Quote:
ruksak said:
OK, Lets say the taser never existed.
|
Ok.
Quote:
ruksak said:
Of these 700,000 instances in which the taser was implemented, something else would had to have been used to bring these individual situations to a close.
|
Agreed, but only because the taser wasn't available, not because it "adds a new choice" that nothing else can fill.
Quote:
ruskak said:
I think it logical to assume that in many of these cases a gun would have been used.
|
In some cases, not in many. Tasers are often used when guns can't be.
Quote:
ruksak said:
Maybe the suspect would have been able to harm or kill officers or bystanders because he was not immobilized.
|
Maybe, but that is part of the job risk, and it is under "the job description". If people can't deal with the risks of being a police officer, they shouldn't apply.
Quote:
ruksak said:
100 deaths out of 700,000 sounds like a lot, yes. But would there have been more if the police didn't use tasers in these cases?
|
Irrelevant, in my opinion.
Impossible to "accurately speculate".
The taser provides no "new" tactic to dealing with difficult people, only a "muddying of the line" between acceptable force and unacceptable force.
Police are trained, and tasers are but one tool in their arsenal of tools to do their job. It is not a necessity.
Quote:
ruksak said:
According to police testimony they have used tasers in many cases in which the only other viable option was a gun, lethal force.
|
I feel if that is the case, they should have used the gun, or lethal force.
Quote:
ruksak said:
Suspects wielding knifes, bats, rakes, sticks, metal bars, tire irons rocks, whatever, were taken down without any more damage accrued than a few pin pricks.
|
What "good" is done by this?
I see it as allowing police to be more sloppy in using force, without harsh consequences, and criminals as getting a likely free pass to jail on the taxpayers tab without risk, as opposed to risking bodily injury for their crime.
There is supposed to be serious risk when you choose the career of criminal, or policeman, and it should be assumed.
Quote:
ruksak said:
When a suspect dies after a taser shock a full investigation ensues. An autopsy is conducted to determine why a non-lethal shock produced a lethal result. Most often the contributing factor is Cocaine-Associated Rhabdomyolysis (acute cocaine toxicity). So what we're talking about is a criminal that is so juiced up on cocaine that he is already dangerously close to having a seizure. Add the that the extreme strain of attempting to evade the police and the aforementioned phenomenon of excitement delirium, and the taser becomes lethal. The little push needed to throw the heart over the edge.
|
The polish guy who just died from being tasered had no drugs or alchohol in his system, and "most" and "usually" don't cut it when speaking of deaths.