Risks of death or serious injuries
Increased-risk targets
Critics argue that TASERs as well as other high-voltage stun devices can cause cardiac arrhythmia in susceptible subjects, possibly leading to heart attack or death in minutes by ventricular fibrillation, which leads to cardiac arrest andf not treated immediatelyo sudden death. People susceptible to this outcome are sometimes healthy and unaware of their susceptibility.[citation needed]
Although the medical conditions or use of illegal drugs among some of the casualties may have been the proximate cause of death, the electric blast of the TASER can significantly heighten such risk for subjects in an at-risk category. This suggests that TASERs and other electroshock weapons would be dangerous to use on people with certain medical conditions and yet, since police officers will typically not know about a person's medical history or possible drug use, this entails a risk of death with virtually any suspect.
Risk of fire injury
Tasers come with express instructions not to use them where flammable liquids or fumes may be present, such as filling stations or by police raiding methamphetamine labs, as TASERs, like other electric devices, have been found to ignite flammable materials.
An evaluative study carried out by the British Home Office investigated the potential for TASERs to ignite CS gas. Seven trials were conducted, in which CS gas canisters containing methyl isobutyl ketone (a solvent used in all CS sprays utilized by the United Kingdom police) were sprayed over mannequins wearing street clothing. The TASERs were then fired at the mannequins. In two of the seven trials, "the flames produced were severe and engulfed the top half of the mannequin, including the head". This poses a particular problem for law enforcement, as some police departments approve the use of CS before the use of a TASER.
Training use on soldiers
A February 2005 memorandum from the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a United States Army weapons test site, discouraged shocking soldiers with TASERs in training, contrary to TASER International's recommendations. The Army's occupational health sciences director affirmed the TASER's effectiveness, but warned that "Seizures and ventricular fibrillation can be induced by the electric current." and that "the practice of using these weapons on U.S. Army military and civilian forces in training is not recommended, given the potential risks."
Training use on police
On 5 July 2005 Michael Todd, then Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, England, let himself be shot in the back with a TASER, to demonstrate his confidence that TASERs can be used safely. This was captured on video, and the video was released to the BBC on 17 May 2007. He was wearing a shirt and no new era hats jacket. When tased, he fell forward onto his chest on the ground, and (he said afterwards) "I couldn't move, it hurt like hell," he said after recovering. "I wouldn't want to do that again."
Although tests on police and military volunteers have shown TASERs to function appropriately on a healthy, calm individual in a relaxed and controlled environment, the real-life target of a TASER is, if not mentally or physically unsound, in a state of high stress and in the midst of a confrontation.[citation needed] According to the UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council subcommittee on the Medical Implications of Less-lethal Weapons (DoMILL), "The possibility that other factors such as illicit drug intoxication, alcohol abuse, pre-existing heart disease, and cardioactive therapeutic drugs may modify the threshold for generation of cardiac arrhythmias cannot be excluded. In addition, Taser experiments o not take into account real life use of Tasers by law enforcement agencies, such as repeated or prolonged shocks and the use of restraints".
Police officers in at least five US states have filed lawsuits against Taser International claiming they suffered serious injuries after being shocked with the device during training classes.
Medical literature reports that one police officer suffered spine fractures after being shocked by a Taser during a demonstration.
Designation as torture device
The United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT), an agency charged with overseeing the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, arrived at the conclusion on November 23, 2007, that the use of the electric pulse Taser gun constitutes a "form of torture" and "can even provoke death." The U.N. has thus declared: "TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill.
Increased use of force
Critics claim that risk-averse police officers resort to using Tasers in situations in which they otherwise would have used more conventional, less violent alternatives, such as trying to reason with a cornered suspect.
Current British police guild lines allow Tasers to be used pre-emptively, even where the suspect has no weapon. Where originally Tasers were only used when officers or the public were being threatened with a weapon, currently Tasers may and are being used without warning to surprise suspects before being arrested. On the 9th of April 2008 on BBC 1, the program raffic Cops showed police surprising a pedestrian by shooting him with a Taser, before arresting him on suspicion of theft. The suspect had no weapon and was fully complying with the officers orders and posed no threat. The suspect was later found to be a completely innocent pedestrian.
Comparison to alternatives
Supporters claim that electroshock weapons such as Tasers are more effective than other means including pepper-spray (an eye/breathing irritant), batons or other conventional ways of inflicting pain, even handguns, at bringing a subject down to the ground with minimum physical exertion.
Supporters claim that electroshock guns are a safer alternative to devices such as firearms. Taser International uses the term "non-lethal" as defined by the United States Department of Defense - which does not mean the weapon cannot cause death, but that it is not intended to be fatal. Non-lethal weapons are defined as "weapons that are explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel or material, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property and the environment."
"Non-lethal" designation
While they are not technically considered lethal, some authorities and non-governmental organizations question both the degree of safety presented by the weapon and the ethical implications of using a weapon that some, such as sections of Amnesty International, allege is inhumane. As a consequence, Amnesty International Canada and other civil liberties organizations have argued that a moratorium should be placed on Taser use until research can determine a way for them to be safely used. Amnesty International has documented over 245 deaths that occurred after the use of tasers. Police sources question whether the taser was the actual cause of death in those cases, as many of the deaths occurred in people with serious medical conditions and/or severe drug intoxication, often to the point of excited delirium.[citation needed]
Validity of "excited delirium" term
Critics of taser use, however, argue that "excited delirium" is not a valid medical term and is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Tasers are often used as an alternative to talking and waiting for a suspect to comply, striking the suspect with a baton or shooting them with firearms. Only the later two of which have a much higher chance of serious injury and death than the taser,[citation needed] even using the highest
Manufacturer's risk acknowledgments
Breathing
Taser International has admitted in a training bulletin that repeated blasts of a taser can "impair breathing and respiration". Also, on Taser's website it is stated that, for a subject in a state known as "excited delirium" (a controversial term in itself), repeated or prolonged stuns with the Taser can contribute to "significant and potentially fatal health risks". In such a state, physical restraint by the police coupled with the exertion by the subject are considered likely to result in death or more injuries. Critics alleged that electroshock devices can damage delicate electrical equipment such as pacemakers, but tests conducted by the Cleveland Clinic found that Tasers did not interfere with pacemakers and implantable defibrillators.
Cardiac arrests, lawsuits and effectiveness
On September 30, 2009, the manufacturer Taser International issued a warning and new targeting guidelines to law enforcement agencies to aim shots below the chest center of mass as "avoiding chest shots with ECDs avoids the controversy about whether ECDs do or do not affect the human heart" Calgary Police Service indicated in a news interview that the rationale for the warning was "new medical research that is coming out is showing that the closer probe to heart distances have a likelihood, or a possibility, that they may affect the rhythm of the heart".
Taser "recommended officers avoid tasing suspects in the chest area, citing the potential for cardiac arrests, lawsuits and effectiveness of the device." Central Texas Constable Richard McCain, whose deputy recently used a Taser weapon against an unarmed 72-year-old woman (resulting in a $40,000 lawsuit settlement), describes Taser's directive as "not really practical".
Deaths and injuries related to Taser use
While their intended purpose is new era hats to circumvent the use of lethal force such as guns, the actual deployment of Tasers by police in the years since Tasers came into widespread use is claimed to have resulted in more than 180 deaths as of 2006. It is still unclear whether the Taser was directly responsible for the cause of death, but several legislators in the U.S. have filed bills clamping down on them and requesting more studies on their effects. Despite the growing controversy, a study funded by the U.S. Justice Department asserted that the majority of people tasered from July 2005 to June 2007 suffered no injury. A study led by William Bozeman, of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, of nearly 1,000 persons subjected to Taser use, concluded that 99.7% of the subjects had either minor injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all; while three persons suffered injuries severe enough to need hospital admission, and two other subjects died. Their autopsy reports indicated neither death was related to the use of a Taser.
The head of the U.S. southern regional office of Amnesty International, Jared Feuer, reported that 277 people in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser between June 2001 and October 2007, which has already been documented. He also noted that about 80% of those on whom a Taser was used by U.S. police were unarmed. "Tasers interfere with a basic equation, which is that force must always be proportional to the threat," Feuer said. "They are being used in a situation where a firearm or even a baton would never be justified." A spokesperson for Taser International asserted that if a person dies from a "tasering" it is instantaneous and not days later. Taser International announced that it is "transmitting over 60 legal demand letters requiring correction of... false and misleading headlines."
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