Taser zaps California man’s short-term memory: claim

rawstory.com...

A California man is the first to make TASER International the sole defendant in an injury lawsuit. Steve Butler had a cardiac arrest after being shocked multiple times. Butler's brain was deprived of oxygen for 18 minutes causing him to lose almost all short-term memory.

On October 7, 2006, Santa Cruz police say the 51-year-old refused to get off a Metro bus. According to a report, he was drunk and challenged the responding officer to a fight. Police then shocked him at least three times with a Taser.

The shocks left Butler in full cardiac arrest and not breathing. Paramedics were able to revive him but 18 minutes without oxygen left him permanently disabled. Butler now has almost no short-term memory.

It seems to me that LEOs are using the TASER in confrontations rather than using police tactics they were taught in the Academy to deal with drunks and unruly citizens. Just take the easy way out to subdue someone and if they die...tough.

This isn't a "hate cops" thread...It's a train and pay LEOs more for better quality applicants thread.

reply to post by whaaa


I hope he wins and we hear all about it, but they will probably just try and settle with a gag order if he has any sort of case. Yup I can definately see them using the taser before anything else.

This video didn't run very well for me, but I think you can see enough of it to get the general idea, and it's not very pretty.

www.taser.com...



Police officers who use tasers, must be tased themselves, during practice sessions. But what is troublesome about this, is how this might effect those who have medical issues which could be effected by the electrical current. What of those with pacemakers, for example? Pacemakers are not just for the elderly, anymore.

Obviously people are not going to physically/medically respond to being tased in the same way, so how unpredictable is it?

Reportedly they are not deadly or injurious to those who are healthy, but this information is not known to the officer firing at random, and this is troublesome. In trying to stop someone from running, he could very well be executing a death sentence, and should be held accountable if it goes wrong.

There is a "fleeing felon" policy among police officers, which is updated from time to time, and police officers may need to be more discerning about when to use the taser also. Not just to get a drunk off a bus.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


Oh man that thing sure as hell is scary! Yeah I don;t think this type of behavior is justified at all. I agree with the OP, and the link ladyinwaiting provided shows just how far this technology has come...Scary...

reply to post by Smell The Roses


Yes, it is scary, and that was on a site that sells tasers to individuals, and LE agencies.

I think we can expect to see this monster for use in crowd control, in the near future.

Anyone want to go for a protest on a college campus?

I think this Californian lost his short term memory because of something else...


[edit on 8-3-2010 by chrisrand]