Taser Deaths and Death by Taser

October 16, 2009

Deaths and injuries caused by Taser Guns

Filed under: Taser Deaths — Tags: , , , , , , , , — brian @ 6:40 pm

Between June 2001 and June 2007, there were at least 245 cases of deaths of subjects soon after having been shocked using Tasers. Of these cases:

  • In 7 cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause or a contributing factor or could not be ruled out as a cause of death.
  • In 16 cases coroners and other officials stated that a Taser was a secondary or contributory factor of death.
  • In dozens of cases, coroners cited excited delirium as cause of death. Excited delirium has been questioned as a medical diagnosis.
  • Several deaths occurred as a result of injuries sustained in struggles. In a few of these cases head injury due to falling after being shocked contributed to later death. Some police departments, like that of Clearwater, Florida, have tried to eradicate such incidents by prohibiting taser use when the suspect is in danger of falling.

In 2005, a medical examiner ruled for the first time that a Taser was the primary factor in a death.

Several incidents have received publicity:

  • July 2005, UK. Police Tasered a man in hypoglycemic shock, believing that he was a potential security threat.
  • April 2006, USA. A 56 year old, wheelchair bound woman dies after ten Taser shocks, death ruled homicide.
  • October 2006, USA. A 17 year old boy died after being repeatedly Tasered by police.
  • November 2006, USA. UCLA Taser incident
  • September 2007, USA. University of Florida Taser incident
  • October 2007, Canada. Robert Dzieka?ski Taser incident
  • November 2007, Canada. Howard Hyde incident.
  • November 2007, USA. Christian Allen incident.
  • December 2007, Canada. Quilem Registre Taser incident
  • April 24, 2008, USA. Kevin Piskura died after being stunned by a X-26 Taser for 10 seconds while interfering with a friend’s arrest by Police in Oxford, Ohio. He was hospitalized after the confrontation and died five days later. Video and audio of the event was recorded by the X-26’s mounted camera.
  • July 22, 2008, Winnipeg, Manitoba, a 17 year old aboriginal teen died after being tasered during a standoff. The victim was carrying a knife during the incident
  • September 24, 2008, USA. Iman Morales Taser incident

Fatalities by Tasers

Filed under: Taser Deaths — Tags: , , , , — brian @ 6:27 pm

While their intended purpose is to circumvent the use of lethal force such as guns, the actual deployment of Tasers by police in the years since Tasers came into widespread use is claimed to have resulted in more than 180 deaths as of 2006. It is still unclear whether the Taser was directly responsible for the cause of death, but several legislators in the U.S. have filed bills clamping down on them and requesting more studies on their effects. Despite the growing controversy, a study funded by the U.S. Justice Department asserted that the majority of people tasered from July 2005 to June 2007 suffered no injury. A study led by William Bozeman, of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, of nearly 1,000 persons subjected to Taser use, concluded that 99.7% of the subjects had either minor injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all; while three persons suffered injuries severe enough to need hospital admission, and two other subjects died. Their autopsy reports indicated neither death was related to the use of a Taser.

The head of the U.S. southern regional office of Amnesty International, Jared Feuer, reported that 277 people in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser between June 2001 and October 2007, which has already been documented. He also noted that about 80% of those on whom a Taser was used by U.S. police were unarmed. “Tasers interfere with a basic equation, which is that force must always be proportional to the threat,” Feuer said. “They are being used in a situation where a firearm or even a baton would never be justified.” A spokesperson for Taser International asserted that if a person dies from a “tasering” it is instantaneous and not days later. Taser International announced that it is “transmitting over 60 legal demand letters requiring correction of… false and misleading headlines.”

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