Are Tasers Being Overused?Though the Taser has been around for nearly 30 years, the brand-name stun gun gained new notoriety last month when 21-year-old University of Florida student Andrew Meyer got into a scuffle with campus police and uttered his now infamous entreaty "Don't tase me, bro!" — just before he, in fact, got tased. The rather dramatic incident spawned a catchy new anti-establishment anthem, picked up and repeated mostly by college students. But it has also renewed questions about whether Tasers pose any danger, and whether the police are using them too often.
Though early concerns about Tasers centered on the issue of safety, the controversy has recently taken a new twist, focusing on the conflict between civil rights and police procedure. Though the device was initially developed as an alternative to lethal force, it has become a go-to weapon in situations of noncompliance even when the use of firearms would not be considered — like the incident with Meyer, who agreed to 18 months of probation on Tuesday in order to avoid criminal charges of resisting arrest. "I think because it's electricity, and because of past use of electricity in torture across the world, there's a thought that law enforcement could use
to the same end," says Lt. Dave Kelly of the Phoenix Police Department. "In other words, not to use it to gain control over somebody but to punish somebody, to create pain for someone."
If the idea of tasing simultaneously fascinates and frightens people, it's probably because the technology is a bit of a mystery. "It's harder to understand the science behind than to understand bullets or batons," says Scott Greenwood of the Cincinnati chapter of the ACLU.
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As an alternative to stories of law enforcement officers shooting someone trying to escape apprehension it seems like a good idea.
But, hearing or reading stories about officers using tasers to get compliance from a 7 years old, a person in hospital bed, or a pregnant woman who didn't move fast enough, causes me to pause and wonder about tasers use.