Claims Over Tasers’ Safety Are Challenged | NYT | 11.26.04
Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees. …
But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks. The guns “may cause several unintended effects, albeit with low probabilities of occurrence,” the laboratory said last week in a statement released after a symposium on Tasers, as the company’s guns are known, and other weapons intended to incapacitate people without killing them. …
Tasers are pistol-shaped weapons that fire electrified darts up to 21 feet, shocking suspects with a painful charge. More than 5,500 police departments and prisons now use Tasers, compared with only a handful five years ago. …
Taser International says the deaths resulted from drug overdoses or other factors and would have occurred anyway. But coroners have linked several deaths to the weapons, and independent scientists who are authorities on electricity and the heart say that the company may be significantly underestimating the weapon’s risks, especially in people who have used drugs or have heart disease.
Taser has performed only minimal research on the health effects of its weapons. Its primary safety studies on the M26, its most powerful gun, consist of tests on a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999. The company has resisted calls for more tests, saying that it is comfortable with the research it has conducted. …
Ventricular fibrillation is a disturbance of the electrical circuitry of the heart that causes cardiac arrest in seconds and death in minutes. Taser says that its weapons do not produce enough current to cause ventricular fibrillation, but scientists who are authoritative on fibrillation say that the company has not done enough research to know whether that contention is accurate. …
A Taser International employee tests an X26 weapon, which fires a smaller charge than earlier models. Some critics say the company’s weapons have led to deaths and can constitute mistreatment of suspects.
TASER International Announces that 1,000 Law Enforcement Agencies Now Deploy the ADVANCED TASER® M26 | Press Release | 11.20.01
TASER International, Inc. Announces Revolutionary New Shaped Pulse™ Technology | Press Release | 5.1.03
ADVANCED TASER® M26
Electro-Muscular Disruption (EMD) technologyTASER® X26
Shaped Pulse™ technology
Stun gun deaths raise drug-link questions | Sacramento Bee | 11.13.04
Ricardo Zaragoza and Gordon Rauch suffered from mental illnesses. Both men fought when they were confronted by Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies. Both were shot at least twice with a Taser, a stun gun considered nonlethal by police. Both died.
The similarities surrounding their deaths place Zaragoza and Rauch on a growing list of those on medication or other drugs who died after being hit with 50,000 volts of electricity from a Taser, a relatively new weapon used by law enforcement officers.
The M26 is classified as a
Man shot by stun guns dies
Deputies were subduing the Elk Grove resident, who was acting erratically | Sacramento Bee | 11.9.04
An Elk Grove man died early Monday in a confrontation with Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies after officers used pepper spray and shot the man twice with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns.
A family photo shows Alicia Zaragoza with son Ricardo Zaragoza, 40, who died Monday after being shot with stun guns in a struggle with deputies in Elk Grove.
73 cases of death following stun-gun use | The Arizona Republic | 10.12.04
The Arizona Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser’s own records, has identified 73 cases in the United States and Canada of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In eight cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone’s death. In 18 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor. Below is a synopsis of each case. The Republic requested autopsy reports for all of the cases and so far has received 27.
27. Gordon Rauch, 39, Citrus Heights, Calif.
Aug. 17, 2003
Rauch’s father called to report that his son was threatening to kill him. Police officers said Rauch charged at them. Two officers shot him with Tasers. He fell to the ground and went limp as officers put him in cuffs. He died about an hour later. The autopsy report is unavailable. Police said Rauch’s prescribed psychotropic drugs might have contributed to his death. …
Taser | Wikipedia
Tasers
The name comes from “Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle.” It was designed in 1969 by Arizona inventor John Cover. Most modern Tasers fire small spear-shaped electrodes with attached wires that lead back to the device, propelled by a small gas charge as in some air rifles. The range is about 6 metres (20 feet). On firing they shoot out and imbed in the skin and then deliver a jolt of electricity, but they cannot penetrate much thickness of clothes. Some police forces use them. They are single-shot weapons and take a long time to reload, but most are fitted with conventional electrodes and can be used as an electric shock prod if necessary.
I had missed Mr. Zaragoza’s arrival at my hospital by about 30 minutes—so these articles have a very real world feel. In residency, PCP was a very popular recreational drug—fortunately it was during the waning ingestion days and the waxing smoking days (a titrated inhalational PCP intoxication is much less violent). We saw lots of “PCP’ers” with the almost pathognomonic vertical nystagmus—very commonly they came in dangling several “spear-shaped electrodes with attached wires” from the early tasers. I’m beginning to think, that with so many associated deaths, it is not the “tasing” per se—but the arrhythmogenic potential of psychiatric medications. The medications themselves create an arrhythmogenic substrate. Perhaps if Taser International had tested with a “single pig” and “five dogs” that were taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, cocaine, methamphetamine, ethanol, or combinations thereof the M26 and X26 would not have had so wide spread acceptance and adoption.
The M26 is classified as a high power (PDF) taser (14-26 Watt). A Watt is one Joule per second. We electrically cardiovert around 100 Joules (4 seconds of an M26) and defibrillate anywhere from 100-360 Joules (4-14 seconds of an M26).
Perhaps these devices are not truly “non-lethal,” but have a potential lethality that was never sufficiently studied or considered. I suspect as the cases mount these devices are going to be pulled in mass—the potential litigation nightmares for local governments is only starting to ramp up. I really feel for law enforcement personnel trying to do a very difficult job and to preserve life whenever possible—the irony is that these non-lethal devices may end up being lethal to their careers. There are so many victims—the decedant, decedant’s family and friends, law enforcement officers, and the greater community—no one wants these deaths, they’re striving to prevent lethal interactions!
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