There's a great video on the internets of some lady getting pulled over, presumably for some minor traffic violation (no signs of backup called in or anything). The cop asks her to get otu and she's jabbering on her cell phone about how she doesn't know what to do. He warns her twice more and then tazes her like three times. Funny to watch, but yeah, I suspect that was a bit excessive.

me, i would just grab the phone and hang up the call...

but then i guess that would mean reaching into a vehicle with a person you dont know the capabilities of...

Well, one reason for increased Taser use and death is more people have them. 6,000 departments have picked them up in the last 7 years, so... yeah, I would think they would be used more often as cops get comfortable with them and as more cops get issued one. Also, some of those were insane, most helped along by drugs. A 5 seconds burst then a 57 second charge? 57 seconds?! I can see why he died.

Chris

The problem is highlighted by this too. Cops are people too folks, just like us, no smarter, no dumber, just as uninformed and opinionated and fallible. Where the rub comes in is the common misconception that tasers are safe. The cops have these misconceptions too. And unfortunately roughly 60 times just last year, just in the US, this proved not to be the case.

It has become a control device instead of relying primarily on the personal wits of the officer and authority of the office, as in the past. I just watched a video of a woman who was hand cuffed, in a Police Station already, who simply was being uncooperative who was tasered without warning and as she went down she clonked her head on the edge of one of the officers desks.

Yes, you could have the same result from the officer just shoving her or something...but it probably would NEVER have happened where he was physically assaulting her, banging her with a night stick or whatever.

That cop probably wasn't a bad guy, but he'd had a bad day and he wanted to teach her a lesson, so, since tasers are safe anyway...


THAT is the real issue. They provide an illusion of safety that REPLACES some of the thought process because it's supposed to be safe.


Isshia

Her aprehension about leaving her vehicle is understandable. There have been cases of people posing as police officers (and very rarely actual police officers) pulling over women who were driving alone, ordering them out of their vehicles, and then raping them. If is not necessary for the driver to leave the vehicle in order to receive a ticket and is safer for everyone involved if the driver does not leave the vehicle given everything that can go wrong in such a situation (including the possibility of being struck by a vehicle).

Hmmmmm sounds like maybe they need to add in a switch that changes the tasers pulse from "you hit the ground now" to the old pain compliance version.


I can understand wanting a ranged attack that can gain compliance. It seems the old tasers kind of put you on a pain leash, but I imagine had a very low frequency of injury since people shouldn't uncontrollably hit the ground or have their muscles sieze up.

Having that option back would let officers gain compliance with less risk to themselves without adding in the whole "people dying" thing.

As I understand it tasers have a "drive mode" which is basically a weak pain compliance mode. The ranged attack uses a stronger mode that messes with the nervous system, but the melee attack is all "drive mode" so the officer doesn't also get zapped from being in contact with the perp.

So according to the ever-objective mass media outlet AP, out of 70,000 taser deployments in the US there were 61 deaths. Assuming you could link all those deaths directly to being tased (which is arguable), that works out to about 1 death in 1147.541 taser uses.

In the United States about 325,000 people die of sudden cardiac death every year. Thats just regular old healthy people with no known heart problems dropping dead for no apparent reason. The estimated US population (as of July 2008) is 303,824,646. That works out to about 1 death in 934.84506.

1:935 vs 1:1148... statistical significance? I don't think so.

Despite HIGHLY PUBLICIZED incidents (which are likely due simply to the increased use of tasers in the population) I don't think that the problem is inherent to tasers. Is it more dangerous than talking to the guy? Or watching TV? Or having a tea party? Yes, obviously. But the reality is that tasers are a pretty safe alternative to just about any other *use of force* which is their purpose. Whether the situation calls for force or not is a separate argument inherent to police brutality and the nature of violence in a civilized society.

Now having said that, I will say again that I can understand the logic behind the idea of "perception of saftey = greater use". In fact, I would be inclined to agree that such a phenomenon is probably occurring. But you can't continue to say tasering is inherently more dangerous than other use of force. That simply isn't supported by the research.

Who the heck said, or even inferred that broadly? Certainly it wasn't me. Nor did I see anyone else who went even in that general direction with what they said.


Isshia

Yes, but what they could use is a way to dial down dart mode to hit like drive mode. Obviously with the option to flip a button in order to fire a "you go down now" burst if need be.

But it would give them another step in escalation at range.

What was said was that it was helping to promote an ideology that was inherently dangerous. Not MORE dangerous than use of force... but dangerous none the less and endemic, because of common misconceptions that even the Police Officers using these things have TOO.

There is no "all or nothing" here. It simply becomes important to make damned sure that the guys (and women too) that are using these things ARE fully aware of the possibilities.

Isshia

Well, to bring this into Shadowrun, it's one of the things that police forces, and the munitions companies that supply them, strive for: The Completely Non-Lethal Weapon.

Even Narcojet has people that are allergic to it, and possible long-term side effects, who knows. Maybe getting numerous doses of Narcojet causes Narcolepsy.

Didn't Dunkie leave something for either Lone Star or Knight Errant if they could come up with something?

On the other side of the spectrum there is also this incident where the RCMP tazed a guy and killed him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IJqdL40lvU

Sorry, my bad.

Anyway, yeah, non-lethal unless they get used when you're down... or if you have a cyber replacement heart or the like that might get interrupted. Some GMs are more vicious about such things than others. Maybe if you go in to overload these babies will still kill ya. Especially if they are doing this much basic stun damage, they should be capable of it.

Way back in the day, in a game called Space Opera, there was a Police weapon that was essentially a net gun that fired strands of fibers that would wrap and constrict on contact. Great non lethal response...until the strands were shot in to the mouth, where the gagging reflex would cause them to constrict and swell and the very size of the goo as it "banded" would block the airways and the victim would slowly strangle to death. And this was part of the caveat with the weapon in it's use in some of the more totalitarian societies.

The point is that there is no such thing as fool proof non-lethal response.


Isshia

Exactly.

Found the Dunkie Comment (THANKS ANCIENT!!!)



WOW! That's a nice reward!!! And, by 2070, I bet neither side has gotten it yet, either!

Ah yes, I remember this now, I even mentioned it in one of my posts on From The Shadows!

(Another blainting pimping of the From The Shadows blog.).

You're actually using a statistical fallacy here, though you don't know it ( I hope). It is the ecological fallacy. You're assuming that a small subgroup (those who die of sudden cardiac arrest after being tased) has a makeup identical to that of the larger group (all people who die of sudden cardiac arrest). This is probably untrue as those who are most likely to die of sudden cardiac arrest (the elderly) are also the least likely to be tased. Instead, you need to look at the group of all people who died after a tasing and compare them to people in similar circumstances who have not been tased to determine if taser use was likely a contributing causal factor in their death. You might, for example, look at the number of people who have suffered from excited dementia to determine the probability of their deaths due to cardiac arrest and compare that the the probability of their deaths due to cardiac arrest soon after being tasered.

Actually I was trying to illustrate the relative risk without getting overly technical.

Or people were shot by the cops 5 or 6 times after they attacked them?

Even so, the comparison still falls into the ecological fallacy because it does not take into account to presence of or lack of other risk factors.

The use of relative risk is that particular manner also suggests that it is likely that those who did die would have died anyway without taking into account the probability of someone who was destined to die of sudden cardiac arrest from natural causes being tased shortly before dying. While correlation does not imply causation, significant correlation does imply a common causal chain.

Happy fun youtubes of people getting OC sprayed. The first person loses it. The second person, a female, performs well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ugUXb7w9g

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

So, I've been playing a lot of SWAT 4 lately, and in that game, tasing someone once makes them totally unable to shoot you for a few seconds. Is that realistic?

I'm guessing it's probably more about "game balance". The taser in the game has got to be reloaded after every shot, or after every 2 shots for the cobra taser, and the range is very limited. It's only saving grace in game terms would be that if you manage to hit someone with it successfully you will definitely take them out of action for a little while.

However, this creates some situations that made me raise my eyebrow. For example, once when I was playing my player character had this taser drawn and was crouching in an open door. A suspect with an assault rifle was in the middle of sprinting past that open door and my player character managed to catch him in mid sprint in the ribs with the taser. But, I'd suspect that in real life if someone were sprinting laterally and were tased in mid stride I'd guess that even if his legs gave out the momentum of his body moving would probably make him fall past the door and would probably rip the hooks out. Plus, as I mentioned above, I'm not positive that just because someone is being tased they wouldn't be able to pull the trigger on their assault rifle.

Does anyone with strong taser-fu have any comments?

I'd say it depends on the strength of the charge and whether they're "used" to pain like that. Tasers tend to cause your muscles to seize up, so you just kinda jerk around or fall down. Depending on the person it might take a couple seconds to recover from that, or they might be okay as soon as it stops.

As a side note, tasers are both the best and worst thing to issue police, IMO. On one hand, its a pretty reliable method of stopping someone without hurting them. On the other hand, they can be used as "compliance" weapons and leave no marks on the target. So if a cop wants to say, taser you eight times while you're handcuffed on the ground, he can, and unless its on tape, there's really no way for you to do anything about it. The potential for abuse is just too high for my tastes, especially given the numbers of cops that are less than kind (not a majority or even close to one, but there's definitely a pretty decent number, especially in larger cities).

I thought that tasers leave tiny burn marks on the skin where contact is made?

only if they pump enough juice into the target to cook skin...

and at that point, i think burn marks would be the targets least worry...

btw, there was a test performed on some national geographic show there a guy managed to remove the taser connectors while under its effect.

yes he fell down, but was back up in seconds ones he had them removed. mind you, this was a person that appeared to have been training martial arts and mind over body techniques for some time and i only happened to check the channel right before they where to perform the test.

Still, the whole appeal of tasers was their supposed ability to incapacitate determined, goal-orientated individuals, so the fact that someone could do that kind of makes them seem less useful than they'd otherwise be.

also, don't those little darts come with hooks like certain arrow-heads and those things used in fishing poles?
kinda like the nato wire or razor wire stuff?

Yes they do. You can see little blood spots on a tee shirt where someone is hit by the darts.

im guessing the word being looked for is barb?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb

still, as these things are supposed to be used on humans, i dont think said barbs are as serious as the ones found on said fish hooks.

Yeah, but can you Dikote them?

Hey, someone had to ask it!

Nothing works 100%.

and thats why we have bullet-resistant vests, rather then bullet-proof...

Sweet! According to this obviously-biased infomercial, the "advanced taser" is apparently t3h pwn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhkE3VTuPhk

They imply that taser > hand grenade.


EDIT: There's something about taser videos that makes them so entertaining...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zQ0_d-BFM4

Two hundred years has thus far incapacitated every individual available to record.

~J

Not Hyzmarca. He's a taoist immortal.

I just spotted this rather amusing article on the Beeb.

You've heard of tupperware parties, and Ann Summers parties... How about Taser parties?

I love the part about getting stylish covers for them.

EDIT: fixed linkage

Surpisingly I've just watched that before you linked it. Good ol' Beeb, when its not stealing money from charity it does have some random stuff on there. ((the joy of free time between calls))

Mounties tasering old man

You know what makes me air riff? If you play the following SWAT 4 mod, you can actually play the role of a Mountie, and you can indeed taser people.

http://www.armyelearning.ca/cfda/

Its interesting how the old man says the cops should have known he had bypass surgery before they hit him "bang bang bang three times with the laser". So now cops are supposed to be skilled in physical diagnosis too? "Now don't cut me sir, I just need to listen to your heart real quick with my department issued stethoscope.."

The media bias in these stories is ridiculous. I'd like to see a story detailing the *thousands* of times each year the taser is employed in a safe and reasonable manor that saves lives. Or how about a story on the Youtube idiots tasering each other for fun at parties that *don't* keel over dead? Oh wait... thats not news worthy is it?

That guy wasn't a Mountie. His uniform was all wrong. He didn't have a hat. He didn't even have the red jacket. Frag, he didn't even have a lanyard. You can't have mounties without lanyards, what if he drops his gun while on horseback? I don't know what that guy was, but it is obvious to any casual observer that he could not possibly be a Mountie. I'm quite surprised that the news reporters didn't call him on his obvious fraud.



The fact that he was in a hosptial, on a hospital bed, connected to various life-saving and electrically-sensitive machines while recovering from the surgery might have been a fucking clue. It wouldn't have been particularly difficult to ask a nurse to read his chart if they were such total morons that they couldn't tell from a cursory visual inspection that he might not be in very good shape.

But, as I stated above, the guy claiming to be a mountie wasn't wearing a real mountie uniform so he is obviously a fraud. Besides, everyone knows that mounties don't carry tasers, instead relying on their wits, their wilderness survival skills, and their standard issue revolvers.

You do know that the Mounties can't wear that uniform any longer because it's been copyrighted and completely owned by Disney now, eh?

They dress like normal cops.

Right... and their ever dependable horse.

Fair enough, but then why didn't the medical staff just bring in a few big burly orderlies to hold the dude down and inject him with some haloperidol? At some point they called the cops right? If you bring police into a situation that requires medical intervention and instead you get a police intervention you can't blame the police.

Canadian Medical Budget Cutbacks.

It's faster to get the cops there than some Orderlies.

And, if you could count on the delivery boy/girl being strong enough, it's faster to order a pizza.

So a Restraining Order basically ?

Given that a healthy nurse should be faster and more agile than an elderly man who just had a heart bypass and is delusional due to hypoxia, orderlies should have been unnecessary. All that was required was someone with the testicular fortitude to walk up to him and jab a needle in the first available muscle. It's what House would have done.



Exactly.

Sometimes the only thing more amazing than all the crap on the internet is that some people actually know it's there...