[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Hot off the Wires: Taser International cautions police

[Barbara kessel]

Taser International has known for years that there is some danger in aiming
at the chest, a danger in that a single strike at the vector above the heart
at just the right moment can interrupt the natural heart rhythm and send it
into fibrillation, which quickly becomes cardiac arrest. This is why police
who carry tasers in British Columbia are recently required  to carry
defibrillators as well. Taser International changed its training protocol
some time back so that volunteers for tasing were only struck in the back
and never the front, but they never passed this knowledge on whle they have
trained thousands of police officers in 43 countries. In North America the
deaths (of every kind) following tasing stands at 446. The reason that they
have not brought this to light is that it undercuts their emphatic line that
"tasers never killed anyone."
      While tasers are certainly far less lethal than a gun, police use them
with abandon as they think they are dealing with a totally non-lethal
weapon.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barbara kessel <barkes at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:53 PM
Subject: Hot off the Wires: Taser International cautions police


Taser advises police not to aim at
chest<http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/10/21/20091021taser1021.html#>

*October 21, 2009*
Robert Anglen, *Arizona Republic {this is the Scottsdale, AZ paper - home of
Taser International}*

The maker of Taser stun guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting
suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose
an extremely low risk of an "adverse cardiac event."

The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, is the first time that
Taser International has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac arrest
related to the discharge of its stun gun.

But Taser officials said Tuesday that the bulletin does not state that
Tasers can cause cardiac arrest. They said the advisory means only that
law-enforcement agencies can avoid controversy over the subject if their
officers aim at areas other than the chest.

The recommendation could raise questions about whether police officers will
find it more difficult to accurately direct the probes emitted by a Taser
gun at a recommended body area in order to subdue a suspect. Taser officials
say the change won't hinder officers' ability to use Tasers.

In a memo accompanying the bulletin, Taser officials point out that officers
can still shoot the guns at a suspect's chest, if needed.

Police departments across the United States and in Canada and Australia
reacted immediately to the bulletin, with some ordering officers to follow
Taser's instructions and begin aiming at the abdomen, legs or back of a
suspect.

Officials with the Phoenix Police Department, one of the first in the
country to arm all its officers with Tasers, said Tuesday that the new
guidelines are being adopted by trainers who are reviewing departmental
policy for possible changes.

Critics, including civil-rights lawyers and human-rights advocates, called
the training bulletin an admission by Taser that its guns could cause
cardiac arrest. They called it a stunning reversal for the company, which
for years has maintained that the gun was incapable of inducing a cardiac
arrest.

Scottsdale-based Taser insisted that the revision admitted no risk of
cardiac arrest and served only as risk-management advice for law
enforcement.

In the past, Taser has cautioned that use of its stun gun involves risk
inherent in police-suspect conflicts, including the risk that suspects fall
after being struck by a Taser.

"Taser has long stood by the fact that our technology is not risk-free and
is often used during violent and dangerous confrontations," Taser Vice
President Steve Tuttle said in an e-mail.

"We have not stated that the Taser causes (cardiac) events in this bulletin,
only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this
topic."

Taser's training bulletin states that "the risk of an adverse cardiac event
related to a Taser . . . discharge is deemed to be extremely low." However,
the bulletin says, it is impossible to predict human reactions when a
combination of drug use or underlying cardiac or other medical conditions
are involved.

"Should sudden cardiac arrest occur in a scenario involving a Taser
discharge to the chest area, it would place the law-enforcement agency, the
officer and Taser International in the difficult situation of trying to
ascertain what role, if any, the Taser . . . could have played," the
bulletin says.

The bulletin recommends that when aiming at the front of a suspect, the best
target for officers is the major muscles of the pelvic area or thigh region.
"Back shots remain the preferred area when practical," it says.

For years, Taser officials have said in interviews, court cases and
government hearings that the stun gun is incapable of inducing ventricular
fibrillation, the chaotic heart rhythm characteristic of a heart attack.

The guns are used by more than 12,000 police agencies across the country,
including every major law-enforcement agency in the Valley. Many authorities
credit the weapon with preventing deaths and injuries to officers and
suspects.

Mark Spencer, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, said
Tuesday that line officers had not been told of the new guidelines. But he
had only praise for Tasers.

"It really minimizes harm, not only to officers but to suspects," he said.

Advocacy groups such as Amnesty International allege that Taser guns are
often used by police as a compliance tool on unarmed individuals who pose no
deadly threat, who are drunk or on drugs and simply quarrel with officers.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado American Civil Liberties
Union, who has tracked Taser issues for years, said the bulletin means that
police departments should now be asking questions about liability and
reconsider how the stun gun is used.

"This is further evidence that law-enforcement agencies need to stop and ask
if they have been sold a bill of goods," he said. "This (training) bulletin
confirms what critics have said for years: that Taser has overstated its
safety claims. . . . (It) has to be read as if Tasers can cause cardiac
arrest."

Since 2001, there have been more than 400 deaths following police Taser
strikes in the United States and 26 in Canada. Medical examiners have ruled
that a Taser was a cause, contributing factor or could not be ruled out in
more than 30 of those deaths.

The training bulletin is drawing significant attention in Canada, where
controversy erupted after the 2007 death of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver
International Airport. The man stopped breathing after being shocked five
times by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers.

A Canadian government investigation in July concluded that Taser stun guns
can cause death, spurring law-enforcement agencies across the country to put
severe new restrictions on how and when police there can use the weapons.

In view of Taser's bulletin, the Mounties revised policies to urge officers
to avoid firing at suspects' chests.
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