University of California study raises doubts about stun gun / TASER safety

University of California study raises doubts about stun gun / TASER safety

www.sfgate.com

The number of in-custody sudden deaths rose dramatically during the first year California law enforcement agencies began using stun guns, raising questions about the safety of the devices, according to a new study at UCSF.

The electronic weapons are intended to be a nonlethal alternative to the gun.

"Tasers are not as safe as thought," said Dr. Byron Lee, one of the cardiologists involved in studying the death rate related to Tasers, the most widely used stun gun. "

(visit the link for the full news article)

If you look at the study the spike in sudden deaths seem to occur in the first year of Taser deployment in departments. After that by year five they drop to pre taser level.

Perhaps many of this can be avoided with better education and mroe regulation with policies and procedures standardized much like CPR and other activities are a national standard.

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

reply to post by FredT


Good info. I read this when it was posted and meant to comment but it slipped my mind and I just remembered it tonight. I'm a bit surprised this hasn't generated more interest here.

Anyway, my own personal 2 cents. I think you are right about education, etc. helping lessen this.

My guess as to why is based on the article they seem to be given fairly minimal training. Also, much of it seems to be from the company that makes them. How many times has Taser came out and said, "Our products are totally safe."??

So they get this new toy, they don't get much training, they are told its safe and...well.. they find it may not be as safe as they thought. It just takes them a few suspect deaths to figure it out.

That's one guess. My other guess is much more simple. They get a shiny new hammer to play with and suddenly everything looks like a nail.

Fred, I'd like you to have a look at this thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

According to the court documents, as many as 6,000 weapons were returned in one month alone because of alleged defects.

The former employees also claimed defective Tasers that had been returned were sawn open, the high voltage circuit boards were removed and "simply put in new casings with new serial numbers and sent out again without the flaws actually being rectified."

Taser settled the lawsuit for $20 million.

Source is at the linked thread.

The lawsuit comes from the shareholders.

They do need better training but this whole weapon and it's builder has to be looked at much closer than just better training for the officers.

Edited to add a little bit of the article.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by GAOTU789]

reply to post by GAOTU789


No argument there

I listened to the radio version where they interviewed the main researcher and he indicated simply requiring every officer who uses a Taser to have an AED avalible would reduce the fatality rate by a signifigant amount.