Canadian teen dies after being shot with Taser

Canadian teen dies after being shot with Taser

www.iht.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

No its not a repeated article, is just a fresh new one. Another death by this lethal weapon. It is not clear how many times the teen was shot with it, but still another life lost by this "non lethal weapon".

It is time for this weapons to be banned, next could be you, me, or someone you care about.

www.iht.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 23-7-2008 by Bunch]

Im ashamed to say this I really am, one more death from these fascist weapons, is one step closer to banning them for all time.

Im sorry my respected police officers, but you are going to have to get your hands dirty for a little longer while the brain pans figure out another way to safely subdue a perp with out causing death.

Well communication is key. Good communication skills can overcome nearly anything.. but police have lost their communication skills in favor of brute force.
This was so pointed out to me by personal experience one night I am out walking and this cop stops to ask me questions... Midway through the conversation and WITHOUT ANNOUNCING HIS INTENT he begins to pat me down. Knowing my rights I jumped back and asked him "what the heck do you think you are doing? I gave you no permission to search me!" Well that got me bent over his trunk and incarcerated for the night.

Point is had he asked I may of said yes or I made of said no but neither of us will ever no because he did not ask. He assumed he had the right to search me...then he assumed he had the right to through me around. And then nobody cares and he is still out on the streets and I live in a police state.

You know if good communication skills fail and you want to take down a perp without killing him you might investigate the merits of martial arts specifically Akido .

The teenager was weilding a knife and refused to put it down. A taser was the wrong approach?

Maybe the wrong approach was weilding a knife and refusing to drop the weapon after being repeatedly told to do so by the police.

The policy should be only to pull the trigger on a tazer when they would also pull the trigger on a gun.

The problem is that the policy is currently to use the taser when they think it is useful. However, that is going to be counter productive to their goal.

The goal was to reduce deaths, by using supposedly "non-lethal" weapons. And evidently, when used appropriately (i.e. only when an officer would otherwise pull the trigger on a gun) they CAN limit the amount of deaths, because you are simply replacing bullets with tazers. And if someone dies in that scenario from the tazer, they would most likely have had a chance at dying other wise witha bullet as well.


However, these items are being pulled for pure enjoyment at this stage. And because of that, the death rate from these will increase dramatically, cancelling out any good they could actually provide if the policy changed.

That is a wonderful idea. People would stop complaining about tasers, plus it would reduce the number that end up in prison (few survive being shot by cops).

So how bad was the crime that it should have resulted in this TEEN being killed? How high in the list of crimes is weilding a knife is? Should it be punish by death? Whats the intent of the cop to kill? Does this teen had mental issues? Was he on any kind of medication, drugs or under the influence of alcohol?

My beef is not with the cops, is with the taser, let me tell you why. A cop should not have on the back of their head the thought that he might kill someone that he didnt intend to kill. Many of this cases that result on death by a taser im pretty sure that it wasnt the cop intent to kill, so thats a problem. If a cop wants to kill a criminal he would use his gun, period.

Another thing and I would never get tired of stressing this point enough, this weapon is serving in some cases a judge and jury, dealing out a death penalty to someone that is just comitting a misdemeanor, a first offender or just someone who has a medical, mental or what ever else condition.

I understand your point but you should look beyond the specifics of one case and analyze what this weapon is causing in our society.

It all has to do with justified use of force.

Unfortunately, the Taser company refuses to admit that the Taser is a potentially lethal weapon.

Until it's officially declared a lethal weapon, it will continue to be used as a non-lethal deterrent, instead of what it is, a potentially lethal weapon.

Also unfortunate, is how convenient the Tasers use is. Until another option comes out of the skunk works, this flawed and lethal version will continue to be used.

Here in Canada, the government is taking measures to try to re-write the rules on which circumstances a Taser can be used.

Yeah he was wielding a knife they could have blown his brains out.
Why did the tazer kill him? Maybe he was on meth or something and caused him to have cardiac arrest.
Cardiac arrest is rare in teens however not in teens who take drugs.
When a teen drops dead from heart attack from taking drugs its not classed as a heart attack.

[edit on 24/7/08 by Being_From_Earth]

Why cant they just be trained better using fire arms.

As far as i can tell, either your the kind of person that dies fromn sudden shocks of electricity, or your not. There is no bad place to hit someone with a tazer that is any more harmfull than another, as far as i know.

So if the officer disabled the knife wielder with a sholder shot, there would be a chance that he would die from his wonds, it would depend on ambulance responce time and the exact details of the wound. With a tazer, if he has a weak heart, or some sort of condition, that person is going to die, no matter the situation.

If your one of those people like I am, you no longer obey the law because you could be sentenced, and serve time in jail. You obey because the police will kill you otherwise.

That is no way to live.

All citizens should be given tazers or some sort of knock-out pill to use on themselves whenever they see those lights flashing behind them.

Think of the lives that would be saved if we all incapacitated ourselves before dealing with the police.


I prefer to get out of my car with my hands behind my head - whereby I proceed to smash my head onto the car's hood repeatedly as the officer looks on in amazement - I can see the lines of appreciation wrinkle across his face as he realizes that I am saving him a great deal of effort and physical exertion. He then cuffs my blood-speckled hands together and tazers me, repeating " Who do you think you are to do my job for me" "Don't you know your place? Slave!"

I simply say "Please Sir; Can I have some more"

The kid should not have been wavin a knife around at cops, but he shouldn't have died for it either.


I wonder how the cops would have handled that situation if they had not had a tazer ? Don't they also carry mace, couldn't they have maced the kid ?


I understand that they had to do something, i just think that they need to stop the police from using tazers altogether. They use them under the impression that there are not lethal, but in certain cases they can be.


How is a cop supposed to know if the person that they are going to tazer has a pace maker, heart condition, epilepsy, or any other condition that could kill them if tazed ?


And it doesn't matter if the people are quilty of a crime, or innocent it doesn't make it acceptable that people are dying because a "non-lethal" weapon was used on them.


How many people have to die before law enforcement stands up and says, we made a mistake when we decided to use tazers, but we now see that they can be deadly weapons and we are no longer going to use them ?

reply to post by Being_From_Earth

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The important thing here to remember is that tasers were introduced as NON-LETHAL weapons, which has turned out not to be the case. Why? because they are too many variables that come into play when a taser is used, just to name a few:

-age of the individual
-physical condition of the individual (weight, mental, drugs or alcohol involved, heart conditions, etc)
-training of the officer
-how many times the person got taser

And thats just to name a few, so this weapons that was introduced as NON-LETHAL, basically has become a crapshoot may be it would kill, may be not and by that it has completely disregard the way for which it was first introduced.

The reason why many law enforcement agencies dont want to get rid of them I think is becasue it decreases there liability in court. Is not the same to see a guy that was physically beaten down to crap than to see a guy that was taser 10 times but manage to survive, the pain was there the tortue was applied but there is not physicall scars that a jury or judge could appreciate.

Basically they are desentizing us from the pain they can cause others.

I heard on the radio this morning another teen in Canada was brandishing a knive at Police, and was shot by Police with a gun but survived. I tried to find the story, but I guess since no one died, the story didn't have much legs.

The point is, if the Police didn't have tazers, they would likely shoot them with a gun. Both have a chance of fatality, but I'd rather recover from a tazer wound than a gunshot wound.

I don't think Tazers are perfect, but make a reasonable gun substitute. I also think Police should only deploy them in situations where they would use their firearms.

reply to post by Bunch

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Aye, poor kid..

Police NEVER should have used a taser on the teen!

They should have shot the bastard.

Sorry. I don't feel sorry when a cop kills a guy for trying to stab him.

The stupidity of people is overwhelming anymore. I don't care how offended you get from my responce but I need to vent.

This young man was wielding a knife...which IS a lethal weapon. In all cases like this a bullet through his chest SHOULD of been the appropriate way the officers dealt with this guy. BUT, what do the fine officers of canada do, and officers all over the US do...they take a chance and try a different method to hopefully save the kids life. Sure he died, but the other option was just as lethal. Atleast with a taser he has a chance..a bullet can't be turned off...and a heart that stops due to a shock can be restarted...a heart ripped into 20 peices by a .40 cal bullet is a done deal.

As for members saying shoot him in the shoulder or leg or anywhere BUT center mass...your hollywood minds really need a reality check. When people think those kinds of shots are legal and even possible tells me you have watched WAY to many movies and NEVER dealt with a high stress situation involving lethal means. As for the member asking about "mace" (oc spary)..that is the worst thing to do to a person holding a knife. When you take away their vision, and add pain...you now have a whacko with a knife who can't see and is in pain so he starts to swing and flail that knife in all directions...that just made the situation worse...

As for other members using this thread and all taser threads as a means to whine and scream about police this and police that...its just amazing the crap that flows from your mouths..or shall I say fingers.

How is it people think they have all the answers, yet none of those people are willing to wear the badge and actually come out and deal with the stuff we do?

How is it sitting behind your computer for hours and days reading about a case and picking it apart, or seeing a video and pausing it and rewinding it justifies you to lash out at an officer who had 5 seconds to make his decision?


It amazes me how people armchair quarterback EVERYONE from their computer chairs....to me..unless you have been there and done that or are willing to go there and do it...your opinion...well it really don't mean a F'N thing!!!

Lastly...are there cases of taser abuse...of course, but if your blinded by those cases and cannot use common sense on a case by case basis...you really shouldn't say anything....totality of the circumstances is key...not social stupidty!

EDIT TO ADD: And by all means..go ahead and take the taser away...keep crying and whining...make sure every department bans them and the company itself is put out of business..and when you win that fight...make sure your mouths stay shut when the triggers on our GUNS are pulled more often. With the taser 1 in 500 may die due to the trigger being pulled on that weapon...so pat yourselves on the back...because when you get the taser banned...that 1 in 500 deaths...just became 500 in 500 deaths..because YOU GUYS knew better and had the answers..

I'll be glad to watch YOU go to some parents home and say..sorry your son was shot to death for pulling a knife...the cops wanted to try and tase him and disarm him....but thanks to me I had that option banned..so they filled him with lead instead...have a nice day!

[edit on 7/24/2008 by rcwj75]

ROCK, how dare you, so a 17 year old is a bastard is he and deserves to be shot. There could have been many reasons why he was doing what he did but its coming all to common place for tasers to be used just for kicks. An easy way for the Police not to get their hands dirty by tasering somebody to death.

There are other forms of subduing a person without killing them pepper spray come to mind. But either way thats a piss poor attitude for one who's supposed to be a Master Mason who would normally be held in high regard.

reply to post by magicmushroom

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Ah yes, the cops just agitated a knife wielding teen so that they could have fun and tase someone.. because all cops set out to tase someone each night.. picking them out from their car "hey lets get that guy real mad so we can tase him! (insert evil laugh)"

Ya. Imo, the kid was a lowlife. pulling a knife on a cop? Worth a tase if you ask me.. the fact that he died only shows that yes. Stupidity CAN be lethal. And I don't mourn the loss of morons.

reply to post by magicmushroom

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Trying using pepperspray really close with a person wielding a knife and need to aim for his/her face if they allowed you to do it if they cooperate.

But otherwise I agree, we should ditch the taser and go back to old school, a 9mm handgun.