Tasers a form of torture, says UN

I'm not myself going to come and visit to you as a turist and support totalitarian police states, where I can be tasered to death by just looking suspicious.

The use of Tasers "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture," the UN's Committee Against Torture said. "In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events." Three men — all in their early 20s — died from after tasering in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being tasered by Canadian police. There have been 17 deaths in Canada following the use of Tasers since they were approved for use, and 275 deaths in the US. "According to Amnesty International, coroners have listed the Taser jolt as a contributing factor in more than 30 of those deaths."

slashdot.org.../11/24/2324212

[edit on 25-11-2007 by HoHoFoo]

[edit on 25-11-2007 by HoHoFoo]

Am I the only one that dug deeper into this and discovered that the majority of those who died after being tazed either had some sort of underlying medical condition or were under the influence of drugs (like cocaine, meth, etc)?

Snorting coke + being tased = heart stops so gee no wonder they died.

Also, how do we expect the officer/deputy/trooper/agent to know who has what condition, whos been snorting, etc?

Quite frankly, the Taser is a much better option then the Glock 17. At least with a Taser I know theres not a 100% chance of death with a chest or head shot.

So you're saying that being drunk or high or even having a heart problem is just tough cookies if you're tasered by some incompetent cop for speeding or whatever and you happen to drop dead from it?

And by extension, you should be glad you only got the taser instead of a bullet from a Glock? Don't you think there's a middle ground somewhere?

ATS could have a taser board, there are so many posts here about its abuse.

And it is abused, far too often, by incompetent, maladjusted cops who don't know how to handle rather mundane situations--recalcitrant grandmothers, guys with their pregnant wives in tow disputing speeding tickets, etc, etc. Loser cops who otherwise would be forced to learn how to properly deal with these situations, not simply to pull out a taser and zap 'em to the ground.

Do you mean it's their own fault they died?

Point is that you can't expect everybody being young and helthy when tasered.
There's possibility that you kill somebody just being angry, and you mean that is their own fault not being healthy enough?

And reading news gives me expression that officers and guards are more and more acting like they can act as they want and everybody have to obey without questioning it = policestate.

[edit on 25-11-2007 by HoHoFoo]

I think the UN should make comments abut the Saudi Arabian rape case, and the Brazil rape case, I bet that hurts as well

Are you suggesting that all citizens as a whole should have there heart condition fixed, and stop doing drugs, so they don't die if they get tazed. ok that was a joke.

Ok lets put it this way, just what percentage of the population has a heart condition and what percentage has drug problems, this is a whole percentage of the population where tazers are clearly fatal and there use should be immediately stopped. You whack some one in the arm with a club they are not going to die



Being a criminal and doing drugs doesn't justify being killed by this weapon.



The officer should not have a tazer to begin with.



A club is a better weapon, your FIST is a better weapon, Tazers are being used in Very non lethal situations. A gun would be used in lethal situations.

Yes, actually that is what im saying. DONT DO DRUGS. Its very simple. DONT BREAK THE LAW and the police WILL NOT bother you.

I really dont understand what the issue is. if you f--k with the cops, your going down. Its very simple actually.

Since when is electrocution a suitable means of detaining someone SUSPECTED of doing something illegal ? I mean, no prior evidence or what not...Just some whim of a cop ?

And the US has the nerve to call other countries for human rights abuses....Don't make make laugh...

Pathetic...

Being tazed sure does beat getting a bullet in the ass.

A taser can be used as torture. Several years ago, some cops shot a dude in a cell with one, then played with the voltage while they were questioning him.

But then again, anything can be used to torture someone. Heck, I'll spill my guts of all I know if they played freakin' Britney Spears in my cell.

Johnsky stole my opening line...


Let's look at the evolution of police weaponry... once there were guns. But guns killed people. So we started making sure that cops couldn't use their guns, because too many bad people got dead.

This kept the bad people from getting dead, but the cops starting getting dead because the crooks still used guns. That was unacceptable as well.

Then we developed tazers... they don't get many people dead. Of course, they're not supposed to get any people dead, and that's the problem. Police can use them without worrying about it, and so they do! What a shock.

Tazers are not completely safe, though. Any time you pump electricity through the human body (which operates on electro-chemical reactions) to the tune of 50KV, you're taking a chance that there will be some unexpected results, ranging from death to almost no effect (some people aren't affected by a tazer enough to even stop them). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Apparently we do have rocket scientists teaching rookies at the academies now, because they are teaching 'tazer first, ask questions later'.

Now I don't have a lot of sympathy for the drug dealer (excuse me, 'undocumented pharmacist' ) that gets stopped by the cops. He caused the immediate problem by breaking the law in the first place. But the problem is exascerbated by the fact that the cop thinks he can taze anyone who doesn't jump fast enough without any potential problems. And we're not talking about just drug dealers here... I remember two news stories in the last couple of years, one where a college demonstrator was tazed repeatedly until he died, all the time with the tazering policemen screaming 'get up' at him. Of course he couldn't get up... he was paralyzed by the electric jolt! Another time a college student asked a cop for his name and badge number because she felt he was abusing his authority. The girl was told 'get away or I'll taze you'. Cops do not just face drug dealers and murderers. They face us all, at some time or another, and they never know who they are coming into contact with until after they come in contact with them. Scary job.

I think tazers are a good thing that has gone way too far and is now a bad thing. Sure, it's usually better than the Smith and Wesson maneuver, but it can also kill, and anyoe who thinks different should try grabbing an electric fence sometime (approximately the same thing). At least with the S&W method, the cops used force as a last resort. Leave it to idiot beuurocrats to screw up what could have been a great alternative to the gun. Remember, dead is dead, regardless of whether it was by bullet, live wire, or being hit with a rock.

Now if I can get my head around the concept of the UN sayong something that's almost intelligent...

TheRedneck

reply to post by jerico65

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I dunno about that... if you're an undocumented pharmacist trying to smuggle 800 pounds of marijuana into the country, getting a 'bullet in the ass' comes with a lot of perks.

OK, off-topic, sorry... I just couldn't resist...

TheRedneck

First off, I really don't think that the UN has any grounds for saying this considering what else they allow to go on without criticism. Secondly, I have a mixed opinion of tasers. I think that like any other tool, they can be very effective and very useful without a loss of life when used properly. However, like any other tool, they have a ton of potential for very unpleasant results when misused or abused. A taser is no different from a wrench or a ratchet in that respect. So yes a taser can be used for torture, but that is in the completely incorrect applicaiton of it. If used incorrectly, one could potentially kill someone by misusing a wrench, so I think the best thing to do would be to reevaluate the method in which tasers are employed. Preferably a neutral third party group should conduct studies and then write up a list of guidelines.

And that's exactly why TASERs shouldn't be used. I'm pretty sure you're wrong that "the majority" of those who died are on drugs.

But even if 100% of them are on drugs guess what : being on drugs isn't punishable by death !

Respect isn't law, its earned, a badge and a gun doesn't earn it, should people go around being a jerk just to be a jerk? no, but if they do then whatever, its called freedom you don't have to like it.
going around blindly kissing the butt of some cop on a power trip is the act of a coward sheep and its simply unAmerican.

cops aren't above the law and being a jerk isn't against the law so it can't be above the law.

they should use tranquilizers instead eh? put em to sleep. if they die of overdose, maybe they should lay off the resisting arrest.

This is both to answer the question on pepper-ball guns and address the all or nothing mentality that some members are showing on this subject.

First and foremost, all violence is inhumane. The root of this question is not whether or not TASERs are a good thing, or whether or not the UN has the authority to say what is good and bad, etc.
Violence is bad. I think we can all agree that if God comes down from the coulds and says "peace or violence" we should all say "peace" in one voice.

Short of God doing that, there will be violence. Consequently the root of this question is whether or not we wish to have a society. A society by its very nature entails the sacrifice of some of our natural absolute freedom, which some would use to violently tyranize their neighbors, for certain assurances of safety. This safety is preserved by entrusting government agents with the means to use force. In short, do we want to have cops or not?

I say yes, as did our founding fathers. As our founding fathers did, however, I say this with the proviso that new safeguards must be provided against misconduct by those who would be guardians of our society. I do not claim to know what all of these safeguards would be, but I do know that the principles that would govern them are already partially existant, that they would not completely do away with everything we now have, and that those safeguards must include strict accountability.

I also know that those safeguards will not make a perfect world, and I am OK with that, because there is a delicate balance between absolute freedom and safety. Some safety can be sacrificed and some cannot. Some rights can be foregone and some cannot. (I will give up the right to swing my arms near your nose, but not the right to swing my arms at all. I will not allow you to swing your arms near my nose, but I will accept a little risk from you swinging your arms elsewhere).

On the pepperball gun and other weapons:
The Pepperball gun does solve some of the problems presented by the TASER, so it's a pretty good option, but no non-lethal weapon at present is perfect.

The pepperball gun is a gun, and if you aim it wrong it cause permanent injury, so doesn't have quite the same illusion of harmlessness as a TASER.
I haven't got the stats in front of me but it seems reasonable that it is probably less likely to kill than a TASER when properly employed.
But it's also not quite as effective as the TASER. I've seen guys have to be shot in the genitals with that thing before they'd comply.

The TASER is one of the most effective non-lethal weapons available- far more effective than a club, hand to hand techniques, or even the pepper-ball gun.
As a direct result of that extra power though, the TASER is also more dangerous than those techniques. (although none of them is completely safe. If somebody has a condition, you could put them into shock with a baton or a grapling technique.)

There is what law enforcement calls a "force continuum". On the low end, you've got grabbing someone's wrist, turning them around, and cuffing them because they won't comply with lawful instruction. On the high end, you've shooting to kill before a hostage taker can kill his victim. Between those extremes, there is a progression through low-impact holds, pepper spray, hand and baton strikes, and things such as pepperball guns and tasers. There are times when any of these things may be necessary, but far more often they are not necessary and must not be employed.

The United Nations needs to be banned by all countries and forever discontinued. They're hungry, greedy liars and don't deserve the attention they get. The Taser is inhuman and police forces should be trained to handle situations that require a better outcome than electricuting someone. If this was the case in Abu Grhraib and our soldiers were using tasers on the prisoners the whole world would be angry. But for some reason the US police force is allowed to use them. The sad thing is that most of the cases I've seen when using the taser, the officer could of used just old fashion restraint technics and subdued the offender. Makes no sense to me to use tasers

If the guy is really and I do mean really life threatning to the officer then shoot him. If not then get off their lazy a#s and subdue him the right way. What the hell are we paying them for?

[edit on 11/25/2007 by Solarskye]

reply to post by Solarskye

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I strongly disagree. The UN needs a major overhaul, but not to be destroyed.
If your district attorney failed to do his job 90% of the time, would you want a better DA, or would you want to get rid of him and let the other 10% of criminals go unprosecuted as well?

I also disagree that it should be hand to hand or shooting for cops. Suppose that some guy, 6'4" and 300 pounds, walks up to you right in front of a cop, knocks you on your butt, and takes your wallet, then walks away. No cop in his right mind is gonna tangle with that guy unarmed, and you can't possibly believe that cops should be allowed to kill people in the streets for property crimes, do you?

Doesn't it make perfect sense in that situation for the cop to have a device that can make that big son of a gun's muscles useless and put him on the ground without killing him, so that you can get your wallet back and see that guy dealt with appropriately by our justice system? In a situation like that TASERs are a good thing. It's not black and white. It's situational.

This is not about the UN this about the complains already been filed with
Amnesty international that are been taken into consideration by the UN.

The tagging of the taser guns as inhumane and a form of torture is in an effort to protect the citizens that are obviously falling victims along with the perpetrators and dying from related taser guns injuries..

How many more deaths we need to have in order to have something done about this method of population control.

Plain and simple.

No more United Nations is what I meant. You can call the next one whatever you want but the ones in charge of the United Nations are corrupt. I agree not to abandon the world but definetly not call it United Nations anymore. And there are ways to take down Hulk criminal's without tasers. It's just that police want to do the easy thing. I also said if it was a life threatning situation "then shoot them" you don't have to kill then, but shoot them. Anyway better technologies are coming out to better deal with criminals. Radio frequecy stun weapon