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Taser Thoughts
by D. Lee Oliver
There is a significant need for an intermediate police tool or weap-on, as in exceptional circumstances
where the use of a baton or gun would be considered impractical, ineffective or unwarranted.
- Do Tasers kill? There is no actual proof that they do. But surely all, or a vast majority
of the twenty-six taser-related victims in Canada would have survived the encounter with the police had they never
been tasered in the first place. So my answer to this is obvious.
- I often hear police say that Tasers "save lives." Perhaps inadvertently, in that the
Taser is safer than, say a firearm, in that it has a lesser likelihood of killing the suspect. An
absurd reasoning.
- If these deaths were firearm-related and not Taser-related, there would be chaos and violence on
our city streets in anarchistic proportions.
A two-year study conducted by the Canadian Police
Research Centre recently examined several use of force methods used
by officers found that batons caused a higher rate of injury than Tasers. The study scored Tasers high in safety for both
officers and suspects, noting only 1 percent of suspects subdued with the weapon required hospitalization, and 87 per cent
suffered only minor injuries or weren't hurt at all. (1 percent and 87 percent equals 88 percent. What happened
to the other 12 percent?)
Batons, on the other hand, injured 39 per cent of subjects and resulted in the hospitalization of three
per cent. (Attempts to refrain from inflicting serious injury should always be considered. Again, these actions rest entirely
upon the attitude of the officer. Although I do not always support the use of batons, I cannot recall a recent
death attributed to their use; as opposed to the 26 taser-related deaths in Canada thus far.)
Tasers are often responsible for preventing death and serious injury because they can subdue a suspect quickly,
one of the study's co-authors, Calgary police Staff Sgt. Chris Butler. "The longer a confrontation is allowed to go on, the
much more unpredictable the outcome will be," Butler said. (I wonder how much more unpredictable a situation
could become, if it was prolonged. But I can predict one thing; the possibility that a life could be saved.)
And now for some good news. Some of the newer products being tested are promising. Non-lethal weapons such
as the "pain ray," which sends a beam of energy that heats a person's skin to a hundred and thirty degrees. Also, a magnetic
audio device that uses magnets to transmit loud sound up to a mile away.
It is the position of APBnow that Tasers be banned from police use in Canada and the
United States.
Note: I wrote to Calgary alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart recently, about some comments which she
had made to the media, in favor of Tasers. I wanted to address the issue with her. She did not respond.
Ban
Tasers
NOW!
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