“Mounties Are Slowly Getting The Point”

Yahoo reports that "Use [of Tazer by the RCMP] dropped 30 per cent from a peak of 1,583 incidents the year before. "

Do you think that 1600 incidents is at least 1400 too many? I mean there are some times when you have to use the Tazer, but, as in recently re-heated death of Dziekanski due to being Tazered 5 times by half a dozen RCMP just shows that some still view it as a cruel toy.

Everyone should watch the show called "Guinea Pig", he got hit by all use of force options (spray, taser, pepper balls, rubber bullets, arwin bullet, gas, dog) available to police. He preferred the taser over every other option.

Here is an article that only one newspaper would print.....

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HENRY PIERSON CURTIS

Orlando Sentinel

Long considered controversial and possibly deadly, police stun guns received a clean bill of health from a medical study released today by the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

The three-year study found no links between the 50,000-volt weapons and fatal heart attacks.

"We finally have a real-world estimate of the risk associated with these weapons . . . and we found that to be low," said Dr. William Bozeman of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "That's important because these are violent encounters, and a small scrape or bruise is simply not the same as serious head injury or life-threatening internal injury."

Researchers at five medical schools reviewed 1,201 shock-arrest cases and found just three in which serious injuries could be tied to an electronic-control weapon. Better known as a Taser -- the name of the primary manufacturer -- the weapons are carried by more than two-thirds of U.S. police agencies.

It is the first study of its kind to medically evaluate every suspect who had been stunned and taken into custody. None showed any irregular heart activity attributable to the electrical charge, according to the findings reviewed by the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Controversy over Taser use in Orlando and Orange County stems from the deaths of seven suspects since the weapons were adopted for deputies use in 2001. More than 70 in-custody deaths across the U.S. have been blamed largely on combinations of the suspects' drug abuse, medical conditions and struggles with police.

Taser International, an Arizona-based company, could not be reached Wednesday evening.

Police models use compressed nitrogen to fire twin darts linked by metal fiber up to 35 feet and come with laser sights and options for video and voice recorders.

In half of the study's cases, the suspects had been drinking or taking drugs, which may have contributed to their willingness to resist arrest. The study covered six police agencies in six states. The Marion County Sheriff's Office was the only Florida agency studied.

The study covered the Chandler Police Department in Arizona, the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Shreveport Police Department in Louisiana and the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System, which includes about 80 police jurisdictions in the Chicago area.

Of the 1,201 cases studied, two people died. Those deaths were attributed to a combination of prolonged struggles, drug abuse and pre-existing medical conditions. One man had taken a deadly amount of an anti-psychotic medicine. The other man was overweight with a pre-existing heart condition and was using cocaine.

The three serious injuries tied to stun guns included two men who hit their heads when they fell after being stunned. The third suffered muscle and kidney damage. All recovered, according to the study.

The most common minor injuries were 408 skin punctures cause by the Taser's metal darts fired at a suspect's body to discharge electricity. The darts can penetrate 1 inch of clothing.

"It's a confirmation of what we've already known: Like every other weapon, these weapons can produce serious injuries," Bozeman said of the need for emergency-room staffs to be remain vigilant for Taser-related injuries. "Even though they appear to be uncommon, we can't make the mental mistake of assuming that they never occur because clearly they do occur.

Bozeman and his colleagues in the American College of Emergency Physicians noted previous research found injuries to suspects and police dropped as much as 90 percent and police use of firearms dropped at least 50 percent after Tasers became widely used.

When suspects resist, law-enforcement officers have options ranging from takedown tactics to nightsticks, pepper spray, Tasers and the use of deadly force, depending on the levels of resistance.

Dozens of Taser reviews

The study is the latest in a series of more than 30 reviews of Tasers.

Most recently in Central Florida, the U.S. Justice Department urged the Orange County Sheriff's Office to tighten its rules for using Tasers. That followed a yearlong review by the federal agency's Civil Rights Division of excessive-force complaints against deputies.

Yet, a previous, independent study found deputies and Orlando police officers used less force than warranted. Both agencies generally have had declining uses of Tasers in recent years.

Orlando police records show Tasers were used 337 times in 2005, 315 times in 2006, 313 times in 2007 and 278 times in 2008.

Orange County sheriff's records shows Tasers were used 229 times in 2001, 549 times in 2002, 510 times in 2003, 466 times in 2004, 403 times in 2005, 368 times in 2006, 307 times in 2007 and 349 times in 2008.

Former Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary became one of Tasers' most vocal supporters after buying weapons for a pilot program in 2001. Since then, the agency has spent more than $800,000 on Taser products and conducted its own yearlong review of their safety and standards for use.

Agency spokesman Capt. Angelo Nieves said issuing Tasers to deputies has saved lives of suspects by preventing confrontations from reaching a point where deadly force would have been necessary.

"We've found them a very effective tool and a very safe tool," Nieves said. "And we've reduced the numbers of officers' injuries and reduced the number of suspects' injuries."

hwybear wrote:Everyone should watch the show called "Guinea Pig", he got hit by all use of force options (spray, taser, pepper balls, rubber bullets, arwin bullet, gas, dog) available to police. He preferred the taser over every other option.

How many times was he tazered?

I got tazed in training.

Ouch!!!

But it last 5 seconds not 45 minutes like OC spray.

I much prefer the tazer, hurts like every muscle in your body severly cramping at once, but it's over in 5 seconds...

Of course I'm not overweight, have a pre-existing medical condition, not high on cocaine and am not engaging the police with intent to escape or assault them*.

Perhaps when police encounter assaultive people they should get them to fill out a medical questionnaire in advance?

Years ago police used the carotid restraint (choke hold) about 0.003% people died as a result. Then hog tying killed about 0.003%. About 0.003% have severe reactions to OC, some died...

All unfortunate, but the law has found that if you want to assault the police, we also have RIGHTS, the right to defend ourselves...the Tazer has proven safe for people who aren't already on the brink of death.

Young men and women die daily as a result of heart conditions for example, we had a fit, buff recruit die about 10 years ago just back from the police college...was out playing paintball with friends and collapsed...dead. Was paintball the cause? Hardly. Did we blame sunshine and fresh air? Nope.

People who are emotionally agitated (Vancouver airport) or intoxicated by drugs or alcohol...can suffer from excited delirium...it's a controversial subject but recognized around the world as a leading cause of in custody / police confrontation deaths.

But I have another theory...don't fight with the police. Don't resist.

Police arrive. I'd suggest you not run, but we'll leave that up to you...we have cars, bikes, boats, helicopters, dogs, radios, gps, maps, snow machines, experience and determination...at best you have determination and a decent pair of sneakers...

But here is the ABSOLUTE solution to ensure no one is ever tazed, shot or OCed every again and that no one is ever harmed again in a confrontation with police...

When we arrive, remain calm, do exactly as you're told, make no sudden movements, do not attempt to flee, excercise your rights to legal counsel and make use of the court system is you feel you've been wronged.

So one guy died out of 1600?

Not good (especially if you're that guy), but death when a tazer was used stats in north America are closer to 1 in 24,500 uses.

Still think it's the Tazer, or it's maybe the guy at the end of the prongs?

Just sayin'

FyreStorm wrote:So one guy died out of 1600?

Not good (especially if you're that guy), but death when a tazer was used stats in north America are closer to 1 in 24,500 uses.

Still think it's the Tazer, or it's maybe the guy at the end of the prongs?

Just sayin'

It is still not meant to be lethal, that is the issue. Although, a rubber bullet fired point blank could still be deadly......

1 in 1600 are pretty good odds of survival, I'd say, when compared to things like a firearm or even a baton strike to the head, which are the options it supplements.

Anyway, my thoughts about the Dziekanski incident...

First, the guy was in the Customs hall/baggage area for almost nine hours. He only tried to leave after about seven hours. Why? Don't know. We do know that the Security Guards and any airline agents in the hall made no effort to help him. When he became agitated, they did not try to calm him down or talk to him, instead they called the cops and told them that there was a violent and combative man who was throwing computers and chairs. YVR (Vancouver International) is Canada's second-busiest airport. It has a mind-boggling number of international flights. They could have easily located someone who spoke Polish. Instead, they twiddled their thumbs. This whole thing was preventable. The cops didn't need to be involved at all.

When Dziekanski went down, the airport supervisor, for reasons known only to him or her, decided not to call YVR's ARFF (Airport Rescue Fire Fighting). ARFF have rescue paramedics. The response time is 1-3 minutes. Instead, they called the municipal paramedics, who took 15 minutes to arrive. With millions of people passing through airports like YVR every year, some of them are going to experience medical problems. That is one of the reasons that the ARFF has paramedics (as well as the most obvious reason). Again, another thing that might've saved him. Every time I've had a passenger suffer any sort of medical distress, even if it happened on short final to landing and we hauled @$$ to the gate, the paramedics were always waiting when we got there.

Tazer use? He had wound himself up into a pretty serious state. A coroner who did an autopsy on Dziekanski found that he suffered heart failure after "sudden restraint," not due to trauma or tazer shock. In other words, if they'd grabbed or tackled him and had not used the tazer, he still would have died.

The focus has been on the RCMP and the tazer. There were many other issues that could've prevented this whole thing, but none of them got any attention. I wonder why that might be.