
How Taser inserts itself into investigations involving its own weapons - jMyles
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-taser-experts/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter
======
rdtsc
> Ho served with Mash and another Taser consultant on a 19-member task force
> that prepared an influential 2009 white paper on excited delirium for the
> American College of Emergency Physicians, representing 31,000 doctors. The
> paper described the condition as “a real syndrome of uncertain etiology,” or
> cause.

This is some special kind of evil. They not only have coroners and police
departments in their pockets. But also invented a whole new disease and funded
a "white paper" about it. They fully expected for this to end up in court from
day one, as they know exactly what their product does to people. So they
inoculated themselves by generating "scientific research" to shove in front of
juries during a trial. "Oh look science! Victim was suffering from a case of
excited delirium when officer Jones pressed the trigger. Here is a paper on
it".

After serving on a jury, I believe this would totally fly there. Juries are
not allowed to research or study the facts about the case on their own. Once
"evidence" is shown or an expert is declared "an expert in <blah>" then you
are told to base your judgment on what they present.

~~~
beambot
That always confused me: if juries are the arbiters of fact (as instructed by
a judge), why can't they consult external references? Why do they have to rely
exclusively on testimony and their predetermined factual knowledge?

~~~
eximius
Presumably each side will present the best facts available to fill in the jury
members knowledge.

Can you imagine if jury members (some of whom might believe in homeopathy or
other bizarre pseudoscience) were allowed to base their judgements on `facts`
not presented by one of the parties involved? It'd be madness, very quickly.

~~~
Chris_Jay
That a jury is made of common people who might have a wide range of beliefs
seems rather the point of the system though doesn't it?

Also, this is your weekly reminder that vaccines are homeopathy.

~~~
eximius
Vaccines and allergy shots are NOT homeopathy and that is extremely dangerous
to say.

Homeopathy is characterized by the belief that 'like cures like'. They ingest
poisons to innoculate themselves to fevers, etc. It is very, very different
from simply gaining a resistance to specific compounds.

------
FireBeyond
Yeah, this is horrific. From a medical standpoint:

"AED readings are important. Shock versus no shock" \- this is basically
allowing them to go one of two ways "Shockable", then they weren't 'fatally'
injured by the Taser, and external circumstances caused the death. "No Shock
Advised", well, they must have had a heart defect. Never mind that there are
multiple rhythms beyond VF (Ventricular fibrillation), VT (Ventricular
tachycardia) that can be recovered.

The next three are basically trying to imply typically drug use interfered
with cardiac activity and that, not the Taser, caused the cardiac event.

It's basically "here's a laundry list of things that can exonerate Taser.
Collect them."

~~~
matthewaveryusa
This is a really interesting question. what are the legal repercussions for
killing someone that's about to die? Is imminent death an extenuating
circumstance?

Could one argue that law enforcement would have used force that on average is
much more lethal (gunshot), but instead used a Taser, and unfortunately they
died because of the Taser? I'm a lot more comfortable with this defense than
some sort of hot-potato "maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the taser"
excuse.

~~~
AdamJacobMuller
> what are the legal repercussions for killing someone that's about to die?

The example I have heard around this is that if you shoot, and kill, someone
who is currently falling off a building you are still guilty of murder.

The reasoning, I believe, is that anything grayer than "if you killed them,
you killed them" very quickly devolves into an argument over what "imminent"
is.

------
21
> In an email, Kroll said his affiliation with Taser did not bias his
> research: “Due to this well-known relationship, I was motivated to be very
> careful to be extremely accurate and objective,” he said.

Right, I'm sure he was extremely careful and objective in his research.

It's funny how scientists who do "double blind testing", where they avoid even
themselves knowing if a person received the control or not, because it's
proven that it could bias the result, somehow are totally immune from bias
because of research grants where the grant giver has obvious interests.

------
albertgoeswoof
The police shot someone with a taser for doing graffiti on an abandoned
building? That is completely insane.

You can literally rub graffiti off a wall, why would you risk killing someone
for that.

~~~
maloney
"why would you risk killing someone for that"

I think that's the main point of the article. Taser markets these weapons as
non-lethal, going to great lengths to make sure investigations point the blame
somewhere else when a death occurs.

Police don't treat these weapons as lethal, which is clearly not true.

~~~
ReverseCold
I heard from an officer (in my city at least) that part of their training is
getting shot by a taser. They even let citizens who join their "explorers
program" get shocked by one for the experience (clip on the ends, not shot).

~~~
okreallywtf
I would be interested to know what, if any, emergency medical presence there
is during this training. Might go to show what level of confidence they have
in the true non-lethality of the weapons.

~~~
damnfine
The big differince is where you are tased, and for how long. I have done taser
training and we usually got it in the leg, rather than across the chest, as
most deployments happen.

------
jMyles
> In bold letters, marked “TIMELY AND URGENT,” the dispatch advised Miami’s
> medical examiner to send the teen’s brain tissue for testing to Deborah
> Mash, a University of Miami medical researcher. It did not mention Mash had
> been paid by Taser to testify on its behalf in lawsuits against the company.

I mean... this is a truly hideous thing from a company whose history is
already mostly hideous.

------
OliverJones
"We serve and protect."

"We serve ourselves and protect our own."

Some police forces have procedures where they do things like

\--keep their distance from agitated people.

\--warn them several times and try to talk them down.

\--then say "taser taser taser" before discharging the weapon.

These seem like good procedures to follow.

If I were to assault a person suffering from a condition such as "excited
delerium syndrome", and that person died as a result of my assault, I would be
guilty of a crime known as "felony murder." I'm pretty sure the legal
priniciple is stated as "you take your victim as you find him." It's not a
valid excuse to say, "I didn't know the guy had a heart problem" if he has a
heart attack right after I assault him." And, if I say, "I knew he had a heart
problem," then that makes my crime worse.

~~~
revelation
Eggshell skull:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull)

------
quickConclusion
Now you would think we need more body cams and recorded videos... and guess
who is advertising free body cams to all US police officers: Axon/Taser.

[https://www.axon.com/info/offer](https://www.axon.com/info/offer)

Axon is actually the new name of Taser... which makes now money by selling
systems archiving, managing, and analyzing police officers body cam videos.

[https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/16/9724644/police-tech-
body...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/16/9724644/police-tech-body-cams-
transparency-violence-taser)

There is an obvious conflict of interest here: it could be so easy to
conveniently delete a video incriminating a Taser device...

~~~
devmunchies
Is it easy though? Its incredibly risky? It could tarnish their reputation
with police forces and risk lawsuits.

And are you saying they shouldn't be in the business of providing cameras to
authorities because of a possible conflict of interest? They are a public
company and have a responsibility to maximize profits. They made millions last
year from evidence storage services.

And I would hope the engineers are building their infrastructure in a way that
prevents tampering, otherwise the engineers could be held accountable for any
_very_ risky evidence deletion.

And I think body cams is a more ethical business than tasers anyway, helping
to hold police and citizens accountable for their actions.

~~~
quickConclusion
I hope it would not be easy to delete content, but the article shows how much
we need to worry about it, when we see how much Taser goes to extra lengths to
protect their weapon, and how they collude with the police force in the
process.

I would prefer if the vendor selling the video systems did not also sell
weapons. They could be split in 2 companies and dissociate ownership of each.

Beyond Tasers guns, it also warns us how important the governance model for
video archival/retrieval system is. Because if the police force is the client,
there is a business incentive to absolve the police officers in case of
issues. How to define that governance model is above my pay grade, but this is
something very important, that goes beyond engineers in the trenches.

------
throwme211345
Created a throw away for this. My brother had a run in with police (he is
mentally ill) and they tasered him repeatedly. He was in excellent physical
(former marine) condition and about 37 years old.

When they delivered him to the hospital he was in severe shock and no effort
was made by the nursing staff or officers to warm him. He was handcuffed to a
sheets bare hospital cot. After begging with officers and nursing staff to
provide blankets and water for about 15 minutes I finally appealed to the
right cop (former marine) who got him blankets and water.

The jail staff showed up closely after this and they were going to cart him
off to jail without any further ado...however a physician needed to sign off.
I could see he was in extreme physical distress as a result of his experience
and the tasering.

Thankfully the ER physician was competent and unbiased by police reported
events and saw that my brother had the symptoms of cardiac related distress
and related abnormalities and insisted that he be kept on site for monitoring
and treatment. If it wasn't for a good cop and a diligent physician my brother
would be dead now: I have no doubt of this.

------
21
So, how many people die of "excited delirium" without them being tasered at
all? IF we were to believe the Taser company, this condition is killing people
all the time.

~~~
JshWright
People can (and do) experience "excited delirium" without a cop anywhere near
them...

~~~
lovemenot
Even if you are right, your parent's point still stands.

If applying Bayesian reasoning to determine the likely veracity of the Excited
Delerium defence of taser-related deaths, then ED deaths in the general non-
tasered poulation should be an important prior.

------
rhcom2
America needs oversight of police's use of force. We don't even collect good
enough data and that opaqueness only helps abuse.

~~~
jseliger
Until we eliminate police unions, that's unlikely to happen:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/when-
police...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/when-police-
unions-impede-justice.html) .

Mancur Olson is also interesting on the topic of interest groups and rent
seeking more generally: [https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Collective-Action-
printing-appe...](https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Collective-Action-printing-
appendix/dp/0674537513?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957)

~~~
adrianratnapala
Police unions are common enough around the world, but internal controls are
generally better than we hear about in the US (and I suspect it varies within
America as well).

I suspect part of the problem is that police forces run by smallish
localities, which can't have the same level of training and oversight as
larger jurisdictions. But that's only part of the problem: major US cities
also seem to have problems.

------
Swizec
Tased to death for spray painting McDonald’s windows :\

> the 18-year-old graffiti artist. The teen had been spotted spray-painting
> the blackened windows of an abandoned McDonald’s.

> Within seconds, Officer Jorge Mercado caught up with him, drew his Taser and
> fired a single shot to the chest. The recent high school grad and aspiring
> art teacher collapsed on the sidewalk in cardiac arrest. The chase lasted
> six minutes. It was 5:20 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2013. At 6:18 a.m., he was
> pronounced dead.

Whyyyy is using a taser against a teenager who’s running away even nevessary?
Dude was doing some vandalism. If you can’t catch him on foot just let him get
away. It’s not like he’s selling drugs to little kids or trying to punch you
in the face.

~~~
hansthehorse
Because a whole lot of cops go crazy when they feel disrespected and running
away is the ultimate disrespect of their authority.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
See also: the detective recently in the news for trying to coerce a nurse into
illegally providing access to a patient's blood. He's been told by the nurse's
supervisor that what he wants is simply not allowed by law and that it's not
the nurse's decision, but then decides to forcefully arrest her because, in
his own words, “she’s the one that has told me 'no'” [1].

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2017/09/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2017/09/01/this-is-crazy-sobs-utah-hospital-nurse-as-cop-roughs-her-up-
arrests-her-for-doing-her-job/)

------
Synaesthesia
Now of the most horrifying videos I have ever watched is of a cop who pulls
over a teen and tases him, in the chest, which led to that kid falling into a
coma and later getting brain damage.

------
ocdtrekkie
It seems nonsensical to me that Taser is making a distinction between whether
or not the electric shock was responsible for someone's death. If they hit
their head on the fall, that is still because someone shot them with a Taser.
Drug use, health conditions, etc. all are the same: An officer is still
applying a weapon to someone, and if the result is death, then the Taser was
responsible.

I haven't heard anyone realistically call a Taser "non-lethal" in a long time.
They're called "less lethal" for a reason: They're less likely to kill someone
than a gun. (You can survive gunshots too! Just... less often.)

It's hard to imagine a reasonable case for firing ANY weapon at a graffiti
artist. Using a Taser is just one of many levels of a use of force, and it's
hard to imagine a justification for it with such a minor offense.

~~~
bostik
> _It 's hard to imagine a reasonable case for firing ANY weapon at a graffiti
> artist._

How about personal inconvenience due to an itchy trigger finger? And if the
graffiti was in any way subversive, you could make a case for attempting to
commit journalism.

------
devmunchies
To play devils advocate to most in this thread, what is Axon/Taser to do about
people potentially holding them accountable for every taser related death?
Tasers are a better alternative to guns. Axon can't possibly be liable for
_every_ death. The police have to have some accountability with their use of a
weapon, just like with hand guns, right?

Obviously the more liberal the police are with tasers, then the more
accidental deaths there will be. So if the police treated them like firearms,
then Axon wouldn't need to get so involved to try and defend itself. Gun
manufacturers are never liable for gun related deaths.

Is the problem how tasers are marketed as non-lethal? Do people want to see
tasers outlawed and have the police go back to using guns?

EDIT: if this isn't a relevant contribution to the discussion, I don't know
what is.

~~~
Retric
They are clearly responsible for every death when they clam it's safe and it's
killing people.

There is zero difference in their actions and directly adding a LD50 does of
cyanide as a seasoning at a school lunch. Sure, your not going to kill
everyone there, but that's not safe.

PS: Arguably it's worse as the average mass murder does not go around stating
their victims would have died anyway.

~~~
devmunchies
Exactly my point. The police should treat tasers like firearms and Axon should
change their marketing.

------
User23
"Specifically, we were mapping the vulnerable period of the cardiac cycle.
This interval, lasting a mere 0.035 of a second in duration, occurs with each
heartbeat. It is the only moment in the cardiac cycle when the heart is
susceptible to ventricular fibrillation. Once the chaotic rhythm of
ventricular fibrillation ensues, the heart stops pumping blood. Spontaneous
recovery is impossible. Within a few minutes life is extinguished. Electrical
current, irrespective of intensity, will not disrupt the heart’s rhythm if
delivered outside the vulnerable period."

[https://bernardlown.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/thumpversion-
fo...](https://bernardlown.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/thumpversion-for-the-
tasered/)

~~~
Gaelan
Assuming heartbeats occur about once per second, that’s a 3.5% chance of a
taser shot being in the vulnerable period. That’s pretty big.

~~~
dzhiurgis
You can easily double or triple that during the exciting moment of a
chase/arrest/crime.

------
trhway
giving the terms Taser uses in its own publishing - "neuromuscular
incapacitation" and "electro muscular disruption" \- it takes a non-trivial
twist of mind (triggered for example by $20K+ expert fee) to attribute stop of
heart to something else.

While with low probability (1 in 6000), there is specific conditions when
Taser will almost for sure cause ventricular fibrillation - it is when dart
hits 1cm2 patch right over the ventricle in people with heart located closer
to skin (i guess usually it would mean smaller and/or thinner people, and
there have been other studies that shown reverse correlation of [probability
of] damage [and VF in particular] with body weight) :

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17355063](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17355063)

Basically each 6000 times Taser is deployed there can be expected a death.

------
mi100hael
_> The recent high school grad and aspiring art teacher collapsed on the
sidewalk in cardiac arrest._

Seriously, Reuters? Were you concerned the results of your investigation
wouldn't stand on their own so you had to appeal to emotion just in case?

------
throw2016
There is a common thread of over-zealousness and an unbecoming enthusiasm for
using force in most of these cases. This has the undercurrent of
authoritarianism and is not compatible with civilized society.

The whole idea of law enforcement is they have the training to deal with
confrontational situations with some degree of control and maturity.

They have the training, weapons, access to backup and near endless resources.
Any confrontation with an individual is already heavily biased towards their
side, to lose control is more than reckless.

For situations beyond basic law enforcement involving more than one person,
for instance a riot or a gang, usually there are more specialized teams and
strategies.

------
geggam
Running voltage from one side of the heart muscle to the other is bad... very
bad.

You can die from >100 milliamps this way with no drugs in the system.

Not real sure who thinks tazing is non lethal... its less lethal advertised as
non lethal

------
Aaron1011
Part one of the three-article series:
[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
tase...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-taser-911/)

------
balls187
Probably a good thing TASER changed their name to Axon.

~~~
balls187
> The recent high school grad and aspiring art teacher collapsed on the
> sidewalk in cardiac arrest.

Also forgot "vandal suspect"

~~~
Spivak
Sure, because killing someone is a totally acceptable response to vandalism.

~~~
balls187
Strawman.

~~~
damnfine
It is literally the facts ot the story. Repeating strawman does not further
your argument, or anyones opinion of your reasoning skills.

------
mizzao
TL;DR version:

Taser claims its guns are safe and do not cause lethal injuries, marketing
them as such. Deaths related to Taser usage are typically attributed to
"excited delirium" through a complex web of relationships between the company,
law enforcement personnel, and medical examiners. Excited delirium seems to be
a questionable medical condition where several researchers studying this
condition have financial ties to Taser.

~~~
Spivak
I really don't see how 'excited delirium' in any way absolves Taser. It's
supposedly a condition related to chronic drug use and mental illness that has
no easily identifiable symptoms. If an officer (or really anyone) isn't able
to determine with certainty that someone is not currently suffering from it
then using a Taser is at best 'probably non-lethal' and that's before we get
into people with heart conditions or pacemakers.

Assuming that Tasers don't cause any long-term damage I'm actually okay with
them as firearm alternatives. Just so long as we communicate that if an
officer wouldn't pull out their gun, they shouldn't pull out a Taser.

------
andreasgonewild
Tasers need to go, it's bad enough to treat animals like that. At least before
they shoot someone they think twice, and getting into a baton fight means
risking getting hurt; this is not a bad thing in itself; the goal should be to
de-escalate any situation and avoid violence.

~~~
Taek
Tasers are a really effective way to neutralize someone violent. If a 200
pound man on drugs is charging at you screaming with rage, a taser gives you a
good chance to survive without getting hurt and without shooting anyone.

I'm certain that tasers have saved many more lives than they have cost simply
because they have as much stopping power as a gun, and sometimes you really
need that much stopping power.

We need to treat them as dangerous, because they are dangerous. But they have
a place in the law enforcement toolkit and it's a very important one.

~~~
athenot
Or... teach the police how to use their elbows, knees and fists.

Then again, many members of the police have a hard time chasing a suspect by
foot and are nowhere near in condition for even basic martial arts.

Fun story: my massage therapist witnessed someone running away from a
morbidely obese policeman and asked him if he needed help. Policeman agreed so
he chased him accross a small parking lot. The policeman took his car to meet
them a few hundred feet away and was still winded from his earlier attempt at
running.

~~~
burkaman
That's an and, not an or. Fists are dangerous too if you use them incorrectly.
Police should know how to subdue someone with no weapons, a taser, or a gun,
and know when each one is appropriate.

------
Zanni
The title of this post is much more inflammatory than the title of the actual
article ("How Taser inserts itself into investigations involving its own
weapons") and in no way justified by the link.

That said, Tasering someone seems like an extreme over-reaction to this sort
of vandalism.

~~~
jMyles
> Four hours later, the Miami Beach Police Department received an email from
> stun-gun manufacturer Taser International Inc.

> The message, marked “confidential” and not previously reported, provided
> guidance on how investigators should proceed, from collecting hair and nail
> samples to recording the teen’s body temperature and documenting his
> behavior before he was stunned. It included a sample press release and an
> “evidence collection checklist.”

It seemed reasonable to me.

------
program_whiz
Everyone in this forum seems to think that using a taser is inhumane and
officers should instead use batons or their fists. The problem is that the
officer has to assume that if an attacker is getting violent, they are
attempting to get the gun. They can't read your mind, and they don't know if
they can beat you in a fight -- they have to assume that because they have a
loaded firearm you might take it and use it. So any use of force needs to be
measured against "if this fails they get the gun and we don't know what the
state of mind or capabilities of this attacker are".

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I am a person in this forum, and I do not think that using a taser against a
violent criminal is inhumane.

What I (and many others) think is significantly more nuanced:

1\. Using a taser against a violent person is humane only because it posses a
smaller (but still important, and still present) risk of harm to the person
than that person poses to bystanders and to the police.

2\. Using a potentially lethal weapon like a taser against a nonviolent person
is inhumane.

3\. Manipulating science by funding supporters and suppressing critics to
pretend your potentially lethal weapon is non-lethal is unethical.

The use of force in the article should have been measured against "if this
fails we might have to chase this guy who spray-painted an abandoned building
more, or we might not catch him at all... or we might kill him."

~~~
program_whiz
I agree with your points, my umbrage was against the general sentiment in the
forum that tools of force are bad and need to go because force is never really
justified.

~~~
yardie
I'm only half way through the post and I haven't seen anyone make an argument
like that. Most seem to believe that tasers have a time and place and using
them for nonviolent compliance isn't one of those reasons.

------
program_whiz
Any surprise here? First, why would any company not be involved in
investigations of their company, are investigators supposed to obtain all the
information to investigate them from some unbiased third party that has never
heard of taser? Secondly, how can you expect a company to lobby against its
own interests? If you have power and money, and your livelihood is on the
line, its ethical to use whatever means are available to defend yourself. Is
it wrong to hire the best attorney for your defense just because they may be
friends with the judge and a celebrity attorney? Also, how can you expect
police and others to be unbiased when this device has probably helped them or
saved their own life at some point. Are they supposed to ignore the fact that
this is a critical tool in their belt?

~~~
parenthephobia
> If you have power and money, and your livelihood is on the line, its ethical
> to use whatever means are available to defend yourself.

Not under any system of ethics I'm familiar with. Indeed, I would imagine that
a big part of most ethical systems is about _not_ abusing your power.

For example, most people would consider it unethical for a company to
manipulate, bribe, intimidate, and discredit people in order to suppress
evidence of the harmful nature of that company's products.

> Is it wrong to hire the best attorney for your defense just because they may
> be friends with the judge

Are we talking about the godfather to the judge's child, or somebody who has
coffee with him a few times a month?

If it's the former, any decent judge would recuse himself - and the _other_
attorney would rightly kick up a fuss if he didn't.

> Also, how can you expect police and others to be unbiased when this device
> has probably helped them or saved their own life at some point. Are they
> supposed to ignore the fact that this is a critical tool in their belt?

No. But, an _ethical_ person would weigh the benefits Tazers offer against the
risks they introduce: and it's hard to do that when Tazer systematically
suppress evidence of those risks.

