bigbrowndog

Many many people have irregular heatbeats.

Now probably the deaths result from what happens AFTER, but
repeated tasering to a heart that already doesn't skip properly 100%
is not a good thing.

I take issue with argument that these are "safe" for the population
at large, when so many people have irregularities with the
heart's electrical system.

Have there been tests done on people who have heart problems?

I DOUBT IT. We are the test.

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zimmy61

Exactly. I also think that this false sense of relative 'safeness' associated with tasers is what makes so many of these cops not bother to think twice before using this device as a first option instead of a last resort when nothing short of a gun would be otherwise effective as a means to subdue a person.

chambers92

True, tasers will never be safe considering there are many people who are unaware they have heart problems. Also, even if they are aware, in the heat of the moment, police are not going to ask people if they have a heart problem before tasering them.

disfigured

I think they factored in the decrease in shooting deaths in order to make the claim that tasers would be safer.

Which could be true statistically, but that doesn't help the people killed by tasers.

It's a double edged sword. With out them what are the alternatives when situations escalate?

Not that this one approached that, but some do. I think the argument is that for every single situations like this one, there are 100's where someone out of control might have been shot with a fire arm rather then tased.

I agree that there seems to be a proclivity for LEOs to use them as if it's "safe", when it's obviously not.

I'll turn your attention to a very unfortunate event after the RedSox World Series win (2004), where police poorly trained and entirely ignorant fired haphazardly into a crowd with another supposedly "less lethal" weapon.

Victoria Snelgrove

One is never supposed to fire these weapons unless a clear non lethal area of the body is in their sites. A paint ball gun can kill you if the pellet doesn't implode on contact and the area hit is vital (temple, throat,eye).

The heart/taser circumstances is even more unpredictable since the weapon can be used well within the boundaries of correctness and still cause death.

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Heavy_monkey2.0

i live pretty close to smalltown usa, me and 2 of my buds (we were 15-16yrs old) watched from an open apartment window as the local hicksville Public Safety(1 car 2 cops) rolled up across the street(fast with only runnng lights on) into an empty parking lot at 3aM and proceded to I.M.T./ leapfrog each other with weapons drawn, doing a fine TJ hooker pistol and flashlight pose from the corner building directly opposite the appartment we were in, scanning the appartment and actually shinning the flashlight into what was probably the only Lit, curtains open ,3 punk teens watching a laughable display of boys grown up to become your worst nightmare, overzealous wannabe heros... they were responding to a noise complaint.

ImusWallower

did you notice the woman approaching him, to try and calm him down. she was in no dange, but 5-6 cops with tasers felt they were in danger?

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jowey

Wish I could have obtained the video from the CVS store of my tasing. My concern was to get my girlfriend home from the hospital and obtain her medication.

The cop did not identify why he wanted my id (papers), when I asked the reason the response was because he said so.

Anyway they tasered me three times. When it did not work, I stood there looking at them, I pulled the probes out the first time breaking their toy - the expression on their faces was unforgettable. Then they assaulted me hitting me so hard they dropped their stick so they emptied a canister of mace in my face - I thought they were going to suffocate me.

http://home.comcast.net/~styx.cml-ls...urIssues04.htm

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jowey

They use the things on anyone that asks questions or that they do not like. This is accepted by the courts now.

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infoseek

jowey, I wouldn't stop until I got the recording from that store. The incident might not have been captured, but you've got to give it a try.

By the way, my signature, did you yelled that out? It's very important for everyone to yell that out these days.

Kerry's Heckler did it, but he wasn't the first one; there was 2 other before him.

The Real Time Hecklers yelled it out when he knew that was coming.

It's a standard thing to do now.

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jowey

The attorney talked to the cops and came back to me to convince me that I was in a kangaroo court, I did get a deal, but then I listened to the judge argue with the prosecutor about the deal - without hearing my case. I then tried to get in touch with my attorney, no response, while incarcerated my friends could not get in touch with him, he had an answering machine which would not take collect calls.

When I got out I wrote to the police chief, mayor and the Potomac News the newspaper that published our names and address before the trial - no response. I wrote to CVS who responded that there was no wrong doing - I suspected that the pharmacist had it in for us, because we had caught them sleeping in a prior visit. The Governor of Virginia state d that it was a local issue.

The Virginia State Bar does not address "strategy" complaints about their members. This had changed in 2000.

If I had yelled that I would have been tazed more, I took the beating and the incarceration. Witnesses vanished when we were taken from the store - no note was made of witnesses on the police report. What was even funnier was that my girlfriend had to hitchhike ten miles home from the police station, suffering from a reaction to medication for anxiety.

Apparently an elderly couple and a woman with her daughter had tried to intervene and were threatened by the police.

Manassas is such a cool city of Virginia.....

Figure that it is too late to get the video January 2005, but I can tell the story.

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