Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It

[babylonsister]

Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 8:37 AM on November 24, 2008.

Apparently some police officers have a bone to pick with Taser International Inc.


This report from the Las Vegas Sun about their police department's experience with tasers is fascinating. (Too bad the Brits didn't read it before deciding to arm their entire police force with these torture devices.) One of the most interesting thing about it is that nearly all the information police receive is from the Taser company itself.

Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling in a line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up. All they knew of what comes next is this: It's going to smart.

This was called the "daisy chain." It was part of the Metro Police Taser training program, the alternative to hitting a single individual with thousands of volts from the weapon. It was the option officer Lisa Peterson chose, a decision she regrets.

The officers were at a training seminar in November 2003 to learn how to use the newest weapon on their belts, a device the manufacturer claimed would incapacitate a person but not do permanent harm. You can't really comprehend the Taser, students were told, until you're Tasered.

So an instructor attached alligator clips to each end of the daisy chain. Two officers became electrical bookends, strung at the shoulder by wires feeding back into a Taser gun. Pull the trigger and the daisy chain shudders, seizes and pitches forward, the pile of police officers becoming a portrait of Taser's selling point: neuromuscular incapacitation.

In the middle of the chain, hands locked at her sides, Peterson had only her face to absorb the impact. She fell hard on her neck and fast into the rabbit hole - traumatic internal disc disruption, steroid injections, surgical reconstruction, temporomandibular derangement, persistent dizziness, cognitive defects, numbness, vertigo.

Officer Peterson sued Taser International Inc.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/108404/surprise%3A_cops_who_get_tasered_really_don%27t_like_it/

[MH1]

1. No fan of the taser, but ...

Peterson really ought to be suing whoever came up with the "daisy chain" idea. The article doesn't go into detail about the others who are suing and how they got injured but it may not be the fault of Taser International, if the weapon was used in a stupid way. Oh well, maybe not... I seem to recall lawnmower manufacturers being sued for operator stupidity, so :shrug:

That said, if the departments can't even use the weapon appropriately in planned training, maybe it shouldn't be so readily used by everyday cops either. :think:

[unpossibles]

2. no permanent harm

except for the folks who died, or were injured otherwise.

[babylonsister]

3. Too many of both; maybe if more cops realized it, the taser

would become obsolete. Ha! Fat chance.

[burythehatchet]

4. I dream of Dudy 9ui11ani having a taser permanently embedded in his colon.

[babylonsister]

5. Yes, let's test one on him! nt

[ProfessorGAC]

6. That Is A Major Bummer For Peterson Though

I'm sorry that happened to her, for sure. But, perhaps this is the kind of thing that makes people realize that there is no such thing as a zero risk weapon.
The Professor