Taser to challenge Braidwood Inquiry

http://www.braidwoodinquiry.ca/

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/13/taser-braidwood081309.html#socialcomments

"Taser International is preparing to mount a legal challenge against the findings of a B.C. inquiry looking into the use of stun guns in the province, according to a media report Thursday night.

The inquiry was launched in the wake of the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, who died at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007 after being shocked multiple times with an RCMP Taser.

A Vancouver lawyer for Arizona-based Taser International told CTV on Thursday the company will ask a court to quash many of the 19 recommendations made by former B.C. Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood in his preliminary report last month.

"The commission breached basic principles of fairness and fundamental justice … both in its procedure and in the manner in which the report and its conclusions were reached," lawyer David Neave said in the CTV report."

As a Canadian, this angers me with no end to see a foreign corporation try to intimidate our government.
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Also, we may get a chance to throw Harper out this fall.

prevails at these type of things because the SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE is on their side.

i say this as somebody who has been tased twice myself

the dziekanski case was a tragedy, that much is true. terribly sad.

when sunlight is let in (the best disinfectant), justice prevails.

let it in

Barring some congenital condition.

Is this true?

use of force CAN be fatal.

a punch in the nose can be.

a baton strike to the leg can.

tasing is, when compared to other force options, incredibly safe. but it is not 100% safe. no use of force is.

what you are referring to with the on drugs is the whole "excited delirium"

this is a syndrome usually brought on by drug use. usually polydrug use (iow, multiple types of drugs) combined with a flight or fight response in the suspect (which causes a massive adrenaline dump - a powerful drug in and of itself), combined with often VERY unhealthy people (as people who have chronic drug use problems often are).

i once had a guy (briefly) stop breathing in such an incident. no taser. but he was high as fuck on cocaine, and we wrestled with him for about 5 minutes. and he literally STOPPED BREATHING and TURNED PURPLE.

it scared the @#(@#@(#(O@Z out of me. thank god he was revived. later, i found out that the guy had snorted tons of coke and this was a street guy who was very unhealthy.

excited delirium is controversial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium

but tasers are remarkably safe.

fwiw, people have ALWAYS died pursuant to struggles with police. it's just that before the taser, there was no "evul bad thing (tm) " to blame them on.

like in my case, we simply wrestled the guy into handcuffs and that was enough to stop him breathing.

it is quite possible that if we weren't luck enough to have AID on scene with oxygen, etc. that he might have died.

and it needs to be branded as that.
taser has been marketed as a less-than-lethal option, but hundreds of deaths to tased persons shows the weapon IS a lethal weapon and needs to be placed higher up on the use of force continuum.

don't stop using them, but pleeease stop calling them less than lethal, they Kill people, period.

tons of people have died after being tased. and tons of people have died after eating cornflakes.

correlation =/= causation.

LOOK at the autopsy reports, and look at the data.

tasers SAVE lives. they save lives (and serious injury) for cops AND suspects.

No-one ever dies of 'excited delirium' in any situation save one having to do with police use of potentially lethal force, most frequently when Tasers have been deployed and used to deliver multiple shocks. 'Excited delirium' is not a recognised medical condition. And 50,000 volts of electricity can be fatal to those with any underlying medical condition...arrhythmia, for instance...especially when multiple shocks are administered. (NB; independent tests have shown that at least one model of Taser has voltage/amperage output far in excess of the manufacturer's stated range.) 'Excited delirium' is like saying 'he fell and hit his head, nothing to do with me'. The problem is that police employ potentially dangerous and lethal weapons in situations where the imminent danger posed by suspects in no way justifies it.

read the autopsy reports.

people have ALWAYS died from excited delirium, even before we had a name for it.

the guy who died (but was revived) in my arrest situation is the perfect example, no taser needed.

you take a
1) unhealthy person (chronic conditions, high blood pressure, bla bla)
2) polydrug combo (uppers, downers, stimulants, vasoconstrictors, vasodilators, etc. etc.)
3) extreme condition of fight or flight (massive adrenaline dump. and adrenaline is a VERY powerful drug)

you are going to have people die sometimes. there is NO way around it. it has always happened and will always happen.

tasers are not dangerous. they are remarkably safe, and they save lives.

since, first, you're not medically qualified, and second, you're, well...a cop, and so of course you aren't going to say 'no, I agree, there are cases of death involving Tasers where their deployment constituted excessive use of force in the given situation by incompetent officers'...'thin blue line', eh?

studies that showed tasers to be "safe".

Independent studies show a much more complicated matter though.

Mr. Smith offered to pay those who performed the independent studies to continue their research
and "reconsider" their conclusions. Sounds Bush-Like.

and the autopsy reports are most enlightening.

most taser opponents have of course not READ even ONE of these autopsy reports.

not surprising, since they generally argue from hysteria and medical ignorance

Coroner's reports have shown that tasers have been a contributing factor.

I am also aware that as law enforcement, you have a vested interest in making you job as easy as possible, even if the most improper use of force is used.

lots of stuff can be a contributing factor. it doesn't therefore follow that tasers CAUSE these deaths.

obesity can be a contributing factor, polydrug combos, single drugs, length of exertion, poor health, poor nutrition, lack of electrolytes, dehydration, contact with hard surfaces, ambient temperature, alcohol consumption, etc have ALL been listed as CONTRIBUTING factors.

i have no vested interest. i;'ve carried a taser for over 3 years, and have NEVER fired it at anybody . on a few occasions, i have drawn and pointed my taser to gain compliance. in every case, compliance was granted.

this is one of the benefits of tasers. VERY frequently, voluntary compliance is gained, thus eliminating the need for wrestling matches, baton strikes, or other uses of force.

the facts are apparent. when tasers are adopted line of duty deaths (both of officers AND of suspects) and injuries go DOWN. that has been the experience of metropolitan PD's OVER and OVER again.

facts matter.

you remind me of the anti-scientific fanatics who claimed that allowing concealed carry in florida would result in all sorts of shootings. when CCW was passed, homicides, etc. WENT DOWN. and the hysterical people ignored the data and moved on to other (fallacious) arguments

similarly when PD's adopt tasers , deaths and injuries go DOWN

http://www.justicenewsflash.com/2009/08/31/dallas-wrongful-death-lawyer_200908312018.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/27/eveningnews/main5119168.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onWyRIcIMO4

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/11-7
Let's Talk About Tasers
by Digby


I have volunteered and every department has turned down my offer (and don't get smart, I am not going to get arrested to be tased)
Also, if being tased is so safe, how come I have been unsuccessful at getting an acceptance to my offer?

Strange, isn't it.
Perhaps we citizens are not being told the entire truth.

when certain forces/weapons should and should not be used?

Is it not standard procedure to have a policies put in place to state the proper usage of force?

every agency i am aware of has guidelines. some, imo , are too strict, others are too lax. some are "just right".

i'm not sure to whom/what you are responding, but ANY use of force and that includes handcuffing, wrist restraints, deadly force, etc. has guidelines.

the general concept is the "use of force continuum" and this establishes when various levels of force are justified based on totality of circumstances known to officer at the time.

some uses of force are extremely devastating, and extremely rare. like deadly force. last i checked the average US cop fires his gun line of duty (not including target shooting, etc) once every 12 yrs.

assuming (generalizing here) 225 work days a year, for 12 years, and 5 calls a day, that means a cop would fire his gun about once every 13,500 calls he went to.

other uses of force, such as handcuffing are much more common. i've probably handcuffed well over 1000 people.

tasers imo should be placed in the use of force continuum at a level where they are justified for active resistance (NOT passive resistance), or to prevent escape of misdemeanants or felons, etc. that's where my agency places them.

us how to set public policy.

with a a corporation giving input into the process, just like other interested groups can and do from amnesty, to ACLU, to police unions, etc.

i've taken training from taser directly, as well as police training in taser, and taser runs an excellent training program.

i've been tased twice. i;ll be damned if i volunteer to get struck by a baton, or shot though.

taser incorporated has the right, and arguably the duty, to give their input into the process,the discussion about where taser belongs in the use of force continuum.

fwiw, taser has also been very responsive to requests from law enforcement and elsewhere in improving the device. for example, each taser dart fired also shoots out scores of little paper identifiers with serial #s. that gives great accountability. furthermore, each taser stores the time, duration, etc of EVERY firing internally and this can be downloaded. this helps again with accountability. it protects against false complaints, and helps support valid ones.

all of these aspects of accountability are unique to tasers. fists, baton, gun, pepper spray etc. do not have such individualized and discrete data

The public must hold that right, as in any case.

every police dept's policies and procedures are 1) open to public review (under foia etc.) 2) put in place by govt. officials NOT by private corps.

taser has the same right as any private company, person, or organization, to give input into the process. but they have NO decision making authority in any municipal, state, special (port, park, etc) or county police service.