Vancouver businessman Randy Puder was drawn to the booth operated by Taser International at the Consumer Trade Show in Las Vegas last January.
Playboy bunnies were signing photographs while salesmen pitched a new personal Taser that’s small enough to fit into a woman’s purse, he recalled.
“It was excellent marketing,” Puder told a public inquiry Thursday probing the use of Tasers in B.C.
He got a signed photo from a Playboy bunny, which he showed to The Vancouver Sun. It has the Taser company logo on it. He was asked who he wanted it signed to and he said, half-joking, “The Vancouver police board.”
Puder said he attended the trade show because he has his own electronic systems integration company and wanted to check out that latest technology.
While at Taser’s booth, he said, he was approached by the company’s international sales manager, responsible for sales in B.C., and Puder recalled asking questions about the testing of the Taser.
“I asked if it had been tested on psychotic people who had medications in their system. He said, ‘No.’”
Puder said he has a personal interest in mental health issues because he was a caregiver for his late mother, who was bipolar, and his grandparents, who had Alz-heimer’s. He has made submissions to the Vancouver police board on the issue, he said.
He also discussed with the Taser salesman what happened at the Vancouver airport with Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, who died after being zapped by a Taser. He recalls the sales manager saying: “Dziekanski would have died anyway.”
(Later, outside the inquiry, Puder told reporters that the man said Dziekanski was suffering from alcohol withdrawal.)
“I was shocked, actually, which is why I’m here today,” Puder told the inquiry, pointing out that his late brother, Gil Puder, was a use-of-force trainer with Vancouver police from 1990 to 1993.
Puder said he was a concerned citizen and suggested a moratorium should be placed on Taser use until there can be proper testing in Canada.
“Until tested in Canada by Canadian medical practitioners, it should be put on the shelf,” he said of the weapon, which incapacitates a person through a five-second, 50,000-volt pulse of electricity.
“We are not the United States,” Puder said. “We have an entirely different model of police and training.”
He also raised a possible conflict of interest, pointing out that two officers who do police training have a website for their private company, Defensive Tactics Inc. of Vancouver, which says the officers — Vancouver police Insp. John McKay and Sgt. Joel Johnston — are trainers certified by Taser International.
Johnston made an earlier presentation at the inquiry, where he said he had approval from the police chief to run a private company. He is in favour of Taser use in B.C. and is the province’s use-of-force coordinator for police services, a division of the Solicitor-General’s Ministry.
Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said in an interview he has concerns about Johnston being a possible Taser instructor to other police forces through his private company. He said Johnston is also in charge of a review of Taser use in B.C. for the B.C. Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Is it really a good idea to get a signed Playboy Bunny photo then buy a taser for your wife?
She might think so.
It’s not sex that sells tasers. It’s greedy and immoral businessmen who use women to sell their products.
Hoa binh
Gives the term T ‘n A a whole new meaning. Tasers are bad news waiting to happen.
We can just say NO to torture.
P.S. If you’re receiving an “economic stimulus” tax rebate and can afford to share part of it with Amnesty International, it would be an extra-special gift for humanity.
To add to what Hoa Binh said above, a lot of what is driving taser sales is the vulnerabililty so many women feel being out and about in society.
A walk to a parked car at night in a garage (or in a supermarket or mall parking lot)is an entirely different experience for a woman than a man. Tasers or guns allow the smallest woman to be on equal terms with any man who might be tempted to give her a hard time.
If they want WOMEN to buy tasers, shouldn’t they be using MALE models??? Playboy bunnies are used to attract men. Using women as sex objects to encourage people to purchase tasers just makes me think of men who may want go get himself a piece of that, and buy a taser to go assault a woman.
Criminals have a nice new tool, and the criminal can be a small man or a women. Talk about progress. The private sector has it, so it won’t be long until kids have access. Let us not impede those profits.
Good luck to police with these weapons entering society. Good luck to us all.
Sex & Violence.
cheencheen–
Men will buy them for the women in their lives as security and protection. The bottom line for the seller is to get the things sold, but I am telling you a lot of women are going to be more comfortable with a taser than a bullet firing gun that goes off with a loud bang.
Anything that replaces or reduces the use of firearms is good in my book. Sure, it sucks in the instances where victims have died from tasers, but it’s a lot fewer than those who would have died of gunshots instead. It’s by no means a perfect solution and we should protest and lobby hard against their abuse, but I’d call tasers a vast improvement over guns. Moreover, I’d remind those against that that is indeed the alternative, tasers vs guns and not tasers vs nothing. Both police and private citizens looking for personal protection are going to arm themselves whether anyone likes it or not, and I gladly welcome it being with tasers over firearms.
Kitty, the problem with tasers is that cops have been taught to use them in ANY situation, including when people simply arn’t moving fast enough for them, or not listening to them. I’ve been threatened with being tased simply for walking too close to police while they were arresting someone, and this was while my back was turned and I was walking away. How could I have been a threat?
Support concealed-carry laws, lefties, its the only way to keep errant cops in line.
Boobs buy tasers, Boobs sell tasers.
RE - Tasers or guns allow the smallest woman to be on equal terms with any man who might be tempted to give her a hard time.
Yeah, I got that impression when I saw that segment on Cougar’s Corner where the young pup turned down the Cougar’s advances so she tasered him and dragged him to the storage room (third one from top).
Cougar: Older woman who preys on much younger (and, usually, barely legal) men:
http://www.airfarce.com/seasons/season15/080118.html
You also need to ask yourself who is more apt to taser who - the person who already has their taser in their hand or the person whose taser is in their purse or briefcase.
RE - He also raised a possible conflict of interest, pointing out that two officers who do police training have a website for their private company, Defensive Tactics Inc. of Vancouver, which says the officers — Vancouver police Insp. John McKay and Sgt. Joel Johnston — are trainers certified by Taser International.
Johnston made an earlier presentation at the inquiry, where he said he had approval from the police chief to run a private company. He is in favour of Taser use in B.C. and is the province’s use-of-force coordinator for police services, a division of the Solicitor-General’s Ministry.
I would call that a conflict of interest.
If we did not know this, we would assume that Johnston was speaking on behalf of most cops or even all cops. Do you think that the fact that Johnston is a small businessman who would benefit from a more mainstream usage of Tasers could have influenced what he said and what he figured no one needed to know about?
RE: - Support concealed-carry laws, lefties, its the only way to keep errant cops in line.
Concede that a cellphone that records video (or other such small video device) could prove useful (and, thus, may need to be concealed). Look at what happened in Montebello. And look at what we know about the death of Robert Dziekanski - if no one took video, there would not even be this inquiry.
The good news is that the Vancouver transit police have altered their rules of engagement and will no longer taser users who have failed to purchase a ticket.
Does anyone have any interpersonal skills anymore? Or does it come down to who can shock, shoot, club, or spray the fastest. Talk about the wild west. Oh yeah, tasers are better than guns, except we use them about 100 times more frequently. I am pretty sure more people will be losing their civil rights with this “less lethal” alternative. Damn, can’t we fucking talk anymore?
The Exploited song, “Sex and Violence” says all that needs saying about this.
It is all about shock and awe.
BTW - What are the transit police up to in the United States?
So now what? Tasers on the new S & M toys now? Disgusting.
Taser - when you won’t take “No” for an answer!
GUN CRAZY!
When parents start using them on their unruly children and vice versa, then and only then will public opinion prevail over private profit.