of less than lethal force are used. The tasers only come out when otherwise they'd be thrashing them with PR-24s and other similar instruments.

The taser isn't a substitute for a firearm, and if deadly force is authorized, no cop will reach for a taser.

They're going to be Tasering pigs at UW-Madison. I was reading about this last night. John Webster, who's going to conduct the tests is hardly objective. He's co-authored "studies" with members of Taser International before, and already believes that tasers aren't harmful to humans, so those are the "results" he's going to come up with. It's all about protecting a corporation's butt.

http://www.stopanimaltests.com/f-taser.asp

University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor John Webster plans to conduct a lethal experiment in which live pigs will be electrocuted in order to satisfy claims that the Taser is safe.

Using a $500,000 taxpayer-funded grant provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, Webster will attach electrodes directly to the pigs' skin and implant catheters near their hearts to measure the effects of Taser shocks. He also wants to dose the pigs with cocaine and use a "Super-Taser" device to induce heart arrhythmia.

Muscle contraction test structure used by the U.S. military in Taser experiments on pigs. What makes the experiment even more atrocious is that similar Taser studies have been conducted with pigs, dogs, and bovines on other occasions since 1989. Webster has also stated that he believes Tasers are safe to use on people, negating any claim that this could be an unbiased study.

Tasers are already widely used, and their relative safety can be easily measured using human data. If the weapon manufacturer and law-enforcement agencies were to take responsibility and accept a sensible protocol of follow-up medical assessment for Taser victims, they could gain relevant information. They could supplement this information with the medical histories and autopsy reports of the more than 100 people in North America who have died after being shot with Tasers.

"Police said Young had been hearing voices before he fired a gun into his closet, ransacked the building manager's apartment and threatened her with a knife."

I'm always amazed when these Tazer death threads come up how quickly DU'ers come to the aid of the criminal. :crazy:

What don't you people understand? The police must protect themselves and the Tazer is an excellent alternative to guns.

Personally I don't shed tears for criminals. I'm a liberal and I'm concerned about the rights of victims. I am don't give a damn about the safety and the feelings of criminals. If you don't want to be Tazer'ed, don't wave a knife at a law enforcement officer.

I'll ask it again, when did the rights of criminals become more important than the rights of victims on the Democrat platform?

-Fergus

I doubt that anyone here feels that the rights of the criminal are more important than the rights of the victim.

However, there are probably several that would assert that all humans have rights and due process has a place.

I'm acquainted with the officer who fired the taser and he definitely IS NOT the Rambo type. And judging by the suspect's history, he must have been a real badass.

That being said, I think use of tasers should be suspended until more credible study is done on their effects. Too many people have died after being tasered. Note this:

" News of Young's death reached Amnesty International - the human rights group that maintains a running list of people who die after being shocked with Tasers - by mid-afternoon. Amnesty continues to call for comprehensive, independent medical studies of effects of Tasers on people with heart conditions, children and the elderly as well as people in the throes of drug intoxication.

The agency says that since 1999, 103 people have died after being shocked with Tasers."

I'll leave it to the statisticians here to determine if that number is statistically significant. But I don't see why what Amnesty is calling for (independent medical studies) can't be done.

The victim, in this case, was obviously not in a rational state of mind, firing at imaginary people in his closet and, according to witnesses, "agitated as if he was on drugs or having an emotional breakdown,..." Maybe he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, or more likely, under the influence of drugs. But it seems, as in this case, that tasering is as life-threatening as hitting someone with a billy club or shooting them.

I feel a great sense of unease about all this tasering that's being done by PDs across the country. What's that old saying..."If you're specialized with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Get these things off the street until more can be known.