After a series of shocking reports of police torture using the taser I can no longer remain silent about this issue and neither should you. by Michael McDonnough
(libertarian)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
A nation that endorses torture deserves to receive no better than they give. That is the law of return and it is one that I firmly believe in. We as citizens of this nation must make it clear that we do not accept the use of torture by our government. If it means that we are more vulnerable to terrorist or criminals I submit that torture is a form of terrorism itself and if we stand by and say nothing about it we defacto endorse it as well. That is one of the reasons for this article.
It was prompted by the recent taser torture of a critically injured child by police officers in Ozark Missouri. I am sure you have all read this but it will help frame my article.
TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America. "The use of these weapons 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,'' the committee of 10 experts said. Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police.
The man, Robert Dziekanski, 40, fell to the ground and died after the police officers piled on top of him. There have been three deaths in Canada after the use of Tasers over the past five weeks. The company that makes the weapons has said that similar deaths have been shown by "medical science and forensic analysis'' to be "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser". The UN committee made its comments in recommendations to Portugal, which has bought the newest Taser X26 stun gun for use by police.
Portugal "should consider giving up the use of the Taser X26,'' as its use can have a grave physical and mental impact on those targeted, which violates the UN's Convention against Torture, the experts said.
{Author's Note: "Perhaps it is time that the USA should consider giving up the use of the Taser as well."}
There are many good sites out there that are tracking these abusive incidents of police cruelty and torture. Their victims are not all criminals that somehow deserve to be tortured as many believe. Many are like this 16 year old boy that did nothing to deserve to suffer this outragous abuse of authority.
I would like to set up a site like these and get an activist organization going that works on the local level to get people flyering and posting in areas where police officers have used tasers as torture devices as with this recent 16 year old critically injured child. Download a copy of this UN Convention on Torture. Print out and mark up the description of torture and see if this device does not qualify in your mind.
We need to bring public shame and attention to bear on these offenders of human dignity. They should suffer the most harsh light of critical awareness the public can bring to bear on them.
I am so disgusted with this situation. If we do not start to act to stamp out this cruelty it could be any of our children or friends next. This abuse must stop. People of conscious need to stand up and act not sit like docile dogs waiting to be kicked by their cruel masters. Enough is enough. Tasers are torture plain and simple when they are used in this manner. Comply or Fry. This is not a situation I can sit by any longer and say nothing about it. Let me know how you feel about it. I can be reached privately using pidgin plugin. My AIM username is tetragramion.
More of my notes will be added below.
Notes from a great article from 2005 by Jenny Brown Tasers: police torture weapons In March, Orange County police used a taser electrical shock gun on an 18 year old Orlando man who was tied to a hospital bed. The reason given was that the man refused to give a urine sample.
According to an exhaustively documented November 30, 2004 report by Amnesty International on taser use in the U.S. and Canada, electro-shock weapons are now used by police departments to enforce compliance with police orders, to retaliate against handcuffed suspects who are talking back or refusing to follow police instructions, and as punishment in prisons.
Amnesty has also identified over 70 deaths associated with tasers, and called for a complete suspension of their use until objective studies of their effects have been done. Amnesty's full report is available
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Washington woman shows how quickly tasers have become the weapons of choice for any situation. An officer with the Washougal, Washington police department went to the house of Russian immigrant Olga Rybak with a dog citation because her dog had allegedly bitten another officer the day before. Amnesty reports on the lawsuit:
Rybak, who spoke little English, at first refused to sign [the citation], asking for a translator. While attempting to arrest her, the officer shocked her at least 12 times in 91 seconds in front of her two young sons - first using the weapon as a stun gun, then stepping back to insert a cartridge and twice firing darts at Rybak who was writhing around on the front porch. When the boys (aged 11 and 12) tried to help their mother, the officer reportedly threatened to taser them as well. Rybak's attorney has informed Amnesty International that the boys have been receiving psychiatric treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the incident. The officer was the Taser Training officer for the department. (figures doesn't it)
New research finds that stun guns—also known as Tasers and used by two-thirds of the nation's law enforcement agencies—may impair people's cognitive functioning.
In a study of 62 police officers, researchers at Rosalind Franklin University of Medical Science in Chicago and the University of Illinois found that police officers who had been "tased" during training drills fared worse than a control group in attention, processing speed and memory. The results, though preliminary, suggest that law enforcement agencies should reconsider their use of Tasers in training exercises and that researchers need to further investigate the potential long-term effects, says study co-author Neil Pliskin, PhD, a University of Illinois psychology professor.
"It's a provocative finding because the kinds of difficulties that were observed ... are the same kinds of changes we see in people who have suffered electrical shocks from accidents involving domestic power sources," Pliskin says.
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Posted By: Jake, the champion of the constitution
Date: 2008-07-29 23:45:51
Dear Michael McDonnough -
Commend you for your stand and research on this. Death is the ultimate torture. I think its important to realize that what is happening here is (in my humble opinion) a trickle-down effect from the White House's policies towards the "terrorists" (whether real or imagined). There is a pdf link in my recent Bugliosi book review article towards Prof Velvel's attempt to indict Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, etc for torture war crimes. Indeed Bugliosi wants to charge Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rowe (sounds like a band) with murder. Have you seen Taxi to the Dark Side at video.google.com or youtube? If not, I recommend it.
I think when people see torture - at Abu Gharib, of torturing Jose Padilla (see an article I wrote here [link edited for length]) and do nothing, its not much worse than supporting it. ie 'All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.'
And I dont mean to discourage you from your website idea - I think its great, but please dont forget to strike at the root of the evil while you are hacking away at the branches. Just a thought. That said, the less branches the better, I commend you for your activism. Look forward to more posts from you on this
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2008-07-30 11:11:53
Jake,
You talk about striking the root in your comment. I think that one of the major roots is public apathy that permits this behavior so this program I am outlining is designed to strike at that root. Some of the content in the linked vdeo shows the prison system under W., Bush.and the terrible torture he permitted on his watch there. This has been getting ratcheted up over the years and the people have permitted this. We need to start speaking out and putting this abuse in check.
It's fine that that you have an outlet such as this site to post your personal and mis-guided views on life. And it's fine that you have a place to totally undermine the jobs of law enforcement officers nationwide and make their lives hell because of your ridiculous belief of tasers.
But if you're going to post this crap on the internet please do us all a favor by not letting your garbage beliefs interfere with the jobs of law enforcement officers. The Chief of Police of Lake Ozark, MO has been unfairly getting overwhelmed by hate phone calls, email, faxes, etc... because of morons like you who can't get your information correct. Every news article regarding the subject of the Mace Hutchinson tragedy correctly prints the name of the town as Ozark, MO.
Do the Chief of Police of Lake Ozark, MO a favor by updating this site and maybe, just maybe, give him a call apologizing for you ineptness.
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2008-08-01 19:27:08
It was not my intent to get that wrong. I have corrected it but the number of people that have seen this article is very low. That traffic was from reddit.com from the comment section of the original article and is where I got the information and did not catch the error. 10's of 1,000s of people were on the reddit so that is the source of your call flood. I will update the corrected info as soon as I have it.
My belief about tasers is that they are abused as torture devices by sociopathic people that should be behind bars not using tasers on children in the first place.
Michael, I ran across your post here..I knew a Michael McD for a brief period in Illinois, rode out to California with him in a van and almost wrecked outside St. Louis..That wouldn't happen to be you would it?
Come on people! What are these people doing in the first place that forces law enforcement to use the Taser? Think about it. Tasering is used as a last resort.
@ggjeffy - Some of "these people" are doing nothing more than lying in a creek bed with a broken back..
Not complying with unreasonable police demands does not constitute brutal and violent assault.
I doubt many. Guns kill, cops *treat* them as a last resort...most of the time (there was a man in my town of Baltimore wielding a knife. Cops shot him in the chest a dozen or more times. Shouldn't it be their job to DEescalate situations?). Tasers, on the other hand, are somehow imagined to be harmless. The statistics show they're far from harmless, but there are evidently far too many cops who use them like they're little worse than a harsh word. No cop would shoot someone for refusing to give a urine sample; that's ludicrous and they'd be thrown out of the service without hesitation. It would seem they underestimate the excruciating pain Tasers provide, which is odd considering I was under the impression that many of them have been tased as a part of training.
Now, if Tasers are going to incapacitate an armed-and-dangerous assailant with a single dart/shock...then by all means, I approve of them. Armed. And dangerous. They absolutely must not be a tool of coercion or intimidation, or used in any situation that ain't life threatening...in other words, any situation where they wouldn't use a gun, pre-Taser.
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2008-08-14 21:24:08
Kyle and Trent,
You just dont get it. Some cops are wannabe heros, most though are would be thugs. They like the power the badge and gun gives them. That is why they became cops. Give those brutal creeps a taser so they can shock people at their pleasure and you see the problem we have. You just have not seen the look of glee in the eyes of a torturer so you do not understand.
They even damage their own brain when they train with these things as you can read from the research discussed in the APA Online article linked in my article. We as a people need to rethink the use of these things. For one thing they should have audio and video start recording as soon as they are pulled from the holster.
You might want to see the dozens of videos of cops not wanting to be video recorded while they are working because they do not want their violent actions to be independantly examined.
Too many people are just cowering, cringing, and fearful around cops and this is why. The police force attracts the worst elements. It is the gang you can join that is legal. Law enforcement members are among the highest crime rate statistics as a demographic sector in the United States. Is that the kind of people you want to have electronic torture devices. They end up being used to torment people more than anything else. Comply or Fry! It is not an acceptable situation in my opinion. The Taser is the modern version of the whip except now we are all treated as slaves.
Unfortunately, it's not "some" cops who are wannabe heros, bullies. It's 90% of all cops. Give them a weapon that they can exact pain with on persons they perceive as a threat, lesser than them, or a statistical possible criminal element and we have an escalated "Police State".
We have no rights. If we stand up for ourselves or dare question a corrupt/unbalanced officer and his use of brutality plan on being physically punished for it. Are the police held accountable for their actions. NO!
Any other person who tortured or used such a devise on another human being would be immediately prosecuted and receive jail time.... except of course unless you wear a badge.
First of all I want to ask you how many times you have been faced with the decision of wether to shoot or not shoot someone? It isn't an easy decision as you might think, and even if you are right in the decision it sticks with you. No matter what decision you make someone is going to say you did the wrong thing. I am speaking from personal experience.
I understand that you think that tazers are overused and that they are sometimes not necessary. There are good cops and bad cops, but an overwhelmingmajority are good people. They would much rather talk a person down than have to taze or shoot someone.
Have you ever looked at what a police officer carries on thier belt? All of these things are designed to protect not just the police officer but the accused and the public. I would much rather police have the option to taze someone than have to get into a full out brawl.
Here is a simple senerio that police have to go through on a daily baisis. You are encountered with a person threatening to do harm to themself, another or you (it doesn't really matter). You have tried to talk them out of it and you have reason to believe that they are going to carry out their threats. What do you do?
The recent death of a man in LA who on New Years Eve was shot in the back by police in the subway brings up this taser issue again. It has been reported that the young man asked not to be tasered. He then was shot by police in the back and now the police are saying perhaps the policeman who shot him accidentally used his gun rather than his taser gun.
I ask--why did they need to taser this young man in the first place?! How can they kill him and say it was an accident and they thought they were using a taser gun? This is absolutely the most awful thing that we allow people to be tortured like this by tasers in the first place and then have people outright killed by a regular gun used "accidentally". I am very upset about the taser and the abuses and deaths which are occurring, the torture of people, the fact that they taser them and then WATCH them writhe. I don't know what to do to fight against it.
Now someone has been killed outright by a gun and "oops--we only meant to taser" is NOT an excuse we should EVER accept.
it's always nice when singular instances can jump start a campaign to promote or prevent something that a handful of people are afraid of. So many times you see people point to what something like this and say "look at this terrible outcome!" and never ask what if that cop didn't have a taser? If any security personnel were without a non-lethal alternative, a lot more people - including the good guys - would get hurt. I would rather them take the small risk of a taser versus the risk of brain injury from a baton or death from a pistol. If you are attacked by another individual and the cops had only pistols, do you want them to shoot at the bad guy? Come running in and risk their neck? Do people have to whine about everything?
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2009-02-27 11:04:05
It is sad that some people just can't think of a better alternative than an electric shock torture device as a way to handle a difficult situation. If what you describe were the only potential outcome and the only situation where a taser was deployed there would be no problem would there.
The numbers of killed, injured, and tortured are mounting as the taser technology is more widely adopted and these numbers are growing at an alarming rate. It is used quite commonly to torture people and that is the problem I am discussing. It no doubt has legitimate uses and is used for those purposes some of the time but it is the abuse of the technology that must be addressed.
Excusing torturers only leads to more abuse don't you think?
The only potential alternative to allow these devices to continue to be used is if the technology also has video and audio recording when pulled from the holster. This audio and video must be designed so that the data is locked in place and reviewed by an independant legal body so that the information can not be hidden if feared incriminating by the police and their blue wall.
Posted By: Frankie Muhammad
Date: 2010-11-15 08:35:14
Sure the Taser in very view instances my cause some harm to suspects. However, its a very effective tool for law enforcement. The good far out way the bad. Its a non-lethal weapon that allows law enforcement to take suspects in custody without subjecting the suspect to serious injuries. Its needed and its a very effective law enforcement tool.
