The TASER Has Become Just Another Way To Kill People

When the Taser was introduced a few years ago, it was touted as being an alternative to lethal force. Police departments all over the world were sold on the idea that many of the situations where they would normally draw firearms could now be defused with a device that would only incapacitate an aggressive subject. However, in the last few years, it is undeniable that in situations where police officers would never have drawn a firearm they are drawing and using their Tasers.

Take for example the situation with the "Don't taze me bro!" guy. Police would never have felt justified in drawing a handgun on a subject who had no weapon, and was only resisting arrest. Yet they felt free to whip out the Taser and blast away. Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was electroshocked in the Vancouver airport because he had become unruly (after not being cleared by customs for 8 hours!). He clearly had no knife or firearm as he had been cleared past security checkpoints. Would police 20 years ago have drawn their handguns against this man? Never. Yet they Tased him twice and as a result, he was killed. In Canada alone, at least 17 people have died as a result of being electroshocked by Tasers since 2003. Of course not to be outdone by our northern neighbors, the United States has seen more than 270 Taser related deaths since 2001.

Supporters of the Taser argue that it has saved lives, as subjects are shocked rather than shot. However, a study in Houston Texas showed that the number of people shot did not decrease after Tasers were issued to police. Yet Tasers were used more than 1,000 times. And in 95% of those incidents, the Tasers were "...not used to defuse situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly would have been justified".

The truth is that police are using Tasers in situations where they would have previously used strong-arm tactics to control a subject. Wrestling someone to the ground and cuffing them used to be the way this was handled, now it's become a push button affair with a growing body count. What was sold to the public as an alternative to lethal force has quickly become the primary and routine method of gaining an unwilling subject's cooperation. And for that convenience, local governments and police are apparently more than willing to offer up a few dead citizens.

**Update: Frederick, MD Sheriff's dept killed a man today with a Taser (11/18/2007)