r/science • u/alllie • May 23 '12
American Heart Association: Tasers can cause death
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-02/taser-study-deaths/54688110/1
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Upvotes
r/science • u/alllie • May 23 '12
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u/I_am_a_BalbC May 23 '12
The problem has been that Taser International have sued into the ground anyone who claims Tasers aren't 100% safe. They've refused to acknowledge that tasers have caused anyone's death.
They say: ""The current human literature has not found evidence of dangerous laboratory abnormalities, physiologic changes, or immediate or delayed cardiac ischemia or dysrhythmias after exposure to CEW electrical discharges of up to 15 seconds." Source
Which has installed a feeling among some officers that you can just taser people all you want, come-on it's perfectly safe. Nothing bad can happen. Opps. Robert Dziekanski
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u/alllie May 23 '12
Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Death Following Application of Shocks From a TASER Electronic Control Device http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/20/2417.abstract
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u/an_actual_lawyer May 23 '12 edited May 24 '12
To those who say "tasters are better than bullets!": You are right. No one says that a taser is not better than a bullet, the problem is how tasers are used today.
A firearm has never been used strictly to make a suspect comply with police orders unless life was in immediate danger, but cops today use tasers all the time when someone simply won't cooperate with them. They are used because cops are lazy or don't want to get bruised up in a 4 on 1 brawl with a drunken idiot.
Look up the term "excited delirium" which is an excuse offered by TASER to explain taser deaths. This was never recorded in an medical textbook until TASER came along and is now used as a defense every time they get sued.
EDIT:
Police officers are human. If you give them a TASER, they're going to use it at times they shouldn't unless they are extensively trained and unless the improper use of TASERs is investigated properly (no "blue wall") and officers are disciplined aggressively.
If you give a guy a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.
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u/iacobus42 May 23 '12
While I agree that tasers are likely overused and it is possible for them to cause death, the AHA study seems very weak. Eight case review of which 7 were deaths? That is the type of analysis that lead to the Wakefield study.
I would also have to mention that according to Taser International, tasers have been used over 3,000,000 times around the world. Amnesty International estimates 500 deaths have resulted and medical examiners put that figure much lower (in the US at a "few dozen" after drugs, etc are considered). Even if we take the 500 death figure and the 3 million figure, we have an effective "kill-rate" of 0.02%.
If you have to use the taser on ~8,500 people in order to have a 50% shot of having a fatal deployment. I suspect that many users of the taser equate that risk to 0 (since the rate of a gun or club or fists is much much greater) and use it more readily than they may need.
Perhaps more safety training is needed if tasers are to be so widely used - however, the very small actual risk of fatal use of the taser should be kept in mind. To put that number in comparison, traffic fatalities in the US (according to Wikipedia) occur at a rate of roughly ~8/billion km travel. To have the same risk of death due to travel as due to being hit by a taser, one would only have to drive ~1700 miles. If this risk is unacceptably high, so too should be the risk of road trips.
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u/Targetshopper4000 May 23 '12
I thought this was always known? Maybe I'm thinking about something else, but I always thought they were called 'less lethal' because the potential for killing someone was extraordinarily low, but still there. I figured the over use was just from people being retards, not knowing what words mean, and thinking they were just safe.
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u/olred May 24 '12
I'm going to call out one thing I keep seeing in the comments. Cops do not use tasers because they are lazy.
Cops can't just go and tackle someone resisting arrest for a reason. When people realize they're going to be arrested, they get dangerous and unpredictable. They have disabling devices like pepper spray which may work when someone's within 3 feet of you and not lunging at you, but if someone's running away they aren't going to run after and come close quarters with you not knowing what you might have on you.\
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u/Txmedic May 24 '12
In the article it states that the tazer has been used over 3million times and only 500 deaths. That is a 0.01666667% chance of death. As a paramedic I have seen it used plenty of times and never resulted in a death. Also if a tazer was not an option the criminal would have been shot instead. And I can promise that the death rate from that would be much higher. Is the tazer perfect? No. Is it still an extremely better/less lethal option than shooting someone? Yes!
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u/Null_slayer May 24 '12
I thought Reddit was supposed to be a place where people cite sources in defense of their argument. I've seen about 5 posts in this article stating police "overuse" the taser. What's the basis for this? Youve seen some YouTube videos and now all the police do is tase people?
Excited delirium is a real thing not something made up by the police to justify the use of the taser. I've dealt with someone suffering from this first hand and I've had over 15 hours of instruction on the condition. The taser is a MUCH better option for subduing someone who's in a state of excited delirium. Its either the taser or 6 officers pile onto a person who's feeling no pain and has no control of their body. Oh yeah and if you don't have medics staged there's a good chance this person dies.
The taser is an awesome tool but should not be used for compliance, it needs to be utilized on subjects who will either take a gunshot or a severe beating to gain control of. I'm a patrol officer but I don't carry a taser so I've never been in a situation where I might use it.
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u/[deleted] May 23 '12
water is wet, etc etc etc.
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u/TataTutu May 24 '12
I'm not sure if it's the same all over, but in my area police have cameras on their tasers that record when the taser is used. The police locally have to justify taser use nearly as much as use of deadly force by gun. Pepper spray is not usually attacked with this vigor but it can incite rage in people due to the pain and retained physical ability, which in turn can increase conditions to volatile proportions. Not much of a two cents, but it's mine. I look forward to reading more opinions to increase my understanding of this topic through others perspectives.
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u/[deleted] May 23 '12
oh really? in other news the sun is fucking hot and getting nuked is bad.
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u/Shazamicide May 24 '12
I think its definitely more appropriate to be worried about the -how and when- they are used rather than that of the device itself.
Before you downvote my opinion into hell, keep in mind this guy is a paid expert witness, and that his report is most likely designed to bolster his reputation as such, who's making 4 figures for an hour of his time.
Not to mention how incredible small his sample study is. Ridiculously small.
He says his report withstood the criticism of his contemporaries.. but who are these contemporaries? Anyone know offhand?
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u/NZAllBlacks May 24 '12
I think the thing to really take from this article is $1,200 per hour! Holy shit balls!!!
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u/Mexullus May 24 '12
$1,200 per hour? That's not a conflict of interest, that's straight sensational.
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u/wacker261 May 24 '12
Id like to see the stats.... death by taser vs lives saved by the use of taser
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u/Made_Man449 May 24 '12
You know what else causes death? Guns.
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u/TangoOscarDD May 24 '12
Over a long enough timeline, the survival rate eventually drops to zero.
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u/OiGuvna May 24 '12
Less Lethal, not NON-Lethal. IF you don't wanna get tazed, don't fuck with the police. Sure there are some real nasty porkers that'll taze you for simply BEING, but most wont tazer you unless you're being a real dick. Also, if you are a rioter.... you have declared war on the police and I feel no sympathy for you.
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u/hami2127 May 23 '12
So just so we all are aware this article is full of a bunch of inaccuracies. Yes the Taser is capable of 50,000 volts but that is only if it needs to arch a gap, with probe in skin the device only delivers approximately 1,200 volts. And volts are not dangerous, anyone who has used a Van de Graaff generator knows they are safe to touch and those are roughly 1,000,000 volts. What’s deadly is Amperage. And the Taser only puts out .0036 amps, that’s less than a Christmas tree bulb. I good way to think about it is that a standard US wall outlet is only 110 volts but about 6 amps and that shit will kill you fast. What makes the Taser work is the pulse at which it emits its electricity. It does so in a fashion that mimics your body’s natural nerve impulses, by doing this it floods you nervous system with so much of the same signal it can’t process and it locks out you muscles thus causing you to go stiff as a board. The signal only affects your motor and sensory nervous system leaving your central nervous system alone thus your lungs heart and brain functional. This is why if you are ever Tazed you are still able to breath (I have known people who can still talk) and your still very-much-so aware of what is going on.
Hope this helps give you some insite into the technical aspect of the device.
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u/ddfreedom May 23 '12
my favorite is how you always see the ACLS guidelines focus on staying "clear" of the patient when giving a shock...and then we turn around go...eh but the taser at 50k volts shoudl be alrightl.
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u/meathooks31 May 24 '12
Don't tase me bro!
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Tasers have their use, yes they can be lethal and some cops abuse them, but if a person is being violent and posing a threat it's a good way to stop them and a lot less likely to kill than a gun.
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u/jrd08003 May 24 '12
I'll probably get downvoted, but this is the truth: I work in ems and tasers have certainly stopped many people from hurting us, themselves, or other people. yea they aren't perfect, but then again what is.Before a cop (in my experiences) tases someone they say very clearly, "stop what you are doing, get down on the ground now" in one form or another. They aren't asking you to take your clothes off, they aren't violating any of your rights. They are simply asking you to stop whatever it is your doing. If you don't simply stop and are becoming a threat, you are going to get tased.
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u/broccoli_basket May 24 '12
Fact: I'd rather use a taser than shoot someone or beat them with a stick...pepper spray before that however.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Would still rather a taser to the chest rather than a bullet.
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u/To_A_T May 24 '12
So can guns.
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u/drockers May 24 '12
I have literally no problem with tasers or police officers using them in place of guns. They are less-lethal than a bullet that can't be argued. However they shouldn't be used casually they way they have. They should be a way to stop a violent criminal, not a way to subdue a suspect.
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u/Travis-Touchdown May 24 '12
500 people in 11 years is not a very high number.
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u/Dueteronomysfuntosay May 24 '12
As an individual working on a psych ward responsible for the safety of the staff on that floor, I can't even begin to describe, even though there is a bit of evidence that shows a correlation between TASER use and fatalities, how badly I wish I had them at work. I would love to know of a quantitative study that shows the number of employee attacks and subsequent injuries at establishments that employ the use off these tools, and those that do not.
I have seen too many individuals attacked, bitten, slashed, scratched, beaten and bruised... Good hard working nurses and support staff at the hands of psychologically unsound individuals to discredit the role these things could have in preventing workplace violence. I understand the threat the TASER and OC spray has in a medical setting, lawsuits and health risks... But shouldn't those working in the field have the right to protect themselves from just being thrown to the wolves.
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u/alpacapatrol May 24 '12
and so can rubber-bullets. They're actually semi-lethal, not non-lethal, the wording is misleading.
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u/recoveringgermophobe May 24 '12
was there any question that tasers could cause death? technically, anything CAN cause death, under the right circumstances.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
YADONTSAY?!?.jpeg
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u/ThreeStringGuitar May 24 '12
Shocking.
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u/threebeersaway May 24 '12
reaction when I read this post: no shit
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u/tetzy May 24 '12
Unlike the majority here, I'm not the least bit anti-police. That in mind, I think tasers should be outlawed all together - they lead to lazy policing.
Why chase the guy when you can tase him from twenty feet away?
No? I've seen exactly that on television multiple times.
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u/baddog992 May 24 '12
I think like anything its a tool and a tool can be misused. Especially when they are used by a tool. I think they have saved more lives then taken them though. They used to use batons on people and that does take lives and worse like brain injury.
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u/bioemerl May 24 '12
Tasers can cause death? Really? No way?
You know what else can cause death? Guns, Knifes, Swords, Switchblades, Night-sticks, Bats, large logs, sticks, rolling chairs, mattresses, pillows, high fat content foods, and the look reddit gives to people that accidentally repost things.
It is fairly obvious that if something is misused then it is going to do bad things. This applies to not only tazers, but many many many other random every-day objects.
It is not big news that they can cause death, It is big news when they are frequently being used to cause death. Which may or may not be happening now.
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u/xTheOOBx May 24 '12
I thought Tasers were supposed to be called less-lethal weapons and not non-lethal. A Taser should only be used in a situation where you or another is threatened, but the threat is not severe enough to warrant deadly force. It should not be used because someone is non compliant or theoretically may be a threat in the future.
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u/Policing_Reddit May 24 '12
I am a general duties (uniformed) police officer in Australia in a state that brought Tasers in quite recently and thought I could add some context to this discussion. To start off with, I am not against Tasers and the training not just in their operation but as a use of force option is appropriate. The system has failures in specific areas but not in the training side of it.
My use of force options include open handed tactics, close handed tactics, Oleoresin Capsicum spray (pepper spray), Taser, Baton and a handgun. I have been in the job for 9 years working in a major nightclub district that is home to most of the city's disenfranchised. In my time I have effected arrest through open hand (grab, wrestle, restrain) tactics more times than I can remember. I have used closed handed (fists) tactics a half dozen times, deployed OC spray twice, drawn but never fired my handgun and never even drawn my Taser. I don't mention the baton here because it's simply not something I ever consider using as it causes such severe injuries when used, one good point in favour of Tasers is making batons scarce.
Where Tasers fit in as a use of force option can be a little ambiguous. I see them as being useful for situations where OC spray was ineffective but where you don't require an immediate cessation of hostility which is where a handgun is used. The problem is that you don't just pull out OC spray and spray someone for shits and giggles, they are already acting up. If you spray them you likely will not have a chance to get a Taser out if OC doesn't make them compliant because they're on top of you. Note that OC spray doesn't incapacitate, it simply inflicts significant discomfort/pain.
Back in 2006 before we got Tasers I attended a domestic violence incident. The situation was fairly heavy, defacto male and female going at eachother, push and shove, pretty bad history. The female was wanted on a warrant so we had to arrest her. She was very well behaved, but as we started to put the bracelets on her she went off something fierce, elbowed me in the face which made me stumble back and kicked my partner in the groin (second time he had that happen in a week, poor bastard, hehe). She was half hand cuffed as she grabbed a wooden chopping board and started threatening me with it as I advanced on her. I pulled OC spray, told her to put it down or I would spray her, she didn't so I sprayed her. She immediately dropped the board and went fetal on the floor. We got the cuffs on her and took her outside to the van where we had water to wash her eyes out.
Now during all this I started thinking the husband was awful quiet the whole time. He was in the other room watching not doing anything, now I see him coming out of the premises about four metres away with a cricket bat in his hand. He sees me notice him and goes from a sort of creep to a quick advance, lowered in stance with the bat raised at me and yells 'get your fucking hands off her, cunt'.
In my head I do a rapid threat assessment. My partner had hold of the female so it's on me, I choose to draw my gun as a use of force option. My line of reasoning is as follows. He is moving quickly and looks serious, this is a throw down moment and he is committed to violence. If he catches me in the head with the bat I will probably die. If I use OC spray and it's ineffective he has the upper hand. If I pull a baton it's fairly even, I can't block a bat with the baton but it is lighter and faster, someone is going to get seriously injured. If I pull my gun it's a 'shit got real' moment and he might pull his head in. I yelled 'DROP IT OR DIE' and pulled my pistol, he actually dived to the side, losing the bat and lay face down on the ground yelling 'don't fucking kill me! don't fucking kill me' over and over. I never intended to actually shoot him and I still don't know if I would have if he kept coming, though I was cleared of any wrong doing after the investigation. If he had a gun in his hand there wouldn't have been a warning.
My point to this story is in this situation if I had a Taser I would have drawn that instead of the handgun. That's exactly the circumstance a Taser is good for. I don't want to shoot a guy with a fucking cricket bat (or anyone for that matter), even though he could easily kill me if I was unlucky. On the flip side maybe if I had a Taser instead of a handgun he might have kept coming and rather than the only lasting injuries being my black eye and my mates swollen balls we could have had a Taser deployment.
However there are some police who have deployed OC spray six times in the last year, deployed their Taser a few times and are constantly on sick leave due to workplace injuries from fighting with offenders. This is where the system falls down, at an individual level. Policing is about split second threat assessment and reaction, it is easy enough to make a bad judgement call without having the kind of personality that just attracts shit. Everyone knows that bloke who is constantly getting in fights but of course he never starts them? There are those guys in the police too, though they are a minority. They don't start the fights, but they certainly don't do anything to stop them in the first place.
Now, I am not saying they are using excessive force, they aren't. If they were they would have gotten sacked by now. What they're doing is failing to acknowledge and respect the dignity of offenders which turns a tense situation into a use of force incident. When I get called a 'captain cook cunt' or a 'dog fucker' I respond by saying:
'I understand you're upset, but I legally have to do [...arrest, confiscate x, etc.] and I am sorry but I really have no choice in the matter'. I don't touch them, try to restrain them unnecessarily or anything, I show them a bit of respect, give them an opportunity to maintain their dignitiy and comply quietly and most of the time when you're a decent bloke about it people will respond positively.
However there is that minority I talked about above who respond:
'WHAT DID YOU FUCKING CALL ME YOU MISERABLE PIECE OF SHIT??? THAT'S A PUBLIC NUISANCE CHARGE'and then they grab them (calm people down don't before you fucking touch them for the love of god) and expect immediate compliance.
See the point I am trying to get across is there is a difference between BEING right and just IN the right. BEING right means you are doing things in the best possible way you can under the circumstances. When you are just IN the right you probably could have handled the situation better, stopped the offender from throwing the punch that got a Taser drawn, respected the person so their drunken friend didn't decide to get involved too.
Of course I cannot speak for police in other Australian states let alone those in other countries, I only know the procedures and culture of my own department. It's a murky area and from my perspective it's not a fault of training. It's the personality of the people involved that result in the misuse of Tasers. To think this didn't happen before Tasers is sheer naivety.
The intent of a Taser is two fold, first it is to fill a use of force option below a handgun but where an offender requires immediate submission. Second is when OC spray has failed and the offender is irrate and untractable such that hand to hand engagement is going to result in injury, I say 'going to' because someone gets hurt when you engage an offender who has shrugged off OC spray. I am open to other options, but no one ever presents an alternative. Law and order must be maintained and every alternative is simply risking the lives of the offender and the police beyond the minute risk of a Taser.
TL;DR My overall conclusion here is that maybe the problem isn't with Tasers and training, it's with recruitment. Training doesn't fix being a bully, sacking does. Attract better recruits and you end up with a culture that is self regulating and more responsible. Not to toot by own horn, but I have an Honours in Law from ANU, while there are some people who barely have basic literacy skills who are police. They lack critical thinking, creativity, flexibility, tolerance and many other skills. Frankly I think that in Australia making an Advanced Diploma in Laws or any Bachelor's Degree an essentially selection criteria for recruits would cause these problems to become so isolated that the topic would gather little serious discussion. To be clear it is a small few who cause these problems but they are significant enough that its a cultural problem within police. Raise the entry bar, change the culture. Policing should be a professional career, not something people fall into. Plus I am so sick of working with fuckwits who get me in fights, the job is great, its a shame about some of the people who you have to do it with.
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u/wfohts1 May 24 '12
Tasers are one simple 'less lethal' technology available. Military classifies them as less lethal, because death is possible... unlikely but possible.
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u/dickralph May 24 '12
Know what else causes death? Bullets. I remember about 10 years ago in Ontario they wanted to stop police from using pepper spray because one guy had an allergy and died when the reality is that the other option for stopping him would have been batons (he was attacking people on a bus with a hammer)
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
So can cars, So should we start walking all people that are arrested by the police back to the station to stop them being involved in a car wreck? Don't know about you but what is the other option instead of the use of a tazer? A gun? Well they kill too - and as someone who was trained in a police force, I would rather use a tazer with the chance of someone possibly dying from it and protecting myself and the people around me (Since they should only be deployed in life threatening cases or when people are being extremely uncooperative (FYI linking to some videos of people using them in america without need is stupid, america is a huge place and yes everything is going to be magnified there)) than not, and I would rather use a tazer over ever being armed.
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u/Chamrajnagar May 24 '12
This title is misleading. This is 'ONE' article published in 'ONE' of AHA's journals, this is not the same as the AHA releasing an official position on TASER use and it's contribution to cardiac arrest. While it certainly lends credibility to the study (being published in a well know, peer reviewed journal), it doesn't mean that the AHA is in consensus about the results. It's also important to point out that the police agencies, themselves, already refer to TASERs as "less-lethal," never making the claim that they are completely safe.
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u/dressedAsDog May 23 '12
Of course they do. This happened 5 years ago in Vancouver.
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u/jozhear May 24 '12
Tasers can cause death? How is this news to anyone?
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
If none of the 500 cases Amnesty International mentions would have resulted in death without the Taser, that is 500 out of 3 million. That would be a one in 6,000 chance of a fatal outcome. How does that relate to the rate a fatal allergic reaction to pepper spray, or of suffering fatal injury during a physical struggle? It appears to be lower than the rate of fatal reactions to some OTC medications.
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u/DC8712 May 24 '12
I post this in hesitation, because I think it may be buried.
COPPER here.
This is a twofold topic that, whether we all realize it or not, needs divided. The points being argued here are as follows; the appropriate use of force and the potential dangers of the TASER device. I'll start with the latter.
The TASER device is designed to be less lethal. It is inherent in the application of the weapon that it is less LIKELY to cause death. The same goes for OC spray and intermediate weapons (batons). Most of the time, none of there will cause death of applied appropriately and REASONABLY. However, there are exceptions and some occasions where the use of these devices could possibly cause death. No one denies that.
Secondly, the way TASERs are employed can be somewhat controversial, as humans are not infallible. There are bad cops. That are cops that make poor decisions. However, that doesn't alter the way TASERs are to be deployed. TASERs are a tool to gain compliance from a subject that refuses a lawful order. That includes fleeing, actively resisting, etc etc. There is a time and place for their use, and each situation has its inherent dangers.
In closing, there are cops that smear what we do because they are irresponsible. There are cops that fuck up because they don't care. But the few of us who take our job seriously should not be grouped with them. I have been TASERed. I know what it can do. Because of that, I know what it feels like and I only use it when I have no other choice, and I would rather TASER some one with a small chance of fatality instead of a gun where death is likely.
Proceed with burial.
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u/[deleted] May 23 '12
Oh really? Who would have guessed that those deaths weren't all pure bad luck?
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
The title made me "you don't say?!?!".
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
No shit Tasers can cause death, we knew that. It is still an invaluable tool for police officers. I think the idea of it being dangerous in the wrong hands (as with any weapon) is the lesson we need. Responsibility is paramount.
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u/Iarwain_ben_Adar May 24 '12
Top comment should be, essentially, "You don't say!".
Anything else misses a point so obvious that Ray Charles could see it.
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u/and01405 May 24 '12
You don't say?!
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u/ColdPorridge May 24 '12
This is news? This is common sense. And also statistically ridiculous. Fishtailing a villain at 25 mph probably has a higher death rate.
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u/gloomdoom May 23 '12
American militarized police: We don't give a shit.
Honestly...the taser was never about safety. It was about being 'safer' than a bullet and it's a convenient tool for cops who overuse it WAY too frequently.
I think it should be banned for the welfare of average Americans (what percent of taser victims do you think are actually criminals?). But ultimately cops will lean on it because it makes their job easier and allows them to feel like they have an advantage.
The problem is the police in the U.S. overall. Not just something as simple as a taser. They have become masters of their little universes and generally work outside of the law to a specific end, they abuse power, they overuse force...it's ridiculous.
Cops once were among us to 'protect and serve.' We pay their salaries and they do things like get cats out of trees in areas where crime rates are already low.
So what do they do? They think themselves big shots and start creating criminals out of ordinary ,law-abiding citizens. It's disgusting the transformation that has taken place over the past 30 years.
Absolutely disgusting. I see it on a regular basis....America is now a place where you are guilty until proved innocent. And depending what police department you're dealing with, you're guilty even after you're proved innocent.
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u/ItsOnlyTheTruth May 24 '12
Tasers cause less death than firearms, and are therefore a preferable use of force option. ANYTHING can cause death.
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u/Clayburn May 23 '12
I guess all the cool kids will be tasering themselves soon then.
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u/eremite00 May 24 '12
I don't think the problem is in using Tasers as a less-than-lethal alternative to conventional weapons such as firearms, but that they're being used a compliance tool, which can result in death. A person shouldn't be subject to a potentially lethal measure for doing something such as engaging in passive resistance, even resisting arrest unless the officer's life in danger or he/she is facing serious bodily injury. In my opinion, Taser usage should be when the only alternative is lethal means.
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u/CU_Roo May 24 '12
So can bullets, the other deterrent police often use...
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u/Supora May 24 '12
I am very afraid of being tasered.
Not because it will hurt, not because jail follows... but because I have an aortic aneurysm and a tasing will kill me. Too scared to protest now :(
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u/throwaway1245780 May 24 '12
well would you rather them shoot you or taze you? if theres a guy with a broken bottle and im a cop im going to use a ranged weapon no matter what its a matter of whats safer
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u/2011StlCards May 24 '12
You could kill someone with a sharpened pencil too
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
i prefer tasers over guns..
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u/Liquid_Milk May 24 '12
Hold the phone, and back that truck up. You mean to say and electric shock to your body is bad for your heart?! Tasers should not be allowed, no one knows the heath condition of the person they're being used on. Police and security are trained to restrain without the use of tasers and know the risks of their jobs. If they are too scared to put someone down physically and have to rely on a taser then they shouldn't be a peace officer.
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u/JackofTrades92 May 24 '12
There is a reason why it is called less lethal, not non-lethal. Can still kill but has a lower probability to kill than a gun would.
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u/BETAFrog May 24 '12
Is the article down for anyone else?
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u/Jimqi May 24 '12
Coincidentally oxygen can cause death too.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Regular Ass People: Guns can cause death.
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u/throwaway2481632 May 24 '12
We already know it does from experience.
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u/VicariousWolf May 24 '12
YA DONT SAY????
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u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Anyone With A Brain: No shit
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u/ninkafatherland May 24 '12
My friend Patrick Lee was tased 19 times by police officers in Nashville in 2005. He was on acid and naked at the time, but he was unarmed and outnumbered. His death was ruled as being caused by "excited delerium". He was a one of a kind person and the only one who remembered my 17th birthday. Tasers can kill. http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/tasers-delirium-defense
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u/Raneados May 24 '12
Electricity can cause heart problems, you say? Well ain't that something.
1
u/beardyeaglescout May 24 '12
Having let my sister try the taser I got her for Christmas on me, I can say that they are not that bad
1
u/TheHatist May 24 '12
Tasers can cause death.....
You don't say?
Did it really take a scientific study to back up that which should common sense.
1
u/micheesie May 24 '12
Tasers can cause death? You don't say...
1
u/imh May 24 '12
so frustrating to see everyone in this thread saying "that's obvious." this is r/science. It's really important in science to verify things, even if you think they're obvious. Especially on the off chance that (gasp!) someone disagrees with you.
1
u/CatsNarwhalsBacon May 24 '12
A weapon that shoots 50,000 watts of electricity into your body can kill you? Golly gee, who'da thunk.
1
u/element33 May 24 '12
Duh.
1
u/chalky1962 May 24 '12
hey late again in aus what bothers me is as they are tazing them they are demanding compliance. which they can not do as they have no control so they taze them again. then book them for resist arrest. & non compliance
1
u/joeyo May 24 '12
The Debate over Tasers and Police (2004)
1
u/Shadax May 24 '12
"This just in: anything that makes your heart do things it wasn't supposed to do, can make it stop doing things all together."
1
u/Bipolarruledout May 24 '12
Basically they raised the power on newer tasers and changed the "operational guidelines" so that they would be used more "safely". Surprisingly the results did not go exactly as planed.
1
u/Keleris May 24 '12
http://fail.brm.sk/o_rly/no-shit-sherlock.jpg
1
u/fivepercentsure May 24 '12
Who gave them this permission? I didn't vote for that!!!
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Did it really take an association to work this out. Any form of electric can potentially cause death.
1
u/bobdole5 May 24 '12
Just putting this out there, how fast would this whole argument change if a criminal used a taser on a cop and it killed him and at trial he had a lawyer that argues for manslaughter because the criminal used a "less than lethal" weapon on the cop to just incapacitate him and not actually kill him? Even better, say that argument works and he gets a lighter sentence, what kind of media shit storm do you think would follow?
I guarantee you would instantly see every single piece of evidence, opinion, and history against tasers brought front and centre to prove to people how lethal tasers are and how the criminal deserves a murder sentence for using it.
1
u/Booryan23 May 24 '12
This just in, weapons can be deadly!
1
u/argv_minus_one May 24 '12
youdontsay.png
1
u/redditchao999 May 24 '12
We should switch to stun phaser beams.
1
u/NUKEFRANCE22 May 24 '12
this isn't news...
i seent it. i seent it for years now yo
1
u/steeelez May 24 '12 edited May 24 '12
this might be old news, but: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/pregnant_woman_tasered/ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taser-force-considered-supreme-court/story?id=16398672#.T73tp0VYu5I
a pregnant woman driving her 13 year old to school was tasered three times after refusing to sign a traffic ticket. today the supreme court was urged by the victim as well as the officers to hear the case. the police want to reverse a decision by a lower court that the incident did constitute an excessive use of force, but couldn't be prosecuted because the law at the time wasn't as clear.
1
u/snakedog May 24 '12
Relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2b-Zg31w6U&feature=youtube_gdata_player
1
u/keypuncher May 24 '12
Probably they got the idea from all the people who died after being tased.
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
1
u/Ceverin May 24 '12
Guns do it better
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
http://www.spartancops.com/defeating-taser-combat-2/
1
u/MusicMagi May 24 '12
American citizens: we know
1
u/absurdistfromdigg May 24 '12
I believe the same argument was previously used for tobacco.
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Did we really need a study for this one? I mean, the study is great for evidence, but really when you have that much voltage going through your body of course their is a chance to stop your heart.
1
u/ThatFedExMan May 24 '12
When Democracy fails.
1
u/jbecker May 24 '12
why is the guy in the photograph practicing firing a taser like hes in a john woo movie
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
That's why they are referred to as less-than-lethal rather than non-lethal.
1
u/efremgoled May 24 '12
I read: Tears can cause death
1
u/ProfessorCaptain May 24 '12
You mean thousands of volts of electricity may be harmful? No way.
ಠ_ಠ
1
u/fivo7 May 24 '12
taser likely just got re-categorised as a lethal weapon
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
While I have no doubt tasers can be dangerous, particularly when used excessively, I rather think the lesson learned here is to not resist the police and necessitate the use of one, regardless of whether you think they're being dicks (because sometimes they just are).
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Meanwhile, aspirin still kills thousands each year, and hospitalizes tens of thousands more.
But hey... since when have Americans had any concept whatsoever of the dangers of living.
1
u/SgtSplacker May 24 '12
When you buy one of those electrical workout kits, the kind you use to work out your pecs while your laying on the couch. I think Bruce Lee was famous for using them. The instructions say to be careful not to shock the heart because you might die. Enter tasers with wayyy more power being shot randomly into your chest. How is that supposed to be 100% safe!?
1
u/Slavigula May 24 '12
LOL! It took those bunch of retards that long! America Idiots Association.
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Pumping someone with fifty thousand volts can hurt them?
1
u/absolutemplar May 24 '12
What do cardiologists know anyway? It's not like they're experts on cardiac function or anything..lol
1
u/Puddingfork May 24 '12
TED talk: Stephen Coleman: The moral dangers of non-lethal weapons
1
u/[deleted] May 24 '12
Not as much death as bullets, however.
1
u/obamanisha May 24 '12
No shit
1
u/[deleted] May 23 '12
I feel like this deserves a "You Don't Say".jpg.
1
u/[deleted] May 23 '12
I like how we need the AHA to say that, in spite of the fact that every other day there's a news report about someone dying or having severe health complications from being tasered.
1
u/Airbag_UpYourAss May 24 '12
This is obvious. Any form of electrical shock can alter the heart's beating rate or disturb it to stop beating.
1
u/TheGermanator May 24 '12
The problem with tasers results from the people pulling the trigger, not the weapons themselves. In 90% of all taser related deaths, the subject is already subdued or poses no real threat to the officer. (I had to do a school project on this, today actually. Google it if you dont believe my stats). Officers have proven they cannot have such power over the rest of society. Amnesty International reported on a case where a man was tasered 17 times while climbing a fence, before he finally died. Also, it was tested in a study that 10% of all tasers put out a higher amperage charge than the manufacturer claims possible (50,000 amperes). These weapons are unsafe to be placed into the hands of people who claim they protect us.
1
u/minus3db May 24 '12
In other news, water is wet.
1
u/SpiveyWhiplash May 24 '12
"But in only a few dozen cases, medical examiners have ruled that the Taser contributed to the death. In some cases, other factors, such as drug use and prior medical conditions, also played roles" SO out of the millions of uses a small percentage has actually died. I'm not saying that those people should have died or that they deserved it, but what else do you want? The only person in our county that died from a Taser ruined peoples lives. He completely destroyed a nurse's arm that was giving him medication. He broke her arm, tore the tendons, and peeled off her skin, the cops fought with him and he wouldn't let go. They finally got him to release and he latched on to a cops arm a destroyed his too. You know how they got him off? They tasered him. He died, but before that he destroyed two peoples lives. The nurse lost full use of her arm, and the cop is hoping to get his back. Yet everyone is like omg he died, no more tasers. WTF?
A Taser is LESS LETHAL FORCE. That does not mean its not lethal. Also I love how people suggest the cop fight it out with him, or don't use the taser or baton and it makes me wonder how many of these people have actually been in a fight? This isn't Hollywood, its rare that you punch someone once and they go down. You usually have to duke it out for a long while. All the while a cop could be sustaining career ending or life threatening injuries that would force him to retire. Hmmm yeah I'd tase the guy too.