Saying that the device manufacturer did not inform police of the lethality of the Tasers sold to the department, a federal judge last Thursday ordered the company to pay the lawyers of the family of a man killed by the Salinas, CA, police department more than $1.4million in damages.

The case marked the first time Taser was found negligent in a death related to the use of its stun guns. In June, a jury awarded Heston's family more than $5 million in damages after finding that Taser failed to warn Salinas police of the potentially fatal dangers of shocking a subject numerous times. 

Taser inventor dies at 88

Jack Cover, an aerospace scientist who invented the Taser stun gun now widely used by police, has died in southern California.

He was 88.

The gun's producer, Taser International, says Mr Cover was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and died of pneumonia at a retirement home.

Trained as a nuclear physicist, Mr Cover spent most of his career working in aerospace and defines industries.

Taser stun guns will be rolled out across the state in the biggest revolution of police equipment since the NSW force was formed in 1862.

In a move which will delight the Police Association and alarm civil libertarians, Tuesday's budget will include $10 million to buy 1962 Tasers for front-line police.

The Police Association secretary Peter Remfrey said: "It's great that the State Government has finally stepped up and done what's right for both police and the community.

"Too many officers who have served on the front line know what it's like to have to discharge their firearm, knowing that it could cost someone's life. Up to now they had no choice. Now our police will have another option available to them."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/states-police-licensed-to-taser-20090613-c6p2.html?page=-1

yessiree bob .... "it could cost someone's life" .... sure as hell did on Friday .....

Civil libertarians say the death of a man shot three times with a Taser stun gun in north Queensland this morning "explodes the police myth that Tasers don't kill''.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/man-dies-after-being-shot-with-taser-in-townsville-20090612-c5b7.html?page=-1

of course, the dead man's body wasn't even cold before the spin & deception was being foisted on a gullible public .....

Whilst QLD Police Minister Neil Roberts said "separate probes by the Police Ethical Standards Command, the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the coroner's office would examine the incident and whether the Taser had been used appropriately by rookie police at the scene", the Queensland Police Union said "the officers involved were left with no choice but to Taser the naked man" .... they'd know, of course.

There was a time in our society when the level of respect accorded Police was directly related to the appropriateness of their behaviour in dealing with the public. It was certainly the case that Police were subject to the same laws that governed everyone-else living in our society .... sadly, this no longer seems to be the case.

The deployment of Tasers is all about allowing Police to threaten, intimidate & assault members of the public, with impunity. Police are no longer concerned about public opinion, as they are often a law unto themselves .... fear is now their stock in trade.

Senior police have ordered an investigation into the use of a stun gun on a man in Oxford Street three months ago, casting a shadow over the announcement by the Premier, Nathan Rees, that the weapon will be distributed to all frontline police.

Police confirmed that the deputy commissioner Dave Owens had at the weekend urgently sought a copy of City of Sydney television footage of the incident, having previously reviewed the Taser's camera record of the event and seen no evidence of a problem.

The change of tack came because the stun gun camera record had been "obscured", said the assistant commissioner Catherine Burn.

Controversy over the Oxford Street incident could not have come at a worse time for Mr Rees who was yesterday promising that police would have rigorous training in the use of the weapons.

The footage from the City of Sydney camera shows a heavy-set man walking in ebullient fashion in the early hours of March 29 next to traffic in Oxford Street, just outside a line of parked cars. A police officer walking behind the man orders him onto the pavement.

The man appears to be obeying and is heading to the footpath when the officer fires the stun gun.

The man falls and the footage shows his legs twitching violently. After struggling to his feet he is stunned again, despite being surrounded by four officers.

The man was taken to Surry Hills police station and charged over the possession of a small amount of drugs.

His solicitor, Nick Boyden, said the footage, obtained by The Sun-Herald, was inconsistent with the police report.

He told the Herald doctors had been unable to remove part of the dart in his client's back.

The belated decision to investigate showed Mr Rees's announcement of a statewide distribution was premature, he said. "These officers clearly aren't trained enough, and the review mechanisms aren't sufficiently in place.

"There just seems to be a lot more work to do before they can issue these things to every officer in the state, especially more junior officers."

Last year the NSW Ombudsman called for a two-year freeze on the statewide distribution of the weapons, citing safety and training concerns.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/police-inquiry-into-stun-gun-shooting-in-city-20090614-c7fu.html

Civil liberties groups are demanding a more thorough investigation after it emerged a Queensland man who died during an arrest last week may have been tasered by police more than 20 times.

Queensland Police initially told the media the Taser was used up to three times when officers tried to arrest Antonio Galeano during a violent struggle at Brandon, south of Townsville, last Friday.

The 39-year-old collapsed and died a short time after being stunned by the 50,000 volt gun.

Data collected from the weapon reveals it was fired 28 times. The data does not reveal the target.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/18/2601290.htm

from Crikey ....

Tasers: what the Canadian Inquiry tells us

Greg Barns writes:

Earlier this month Queensland Police used a Taser gun to subdue 39 year Antonio Galeano from Ayr. Galeano is now dead, with forensic testing revealing that the weapon was discharged 28 times. Now federal Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor is looking at national guidelines for police Taser use.

What both Mr. O'Connor and the Queensland government should do is acquaint themselves with what is perhaps the most exhaustive examination of Taser guns and their use to date anywhere in the world. It is being held in British Columbia and so far it has revealed that when it comes to use of Taser guns deaths do occur and police can't be trusted to use these dangerous weapons.

The inquiry, chaired by a former British Columbia judge Thomas Braidwood, was established by the provincial government last year to look at the use of Taser guns in BC and to examine a case the facts of which are very similar that to that involving Mr. Galeano. In October 2007 an agitated Polish immigrant Robert Dziekański who had been waiting for his mother to arrive from a flight from Europe for ten hours was shot by four police officers using a Taser gun. The lead up to the shooting and the shooting itself were captured by a traveler on his cell phone -- it makes for compelling and frightening viewing. The severity of the shock to the human body from the firing of a Taser gun is clearly visible.

The Braidwood Inquiry to was due to begin wrapping up last week but the government lawyers revealed to a shocked Braidwood that they had "discovered" emails which show that the police officers involved in the Dziekanski shooting actually discussed using a Taser gun on him before they reached the scene, directly contradicting evidence they had given to the Inquiry in which they say that they used the Taser gun on the spur of the moment.

What has emerged already from Braidwood's Inquiry is as relevant to Australia as it is to Canada. Police sources set out in the media to spin a line that Mr Dziekanski's conduct was fuelled by drugs or alcohol, police did not have an interpreter with them at the scene despite knowing Mr Dziekanski was not able to speak English and the police officers alleged that Mr Dziekanski came at them with a stapler, despite video evidence to the contrary. The police also sought to suppress publication of the video evidence and refused to return it to its owner, who had to take out a court order to get it returned.

When a person dies as a result of police action as happened in this case and in the case of Mr. Galeano, police forces cannot be trusted to tell the truth -- that's a well known and unfortunate fact of life. When they use Taser guns, police are trigger happy, simply ignore procedure and protocol and then try and paint the victim as being highly dangerous.

Braidwood has also heard evidence from experts and the manufacturers of Taser guns about whether or not these weapons are lethal, as the evidence suggests them to be. Braidwood's findings on this issue will be ground breaking because they will be the first rigorously and independent assessment of the knowledge we have about Taser guns.

Australian governments and law enforcement officials should be following the Braidwood Inquiry very closely indeed.

Antonio Love is a deaf and mentally disabled 37-year-old man from Mobile, Alabama. During a recent visit to a Dollar General store, Mr. Love went to the bathroom to deal with a severely upset stomach.

After Love had been in the bathroom for about an hour, store managers called the police, who on their arrival displayed their celebrated good sense and compassion.

As the police tried to force open the door, Love - seeking to preserve his privacy, and not knowing it was the police on the other side - held the door shut. So the police deployed pepper spray through a crack in order to subdue Love.

Once they pried open the door, the police then used their favorite lethal toy - the Portable Electro-Shock Torture (PEST) device, or, to use its brand name, Taser - on the hapless and terrified man.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/031218.html

In Virginia, police officers raid a baptismal party for two small boys. Without cause or provocation they assault the grandfather who owns the home, tasering him three times while children and other guests look on in horror.

When the pregnant daughter-in-law of the victim intervenes, she, too, is forced to perform the "electron dance." The grandfather is charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication, despite the fact that Virginia state statutes specify that such offenses cannot be committed on one's own property.

The woman who came to the aid of the first victim was charged with "assaulting an officer," since her brave effort to protect the grandfather from a criminal assault involved placing her unhallowed hands on the sanctified personage of a "law enforcement officer." Such presumption simply cannot be tolerated.

A few weeks earlier in Webster, Texas, a pastor is tasered after a member of his congregation was pulled over by police in the church parking lot. Once "backup" arrives - the boldness of police, like that of feral wolves and droopy-drawered gang-bangers, is a function of operating in packs - the officers charge the church sanctuary, assaulting Pastor Jose Moran and pepper-spraying the worshipers who objected to the treatment of their pastor. Once again, the victim, rather than the assailants, finds himself charged with assault.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w105.html

A lawyer for the Arizona-based company says Taser Int will file a legal challenge, charging that the Braidwood inquiry was biased and neglected to bring forward evidence from the weapon's manufacturer.

The lawsuit also argues that the commission breached basic principles of fairness and fundamental justice.

Taser also wants an injunction barring the inquiry's findings in any future rulings.

At least one critic says the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic by Taser, which is only trying to protect its profits.

Technology is a double-edged sword, the cliche goes. It can save and even extend your life, but it can also kill you in new and unpredictable ways. In the several years since the Arizona-based Taser International has deployed its terminologically challenging Electronic Control Devices (ECDs), colloquially known as stun guns or simply tasers, what started out as a midrange law enforcement weapon has turned into a surreal nightmare that has gone viral from streets to screens.

The latest case, as of this writing at least, involves a Syracuse mother who was pulled out her car during a routine traffic stop. She was summarily tasered, cuffed and arrested in front of her kids by an officer who left them behind, alone in their car, while he took her to the station and charged her for resisting arrest, driving five miles over the speeding limit, and disorderly conduct - the diaphanous charge controversially leveled on Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. earlier this year.

There's plenty more where that came from. Did you hear the one about the pregnant woman who was tasered because she wouldn't sign her speeding ticket, or the pregnant woman who was tasered at a baptism party thrown by her father, a bible-study teacher who was charged with public intoxication in his own backyard and whose wife and son were also tasered? How about the officer who tasered a pregnant woman while inside the police department?

Or the cop who tasered a girl, no lie, in the brain, because he couldn't chase her down on foot? Or the one that shoved a taser up a man's ass in Idaho? Or those who tasered and pepper-sprayed an umbrella-wielding man in a Dollar Store bathroom, and after finding out that he was both mentally disabled and deaf still decided to charge him with resisting arrest, failure to obey a police officer and (of course) disorderly conduct, charges which the on-duty magistrate refused to accept? And don't forget the belligerent baseball fan, the 72-year old grandmother, the bride and groom tasered at their wedding, the bicyclists who were tased after cops tried to run them off the road. And what about that guy who burst into flames? What about the six-year-old who was tasered after threatening to cut his own leg with a glass? (That'll teach him!)

And those are the ones that lived. The black man tasered nine times in 14 minutes?

Like Glenn, I write a lot about civil liberties, which have been at the heart of the national conversation since the beginning of the War On Terror and the expansion of the national security state.

But my interest in civil liberties predates 9/11 and until then was usually pointed at the far more prosaic issues of police and prosecutorial misconduct (and the inevitable conclusions any study of those things brings to the issue of the death penalty).

Nowadays, the theme of civil liberties seem to be a sub-plot to a James Bond flick rather than "To Kill A Mockingbird." And yet, I think the two are intertwined much more closely that we think. In our apparent acceptance of torture as a legal method of interrogation, the bar of civilized official behavior has been lowered to the point where we are accepting torture in everyday life as if it's nothing. Indeed, we are using it as a form of entertainment.

I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/10/tasers/index.html

Official: Taser guns can and do kill

Greg Barns writes:

So it's official. Taser guns can and do kill. Today a joint Queensland Criminal Justice Commission and Queensland Police review into the death of 39-year-old Antonio Galeano, who was shot 28 times by police with a Taser gun and who subsequently died of a heart attack, confirms what the critics of Taser guns have said all along - that these are lethal weapons and that their use should be strictly controlled or banned.

According to The Australian this morning, the CJC/Police review notes that the "possibility of Taser use causing or contributing to death is possible and cannot be ruled out". Such a finding is not earth-shattering in itself; Amnesty International released a report in December last year that linked almost 350 deaths in the US to the use of Taser guns, but it is the first official statement in any Australian jurisdiction about the lethal capacity of Taser guns.

Taser guns are used more often than the media and law enforcement agencies report. They are, for example, used in prison systems around Australia. I am personally aware of their use in the Tasmanian prison system, and they are also used in Western Australian prisons.

The UN Committee Against Torture, in a statement in November 2007, said:  "The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use."

In 1989 Australia became a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and in July this year the Rudd government signed the Optional Protocol that allows for UN inspections of prisons and detention centres. Attorney-General Robert McClelland is under pressure now to create a crime of torture to ensure Australian compliance with the convention. If he does so, might the use of Taser guns by law enforcement and prison officials be outlawed?

There is an urgent need for the Rudd government to take national leadership on the issue of Taser guns. At the moment each state and territory has different rules, prisons are a black hole and people are dying or suffering long-term injury as a result of this weapon being too readily available to too many.

Last September, police officers in Hawthorne, CA tased an autistic 12-year-old boy at his middle school after he became "violent," launching a misconduct investigation by the police department. In June, at Penn Hills High School in Pennsylvania, a student was tased in the hallway after ignoring a police officer's orders to put away his cell phone. ("The kid refused to listen," Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton explained, saying the student then "pushed the officer.")

In 2006, an 11th grader named Angel Debnam was tased at her high school in Bunn, North Carolina, just outside Raleigh. "Something sticks in you, and it's like a wire," Debnam described to local ABC affiliate WTVD. ("When I was on the ground crying and shaking, he asked me, 'Was that enough? Are you calmed down now?' and he did it again.")

In March, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the number of law enforcement agencies that have given Tasers to officers who work on school campuses has grown to well over 4,000," according to Steve Tuttle, Vice President of Communications at Taser International. That's up from 1,700 in 2005.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/142652/school_cops_are_now_being_armed_with_50%2C000-volt_tasers_--_guess_what%27ll_happen/

The Merced Police Department's Internal Affairs Division is investigating whether an officer twice used a Taser on an unarmed, wheelchair-bound man with no legs.

The man who was Tasered, Gregory Williams, 40, a double-leg amputee, spent six days in jail on suspicion of domestic violence and resisting arrest, but the Merced County District Attorney's office hasn't filed any charges.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/75729.html?storylink=omni_popular

The Queensland Police Service (QPS) says it will look into a Taser manufacturer's directive that the weapon should not be fired at a person's chest.

The directive from Taser International says police officers should aim at the back, lower abdomen or the legs.

The Australian distributor of the device, George Hateley, says police in one Canadian province are following the advice.

He says it is based on the findings of a single researcher who drilled into a pig's heart to test the Taser's effect on the animal.

"That's going way beyond what you need to, and certainly pigs are different to humans," he said.

It's simply dreadful how these communist propaganda mouthpieces, like the Salt Lake City Tribune continue to attack our law enforcement officials from using tasers to protect themselves from unarmed naked people.

So what if a bipolar guy who could have been taken into custody without the use of deadly force died after being shocked twice by the police because he was "walking toward them?"

Mentally disturbed people should know better than to fail to obey a lawful police order immediately. Guy had it coming to him, is what I say.

In June, [Brian Cardall] 32, was returning to Arizona after visiting Utah when he experienced a manic episode brought on by his bipolar disorder. He pulled his car to the side of the road, got out, removed his clothes, and began flagging down vehicles on State Road 59 outside Hurricane.

Cardall's wife gave him medication, called the police, informed the dispatcher of her husband's psychotic condition and the fact that it would take a while for the medicine to take effect. But Cardall ran out of time.

Just 42 seconds after Hurricane Chief of Police Lynn Excell and officer Ken Thompson arrived at the scene, Thompson claims, a confused Cardall, who refused to get on the ground as ordered, stepped toward the officers.

Thompson fired his Taser, striking a naked and unarmed Cardall in the chest over the heart. When the Flagstaff resident attempted to rise, Thompson gave him a second jolt.

Within minutes, Cardall was dead, one of about 350 Americans to die after a Taser deployment since 2001.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/healthwellness/144389/cops_taze_disturbed%2C_unarmed_naked_man_to_death_for_%22walking_toward_them%27

The actions of a police sergeant who fired a Taser stun gun at a man as he walked along Sydney's Oxford Street were ''unlawful and improper'', a magistrate has found.

In extraordinary footage of the incident, revealed by The Sun-Herald in June, Sergeant Timothy Devitt is seen twice firing his Taser at Ali Alkan's back, as the 38-year-old walks along the road about 2.30am on March 29.

The officer justified his use of the Taser, claiming Mr Alkan had been ''breaching the peace'' and could have been hit by a car as he weaved through traffic.

''The actions of the officer, I will find, were unlawful and improper,'' he said. ''It was the first time in my 12 years on the bench that I have actually foreshadowed a decision but I believe where possible that a defendant ought to know that he will no longer be facing criminal charges.''

Mr Alkan is suing NSW Police over the arrest.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/sergeant-slammed-for-stun-gun-assault-20091219-l6nq.html

In what is being heralded as a landmark decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently declared that police officers could be held liable for using a Taser without proper cause. And in making their determination, the court also set new legal parameters on how law enforcement is to use Tasers, stating, "The objective facts must indicate that the suspect poses an immediate threat to the officer or a member of the public." The federal finding substantially changes the landscape of Taser usage, and may signal the end of Tasers for law enforcement agencies who are now more vulnerable to civil and criminal action then ever before.

The decision, which has already caused law enforcement agencies to re-evaluate their Taser policies, stems from a case involving a Coronado police officer, Brian McPherson, who tased unarmed 21-year-old Carl Bryan during a traffic stop for a seatbelt infraction in Southern California. After being pulled over, Bryan was standing outside of his vehicle, wearing only boxer shorts and tennis shoes. He was 20 to 25 feet from the officer, and when tased, fell face first to the ground, fractured four teeth, and had to get the Taser prongs removed with a scalpel. Bryan went on to sue the Coronado Police Department, and the federal appellate court was making a determination if McPherson had immunity to the lawsuit as an officer. The court ruled in favor of Bryan.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145039/did_a_court_just_deal_a_fatal_blow_to_tasers_for_police

A US federal appeals court says three Seattle police officers were justified when they used a stun gun on a pregnant mother who refused to sign a traffic ticket.

Malaika Brooks was driving her son to school in 2004 when she was stopped for exceeding the speed limit.

The officers used a Taser three times when she refused to get out of her car.

A panel of judges ruled 2-1 that the officers were justified in using force because Brooks could have picked her keys up off the floor, started the car and driven away.

The dissenting judge called the ruling absurd and said the officers had no authority to arrest Brooks - let alone use a Taser on a non-threatening woman who was seven months pregnant.

-----------------------

see toon at top...

A coronial inquest has begun in Alice Springs into the death of a 39-year old man who died after being shot with a Taser gun and capsicum sprayed by police.

The man, now known as Kwementyaye Rubuntja for cultural reasons, stopped breathing during an arrest in April last year.

The inquest heard police had been called to a disturbance at Chalmers Street and arrived to see Mr Rubuntja agitated and yelling.

In her opening address, the counsel assisting the coroner, Jodi Truman, said Mr Rubuntja had a mental health issue and a history of seizures.

She said officers used their capsicum spray on him and a Taser was discharged eight times in two minutes.