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TechnoratiControversy Grows As Taser Expands Scope
Sitting idle, the Taser Shockwave looks like a waist-high rack of square green teeth. But press a button, and those teeth--six electrified cartridges tethered by 25-foot wires--shoot out in a 20-degree arc. Inch-long probes emitting 50,000 volts of electricity pierce through clothing and skin. If a human being is in their path, his or her muscles immediately flex and lock involuntarily.
![[]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/tasershotgun1006.jpg "tasershotgun1006.jpg")
Use Shockwave defensively to create a perimeter around rioters, as police demonstrated in a training exercise on California's Treasure Island earlier this month, and a mob of unruly individuals can be corralled into a corner. Or fire the device into a crowd, and several targets go down in a temporarily paralyzed heap.
Shockwave, set to be deployed sometime in 2009, is one of several powerful new "less-lethal" devices coming closer to being used in the real world, as opposed to just test situations. And it's not the only experimental toy soon to be sold by Phoenix-based Taser International. Other products being tested by the company include a taser shell that can be fired from any shotgun and a taser laminate film that can electrify the surface of a traditional riot shield.
From Taser's perspective, these science-fiction-like weapons are new and more effective ways to control dangerous situations without using deadly force. But in the eyes of the company's critics, Taser is expanding the scope of a controversial technology that has yet to be proven safe.
Taser's Extended-Range Electronic Projectile (XREP), for instance, is the first electrically incapacitating weapon that can be fired from a gun. Unlike Taser's older products, which shoot an electrically charged cartridge tethered by a 25-foot wire, the XREP is designed to be loaded into a normal firearm. After it's fired from the gun's barrel, small fins extend that cause the cartridge to spin like a rifle round and fly accurately up to 100 feet.
When the XREP shell hits someone, short probes pierce his or her skin or clothing. A metal barb attached by a wire falls out from the back of the capsule to create another point of contact on the target's body, unleashing an electrical current through the body's muscles and causing them to spasm. If the target grabs at the XREP round and touches the wire, it routes another jolt of current through the clutching hand.
Violent as the new devices may sound, Taser argues that the XREP and Shockwave both hold the promise of defusing a wider range of dangerous situations than ever before without resorting to lethal force or putting police in dangerous situations. "Police officers are paid to enforce the law, not to get hurt," says Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle. "Police need this. That's why we've survived the controversy around our products."
But Dalia Hashad, director of human rights for Amnesty International in the U.S., calls the weapons "something out of a bad video game." She argues that the Shockwave and XREP are unproven technologies that could be used indiscriminately.
Since U.S. police first began using tasers in 2000, 350 people have died in police custody after being stunned by the devices, according to Amnesty International's count. In 40 of those cases, tasers were listed by the coroner as a possible cause of death, Hashad says, and in many cases, the victim was elderly, under the influence of drugs or mentally ill.
Those kinds of victims are the most likely to suffer injuries from being stunned, she adds. And trying to discern when a taser should be used appropriately becomes complicated when a taser's range is extended or the Shockwave is fired at multiple targets. "There's no individual assessment," Hashad says. "We're asking police to consider whether someone they're about to 'tase' is an appropriate candidate given all the risks. How can they do that for six people at once?"
She adds that the XREP's default setting delivers a 20-second shock, compared with the five-second shock of a traditional taser. That kind of prolonged incapacitation, she argues, is typically the most likely to lead to injuries or deaths. "It raises very significant questions about how the length of the shock time affects the human body," she says.
Taser recently suffered a public-relations blow when a jury found the company partially liable for the death of 40-year-old Robert Heston, a Salinas, Calif., resident who suffered a heart attack and died after being tased three times. The company was ordered to pay $6.2 million to Heston's family. That case was the only lawsuit that Taser has lost of the 75 suits brought against the company, though others have been settled out of court.
Taser spokesman Tuttle flatly denies that anyone has ever died from being tased. Heston, he points out, was under the influence of methamphetamines, and the jury determined that Taser was only partially responsible for his death. Tuttle also argues that the coroner reports Amnesty International refers to only imply that a taser "wasn't ruled out" as a cause of death.
In fact, Tuttle says that the taser's electrical current is as painful as static shock from a door knob. "It doesn't hurt," says Tuttle, who's been tased himself several times. "Don't get me wrong, it's uncomfortable. It kind of feels like hitting your funny bone 18 times per second throughout your whole body."
And the question of whether devices like XREP and Shockwave will mean tasers are used less discriminately? "No one conducts a field interview before applying a taser," Tuttle says. "The situation must meet police-department requirements and use-of-force guidelines, or it's a civil rights violation. That's how it's always been deployed against suspects in dangerous situations."
Taser International, of course, isn't the only one developing new, controversial less-lethal weapons. The military's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is testing a variety of new ways to stun and incapacitate enemy combatants including "flash-bang" grenades that create noise and light to disorient targets, as well as a two-foot diameter laser that can temporarily blind a vehicle's driver at around 600 feet. The so-called Active Denial System, a heat ray that can make targets feel as if their skin is catching fire without actually inflicting damage, is also under development.
But even the military, which has used traditional tasers in the field since 2004, has doubts about Taser International's new toys. "We're doing a lot of testing to make sure they don't kill people," says John Keenan, the JNLWP's director of science and technology. "We have to understand the health effects associated with them. If we're calling something a non-lethal weapon, we have to make sure it's not lethal."
39 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
METAL: I find your posts profound, but the Buttle-Tuttle thing brought on the armed guards who broke into a civilian's home to arrest him for would-be terrorism (they were aiming at the Dinero character, but as the fly buzzed and fell on Lowry's typewriter, the letters got mixed up and this proved a huge bane to the central offices and their record-keeping devices) and then forced his wife to sign a paper agreeing to PAY for his detention and charges against her innocent spouse. To me, that was the real clincher of this film... it made me cry watching it recently as things HAVE gotten to the point the film is genuinely prophetic!
"To Serve and protect" has become "harrass and taser". Police state is comming to a community near YOU.
Tasers would PROBABLY be as effective at 20,000 volts, and not nearly as lethal. It seems the 50,000 volts is at the upper limit of what a person can withstand. It seems to me they're making these intentionally potentially lethal.
They should have a dial to set the body weight of the individual as a guesstimate. It should be able to be rolled while in use to adjust down the voltage. These f@#king pigs are hitting people with 3X 50,000 volts. That should just be totally illegal. The pigs who've done it should be prosecuted for murder. There's no way they can claim they had no idea continually tasering a person with 50 thousand volts wouldn't eventually kill them.
They're also shooting crazy people with knives in the heart and head at a distance... I'm sure they have a real hoot about it around the office when they kill people. The murderer cops, I'm sure, are the heros to their comrades. Cops who kill should be immediately retired. Let them walk around with their guns. Use them if they feel they have to, and retire them immediately when they shoot someone fatally.
They'd probably get real good at penetrating people in nonvital organs. We'd see the murder rate in all of society drop off the chart though. It would usher in an era of greatly considering murder rather than murdering on a whim as cops so often get away with.
rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
www.lamegame.name
Daniel Vincent Kelley
Better police training with the current technology they already employ would be a far better use of taxpayer dollars than expensive and unproven new technology that has so far not been shown to benefit anybody other than arms manufacturers.
"*LMAO* Cops using non-violent conflict resolution? Like that's going to happen!"
Why shouldn't it happen? 20 years ago the idea of police using "non-lethal" weapons would have been laughed at. In fact police departments around the world are already being instructed in conflict resolution skills, a good idea which should be greatly expanded.
"What color is the sky in your world, anyhow? You display the same fuzzy-headed wishful thinking that the few honest third-partiers are well known for, namely thinking wishing and dreaming accomplishes jack."
In fact it is arrogant, self-righteous cynicism that usually accomplishes nothing, while so-called idealistic dreamers are actually out there actually changing the world.
"It IS a choice of tasers or guns whether you like it or not. You eliminate tasers, the cops are still going to have bullets. And they will use them every time they feel threatened... A non-lethal or even rarely-lethal tool is a damned strong improvement over usually lethal or mostly lethal any day.
Again, which would you prefer, a taser or a bullet?"
No, it isn't. The research shows police tend to use their tasers in addition to, not instead of, their firearms, whatever self-interested taser manufacturers might tell you. As the poster noted above, cops use tasers in cases where guns wouldn't be justified, in fact where violence of any kind isn't even really necessary. Giving cops extra (potentially lethal) weapons and telling them they won't kill anybody regardless of how they use them is almost like telling them they can use their guns more often without any worry. So-called "non-lethal" weapons therefore in fact often tend to increase police brutality rather than reduce it.
"Tasers should be encouraged and used as a lever to eliminate guns. When the police have a reliable means of defense and attack that isn't deadly force, it becomes a lot harder to justify the deployment of instruments of deadly force in the first place."
Perhaps they should be, but they aren't. Here you demonstrate the exact kind of wishful thinking you (ironically) accuse others of for pointing out the reality of the situation you're talking about here. In fact what we've seen since the introduction of tasers is their use in cases where weapons wouldn't have been used at all before, not in cases where firearms would have been used.
"If you want to eliminate guns, tasers are the tool to do it with. Of course, that kind of tactical thinking is surely anathema to the "pure" who'd rather wish at problems instead and reject any solution that isn't perfect and without flaw."
No, they aren't. Your approach actually has nothing to do with "the real world," as your ignorance of the available evidence shows, and is in fact counterproductive. Sadly, people like you are too often the ones making the decisions that affect the rest of us.
Does it bother anyone else that a recent article in Army Times indicated that a battalion is on it's way home to remained stationed here to address domestic instability. This in combination with the new taser makes this mom very nervous. Who are they thinking will need corralling? Why is this all coming to light NOW? What are they preparing for? Just another piece to this disturbing puzzle.
Peace.
Yepper.... that is the type of new gadgetry THEY want to use on THEIR own people,,, and are extremely anxious for the complete takeover of America. I hate to break it to the corporate fascists, THEY will lose. Thats right, it will be called Corporate Fascist Cleansing.
Coffeelover,,,,,, Bring it on!
I agree with the posters who write that pain-infliction is an intimidating political tool, and that the _threat of pain_ makes for a more submissive citizenry.
This "submissiveness" of spirit is not exactly what the psyche needs to emerge as a free and emancipated citizen. If all the citizen is good for is as a 16th Amendment cash cow, a consumer who buys on TV's demand, and a voter who will vote Twiddle-Dee/Twiddle Dum on Election Day, then we have reached a sorry state of affairs in our Constitutional republic.
Submissiveness is the antithesis of critical thinking, for it is fear-based; critical thinking implies courage. The unfettered, curious mind fearlessly questions assertions and inherited dogma. It examines, dissects facts and past history; its imagination stretches itself and breaks down its childhood-embedded boundaries of fear.
With "non-lethal" tasers "taming" us like broken stallions or prodded cattle all we dare do is obey and follow our taskmasters. And dare neither think nor question for _fear_ of pain, embedded in the center of the mind. That's how thousands of slaves are controlled by a handful of overseers, how a few dozen nazi guards controlled thousands of concentration camp inmates, and how a dozen correctional officers control hundreds of sociopathic, but not stupid, inmates.
Mentally disempower them. As Stephen Biko once said, "The greatest weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Not a great prospect for Jeffersonian democracy.
The armed and badged bureaucrats paid for by our taxes, our legislators and the pathetic power-worshipping judges who enable the bureaucrats, and the corporate elite who fund our duopoly candidates have us approaching an Orwellian checkmate...
It's 1933 Germany all over again, boys and girls. This time we have advance warning. Election Day is coming up. What do you do? What do YOU do?
What part of lethal don't you understand ???
Taser knows they will sell more of them if they are lethal.
Hi lemmings!
You might want to remember something;
The lackeys you so lovingly call "heroes" and "our boys" +/- 100 years ago shot, clubbed, BURNED ALIVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN,(Ludlow CO.), imprisoned citizens for daring to strike against the elite for safer working conditions, wages paid in REAL money, not corporate "scrip" and a livable wage.
So, when they nail one of you for peacefully demonstrating at a political rally...over and over and over until your unconscious or dead, just keep telling yourselves, "I must have done something wrong,....because these are "heroes",...."our boys".
When they turn on their own on behalf of a tyrant(s) they are MINIONS....Lackeys who's creed is COWARDICE, and should be given no quarter. They've sold their souls to the enemy for a paycheck and "career".
Sure, and there's no way these "toys" will be abused. Cops all decked out in full riot gear, just itching to do some damage, full intimidation working. Anyone who has been to a protest in the last few years will have seen this.
Instead of developing "non-lethal", high-tech weaponry, how about spending money to get better cops, as George Carlin said, with DECENCY! How about putting potential cops through seriously intense psychology courses, with emphasis on mob and abnormal psychology. Included with that would be extensive empathy training. There have been science fiction stories that have simulators that target emotions, why not develop those. And with all these tools, weed out the bad cops. Implement some new rules: Use inappropriate force, lethal and "non-lethal, and you're no longer a cop.
And we, as citizens, who these "non-lethal" technologies will be used against, when we are subjected to such brutality, don't sue the local, state or federal governments; sue the individual cop, as if he were an ordinary citizen not connected with the government. Make it a felony for non-undercover cops to enforce the peace without their badge/id plainly visible with serious jail/prison time when convicted. That last would take care of those times when we can't id the cop because he wasn't identifiable. And as long as we're headed for deflation, go out and buy video cameras. Show them that they are being recorded every moment that they are on duty.
The major depression that we are in, will lead to more forms of dissent and
the Halliburton built Detention Centers will fill up with the help of Tasers
Tasers are in, we are out...Will someone Taser Bush?
Forbes.com fails to articulate the progressive policy on police brutality because the capitalist intent is to suppress the progressive policy and the public interests generally. Progressive policy is to avoid any need for police brutality by reducing social, economic, political divisions. Capitalism, militarism and the various other manifestations of elitism, are all about building these divisions, hence requiring police brutality to enforce them.
If they listened to everyone here, then Tasers would be banned and cops would go back to the old standby, the hollowpoint slug. You call that a victory?
Anything that keeps police firearms in their holsters is a good thing. In fact, things like the Taser shotgun shell might be the opening needed to lobby for the elimination of firearms from the police arsenal forever. After all, if you can incapacitate a suspect no matter how dangerous they might be just as easily as shooting them, then bullets are obsolete.
Me, I say bring it on. I'll happily take my chances against a Taser rather than face a bullet.
Let's call on every lawyer to sue every police department every time a suspect is shot, with the question "why didn't you just use a Taser instead?" until police are afraid to issue guns ever again.
It's not a choice between Tasers and nothing, it's a choice between Tasers and guns. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out which is the lesser evil.
kitty_tc October 6th, 2008 5:39 pm: "If they listened to everyone here, then Tasers would be banned and cops would go back to the old standby, the hollowpoint slug."
Actually the police use their guns just as frequently as before; the Taser lets them hurt people in situations where they couldn't justify using a gun. ("At The Mercy of Taser Torturers", September 27 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4149)
Or we could provide enough social services that the poor didn't feel like they need to resort to crime and protest just survive. Notice these sorts of police brutality problems are less prevalent in civilized places that deal with their social problems in a humane way like Europe. Your choice.
Uh, America has "lesser of 2 evils" on the brain. Witness the Obama-McCain "choice".
Sorry, wrong approach. The solution to "law enforcement" should always be to use methods of non-violent conflict resolution. By framing it as "guns or tasers", you play right into the laps of the authoritarians and empowering a whole class of control freaks.
*LMAO* Cops using non-violent conflict resolution? Like that's going to happen!
What color is the sky in your world, anyhow? You display the same fuzzy-headed wishful thinking that the few honest third-partiers are well known for, namely thinking wishing and dreaming accomplishes jack.
It IS a choice of tasers or guns whether you like it or not. You eliminate tasers, the cops are still going to have bullets. And they will use them every time they feel threatened. And you know what? You would too, it's human nature to be jumpy and quick to attack when they feel threatened. It's why humans cage tigers and kill snakes and smush spiders, fear creates a "strike first or else!" response. A non-lethal or even rarely-lethal tool is a damned strong improvement over usually lethal or mostly lethal any day.
Again, which would you prefer, a taser or a bullet?
Tasers should be encouraged and used as a lever to eliminate guns. When the police have a reliable means of defense and attack that isn't deadly force, it becomes a lot harder to justify the deployment of instruments of deadly force in the first place. If you want to eliminate guns, tasers are the tool to do it with. Of course, that kind of tactical thinking is surely anathema to the "pure" who'd rather wish at problems instead and reject any solution that isn't perfect and without flaw.
Me, I'd prefer to live in the real world and take what gains I can.
Lesser-evilism!
Is there NO problem it can't handily solve?
;)
To help Tuttle and Taser International's promo division out I suggest that instead of "less-lethal" they use 'irritation-plus' or 'pro-discomfort.' No need to hard sell these devices when soft sell works across all demographic boundaries.
the global economic crisis ensures that sales of this and other 'non-lethals'
will skyrocket --- investment strategy for the future: forget gold, forget real estate --- just go after death and destruction products, you'll do just fine
“I think anybody who doesn’t think I’m smart enough to handle the job is underestimating.”
[George W. Bush]
Tasers are obviously lethal. This is especially true for young men.
Wild animals will drop dead when overstressed. The same is true of humans.
I would imagine this would be fatal to anyone with heart arrhythmia problems and those with pacemakers or ICD's.
Let's have them test it on Dick Cheney.
Sioux Rose
HMMM... the article says "Taser spokesman Tuttle," and I recall that name, TUTTLE as being one appointed to some department of security lately. It hit me as TUTTLE was the critical name that the entire plot to the film BRAZIL rested upon, and that film is a poignant, darkly hilarious parody of our times, particularly the homeland securtiy status.
Mm, yes. "Has anyone seen Mr. Lowwwwry?"
Archibald "Harry" Tuttle [PERSONAL MOTTO: "We're all in it together, kid"] was the renegade heating duct repairman played in the film by Robert De Niro who subverted the Central Services bureaucracy by laterally zip-wiring through vertical cityscapes to do guerrilla heating repair jobs on the apartments of ordinary citizens.
CHARGED WITH: Practicing Heating Engineering without a License, Stealing Work from Qualified Personnel, Reckless Creation of Suspicion Among the Greater Public, Freelance Subversion, Failing to Complete Necessary Work Orders, Wasting Ministry Time and Paper.
Yes, the Ministry of Information Retrieval.
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: Right on post!
EZE: I think that item would sell! Your imagination is working pragmatically today!
Imagine if insted of investing in these devices, the same minds were out there refitting homes with green technology? The waste of time, resources, talent, intelligence, and money is mind-boggling... if this were a live game, it's 10 more points for the dark side!
Yeah Rose. And I'm even straight today.
Locust says:
"America, where science is put to use against its citizens, not for them."
That pretty much says it all.
Here we go again -- a situational blaming of technology instead of demanding systemic solutions:
(a) proper -- minimal -- application of force to the problem at hand
(b) some mechanism for civilian/independent oversight in ALL examples of police force which are challenged.
Maybe demonstrators should start carrying shields instead of signs. They could paint their protest signs right on the shields. A long, lightweight piece of fiberboard, plexiglass or other strong, liteweight material should do it.
Maybe some radical entrepreneur will manufacture a "Demonstration Kit" that would include riot shield with message painted on it, gas mask, ear protectors, laser eye protection, etc.
It truly IS mind-blowing. From a purely utilitarian perspective, it makes eminent sense for persons enagaged in a good-faith exercise of USA civil liberties, once honored as virtually inalienable rights, to wear body armor and the protective gear you describe.
The horrendous restrictions placed upon political demonstrators in the first place is the deformed anvil. The hammer is law enforcement authorities tasked by their political paymasters to engage masses of lawful demonstrators in an as aggressive and disruptive a manner as possible. Over and over, we've seen paramilitary Imperial Stormtroopers by the squadrons, trapping everyone in an area-- demonstrators, luckless passers-by, and media representatives alike-- and then bashing into them full-bore. Goon work.
And yet, your "Demonstration Kit" would be Exhibit A in the next round of pre-emptive raids and sweeps on the grounds that its components qualify as instruments of terror, or prima facie evidence of intent to break the law. The politicians and police commanders will appeal to the Silent Majority and troglodytic reactionary wingnuts by claiming that they are highly professional protectors of law and order, and fully justified in all of their tactics. Who would show up with body armor unless they were LOOKING for trouble, eh?
The kits will wind up in corners of evidence warehouses, right next to the buckets of urine and the huge puppets.
"Non-lethal weapons" require lethal testing on animals.
Can you spell VIVISECTION?
Meanwhile the US will have to buy tickets from the Russians to ride into outer space. The Shuttle program will be shut down in 2010 and a new delivery system won't be available until 2015 (projected date).
America, where science is put to use against its citizens, not for them.
Good lords the way they frame this stuff is simply mindboggling. What situations would occur where Police forces would have to use force on protesters?
How do they suddenly gain that right over a countries citizens? I suggest that if there a riot of protesters that the causes of the protests have to be examined rather then seeking ways of supressing them if it truly a DEMOCRATIC Government concerned with rights and liberties.
The emphasis is no longer the LAW it is becoming enFORCEment. Once more the use of violence against ones fellow citizens. A Society that must force its citizens to act in a manner which the State will tolerate via such methods is a Police State by any definition.
These new methods of crowd control are merely means of inducing FEAR amongst a populace. The very threat that such use of force can be used violates they fundamental underpinnings of a free and democratic society.
As to the violations of rights that occur and the followup lawsuits. This in itself an absolute crock. A Police force might be found guilty of violating individual rights and pay damages. That money just comes out of the tax payers pocket.
pk
"Tuttle says that the taser's electrical current is as painful as static shock from a door knob. "It doesn't hurt," says Tuttle, who's been tased himself several times. "Don't get me wrong, it's uncomfortable. It kind of feels like hitting your funny bone 18 times per second throughout your whole body.""
Yeah right!
I get that feeling from touching a door knob all the time!
One would have to stick their finger in an electrical socket for that effect, who do these fascists think they are kidding?
A more correct analogy is touching a live high-tension lead on your car's engine while it is running. anyone who has done that is glad that they can let go.
No one is fooled. The tasered dead can't talk. If it makes money AND stops protest=let's buy some, say police depts.,etc.
I'm so damned glad my time on this earth is nearly up. The future I see coming is so much worse than anything I can imagine being on the "other side."