Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle

I've been thinking about the use of Tasers by police a lot recently, especially since a mentally ill man in Brooklyn was Tasered as he stood on a second story ledge and then plunged head-first to his death last week. I have believed for several years that Tasers are far more dangerous in the hands of cops than the statistics of injury that stems from their use would suggest. If you read "authoritative" sources, Tasers don't seem so bad. After all, the risk of death with their appropriate use is actually quite low. There have been several studies that have shown no cardiac rhythm problems, no respiratory problems, and no serious side effects from the use of a taser. And there was a large study published in 2007 by Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center physicians that looked at the previous uses of Tasers (almost 1000 total) by police officers in 6 different law enforcement agencies around the country. In that study, only 3 people subjected to taser use by police in real-life situations had "serious harm" documented. Two of those three people died, but autopsies showed that the deaths "were not related to taser use". There has also been approval given for numerous police agencies to use tasers on children, and the Taser company (the manufacturer of Tasers) states that studies have shown that Taser use on pregnant women is safe, as well as use in children over 60 lbs. In fact, there are school systems in the U.S. that have approved use of Tasers for subduing children.

On the surface, it might seem that proponents of Taser use may have a point - Tasers really seem to be safe (if used correctly) according to all the studies and claims out there.

But let's back up just a second. I am a firm believer that anyone can prove anything, if you just manipulate or report the data to your advantage. So why don't we take a look at the "evidence" on the pro-Taser side.

- Studies done to show that Taser use on humans is safe have used volunteers as subjects. Volunteer police and military personnel. Which would suggest that the subjects are in good to excellent physical health, and (hopefully) not under the influence of drugs, mentally ill, under the age of 18, on medications that would make Taser jolts particularly risky, or under duress (at least before they are zapped). And most volunteers were hit with a Taser blast lasting 1.5 seconds; fewer endured jolts up to 5 seconds. None were Tased more than once. And none were subjected to prolonged use of voltage.

- When police officers use Tasers, we can safely assume that the subjects are under duress - after all, they are in need of subduing. And the majority of suspects who are resisting arrest, or behaving violently, are under the influence of drugs - often cocaine, crack, meth, or alcohol. And statistically, although most suspects are men between the ages of 18 to 35 (like the healthy volunteers in the studies), there are certainly plenty who are younger, or older, or female.

- It is well documented that the use of Tasers to subdue suspects doesn't always follow the protocol that the study volunteers enjoyed, i.e. one jolt of brief duration. There are numerous cases documented that have involved the use of prolonged Taser jolts (up to 30 seconds at a time), and/or multiple Taser jolts by police, sometimes on suspects aready in handcuffs, already on the ground, already in jail, or only questionably violent or resisting arrest.

- Multiple people have died after being subjected to the use of a Taser by law enforcement officials. There is no disputing this fact. However, many claims have been made that those people, on autopsy, didn't die because of the use of a Taser. Rather, the cause of death was often attributed to "heart disease". But I couldn't find any indication that those people had just happened to have heart attacks. Because if they had, then their deaths could really have been linked to the Taser jolt. Instead, it appears that these men (because all deaths thus far have been in men) had EVIDENCE of heart disease on autopsy. In medical-speak, I believe this means that they all had some degree of atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries). Funny thing is, when autopsies were done on soldiers who died in Vietnam, doctors were surprised to find that the vast majority of them (and these were mostly men ages 18-22) had already developed some atherosclerosis! And I don't think anyone would dare to argue that they died of "heart disease".

- As I already pointed out, lots of people who are violent or resisting arrest are under the influence of drugs. So when one of then dies, even after the use of a Taser, it seems easy to point to the drug as the cause of death, and many studies have done that. But drugs don't mysteriously cause death (at least almost never) just because they are in your system. They kill you if they cause some other catastrophic medical condition, like a stroke, a heart attack or a cardiac arrhythmia, a suppression of your ability to breathe, or a metabolic crisis. And say, aren't those the same things that have been seen in animals who died following excessive doses of electricity, just like those delivered by Tasers? What a coincidence!

- The Taser company claims that studies show the weapon is safe for use in pregnant women and children (over 60 lbs). Yeah, well, I couldn't find any of those studies. And I can guarantee there aren't any. Why am I so confident? Because there is no way that a study like that would ever take place. First of all, you would need pregnant women to volunteer to be zapped with Tazers, and we all know that no pregnant woman (at least no sane pregnant woman) would risk her pregnancy for the chance to experience excruciating pain. And I really doubt that any parent would volunteer their child for said experiment. That would constitute child abuse, as would the performance of such a study. Now, Taser may be referring to the anecdotal articles that look at pregnant women who have been zapped by a police officer, been evaluated by medical personnel afterwards, notified said personnel that they were pregnant, then followed up sequentially with a physician who was aware of the situation. Oh, and that doctor would then have to publish an article about that woman and the outcome of her pregnancy. So, how many women meet these criteria? Well, four. I could find four women who met all those criteria, including making public the outcome of their pregnancies. There are a few others who have been subjected to a Tazer jolt while pregnant, and got into the news somehow, but didn't have outcomes that were easy to discover. Oh, and the four women who we know about? Three of them miscarried, after being Tazed at anywhere from 7 weeks to 4 months along in their pregnancies. The fourth, who was Tased at 8 months along, delivered a healthy full term baby. Now, there is no way to prove that a Tazer jolt was responsible for the miscarriages. But there is no proof that it was due to anything else either.

- There are multiple incidents in which Tasers have been used on children. I have found cases of their use on children as young as six. First, I have to wonder in what circumstance a grown adult, trained to physically subdue people with minimal harm to themselves and their subject, would be unable to easily overpower a child with a minimum of risk. Most 8 year old children will submit to an authoritative adult if pressed - they have been socialized to do so, and children are very aware of the power inequity between themselves and an adult, especially a police officer. So, for example, a 6 year old child who is holding a piece of glass, poised to cut himself, would most likely have been easily convinced to surrender the glass. And if that wasn't possible, an adult male would have needed to use little effort to gently restrain that child to prevent him from hurting himself. I don't think any rational person would even consider using a Taser on that 6 year old child. Oh, wait a sec... And I don't think there is any way to quantitate the emotional and psychological trauma that those children sustain from the use of a severely painful, terrifying electrical shock that causes paralysis in a child who is obviously already under significant emotional duress. Post traumatic stress disorder has resulted from less physically painful and similarly brief experiences. Adults who have been subjected to the use of a Taser by law enforcement officers have described symptoms consistent with PTSD. And I am not even touching the physical harm and risks of that type of electrical shock on a child.

- Everyone who has been subjected to a Taser jolt (even the willing volunteers) describes excrutiating pain. Ok, technically the Taser company notes that there are two ways to use the Taser - in "drive mode" or "probe mode". Drive mode is specifically for causing pain to subdue a subject. The Taser is applied directly to the skin, and while there is severe pain, there is little in the way of involuntary muscle contraction. Probe mode refers to the use of the Taser from a distance, in which the weapon fires 2 long wires that are barbed at the end. The barbs penetrate the skin, thus ensuring excellent contact with the target, and the 50,000 volts are delivered from a potential distance of 21 feet. This mode causes the target's muscles to seize, usually rendering them incapable of voluntary movement for the duration of the jolt. Oh, and it also causes excruciating pain. Essentially, with both modes you are beating someone into submission, but without the pesky visible marks that fists, knees, shoes, and batons tend to leave behind. And with probe mode, the law enforcement agent doesn't even need to have physical contact with the target, thus avoiding any scuffing of shoes or dirtying of uniforms.

I do understand that it is crucial to offer police an alternative to the use of handguns in order to deal with violent suspects, without using a potentially lethal means of force like a bullet. So Tasers have been the answer in the past decade. But they are far too easy to use. Since there are few visible marks following Taser use, there are fewer chances of incrimination for the user, especially in the setting of a jail, where they are often employed. And they usually completely incapacitate the subject without much effort at all for the police person, so causing excruciating pain starts to seem like the easy choice - much easier than negotiating with someone, "talking them down", or diffusing a difficult situation verbally.

There is another alternative to either handguns or Tasers. Pepper spray is an effective method for subduing someone with little risk to the target. Studies have shown that it causes fewer lasting harmful effects than the use of Tasers or batons, rarely requires the person to require medical treatment, and infrequently affects the person spraying it. But of course, this too has been misused by police, who have used it on children, the very elderly, and most notoriously on non-violent protesters throughout the world. It too has become an "easy way out", but with far fewer associated deaths. Ultimately, I believe that the police could find a way to misuse a can of Silly String if given the opportunity.

And here's a few more details about the study done by Wake Forest physicians that looked at all those people who had been Tasered, and concluded that Tasers were incredibly safe. Well, as it turns out the study data actually showed that 23% of the Tasered people were indeed injured enough to require medical treatment. And the data were collected from police files by "tactical physicians" who were affiliated with the law enforcement agencies being reviewed. The funding of the study was provided by the Justice Department, who I suspect had a significant interest in an outcome that was favorable to the use of Tasers. And lastly, there was another article that the same researchers published in conjunction with their "safety study". That article was a report of the use of a Taser on a healthy police officer who volunteered to endure a 5 second Taser jolt. Unfortunately that man suffered a fracture to one of his vertebrae during the experiment that has resulted in a permanent disability. But I doubt that the Justice Department, law enforcement officials, or the Taser company executives want anyone to hear about that little tidbit.

So much for the safety of Tasers.