Views: 2567
| ARTICLE
|
Rate This Article |
|
|
| In an ever evolving technological age, police departments across the nation have searched for ways to minimize injuries to both people and police officers alike during times where physical confrontation is imminent. One of the latest gadgets is the police taser which is designed to temporarily incapacitate a person to gain compliance. Critics of the taser believe that tasers are misused by the police and cause death to innocent people that have been subject to being tased. Proponents cite that the taser is a safe means of gaining control of violent or resisting individuals without ill effect. | |
Sponsored Links |
|
Police tasers are often the center of controversy regarding their use and the results they produce. This article will attempt to dispel some of the myths surrounding the use of tasers by the police. Myths
Myth #1: Tasers are deadly weapons and kill people. To date, no death certificate has ever ultimately shown that the cause of a death has been from a taser. At best, the taser has been a contributing factor when used on an individual with pre-existing, life threatening medical conditions before a person ever came into contact with police. Critics cite that more than 50 deaths have occurred as a result of tasers. In reality, autopsies performed on the vast majority of those people revealed that those individuals were at a high risk of dying anyway even if they had never met the police. The vast majority of deaths following a taser incident involved individuals that had life threatening levels of narcotics and alcohol in their bodies which seriously strained the heart and placed it in a critical stage. Because of the situation of being highly under the influence of narcotics, alcohol and in near-death stages, those individuals tend to present themselves in public and become violent because of their condition which prompts calls to police from bystanders. Through research, that condition has been coined excited delirium. Historically, what had happened when police encountered such an individual is that the person was highly combative. The police fought to arrest the person using a variety of tools and the person later expired while in the custody of the police from the additional stress of fighting that the person places on his/her body. With the advent of the taser, police often opt to use a taser to control a person instead of doing it the old fashion way of wrestling on the ground with a person to avoid injuries to all involved. In an excited delirium situation where a person is violent and force must be used to control that person, a taser may substitute for hands on force but the end result may be the same which is a death from the over use of narcotics and alcohol combined with the stressors of a violent confrontation with police. It's not the taser that causes a death, it's the person's lifestyle and consumption of drugs combined with physical stress on the body when they resist police that causes those types of deaths. To conclude this myth, people have always over-indulged in narcotics and alcohol and placed themselves in life threatening situations and then later died after fighting with the police before tasers were ever invented. So, tasers are not the cause of death and do not kill people, nor are they deadly weapons. In fact, tasers are not always reliable tools for law enforcement and must be delivered correctly to even work. Tasers typically deliver a 5 second burst to incapacitate a person. After 5 seconds, a determined person can easily return to fighting with no affects at all. During a true deadly force situation such as a person with a knife or a gun, the taser should not even be considered an option for a police officer. That is the time that deadly force is real and sidearms are drawn and used. Myth #2: Tasers deliver 50,000 volts which is lethal. The fact that police tasers deliver 50,000 volts is misunderstood. This voltage in and of itself when it comes to electricity is NOT lethal. Most people hear, 50,000 volts and assume that that is dangerous or lethal. It is not uncommon at all to touch a door knob that has 50,000 volts of stored static electricity. Touching that door knob will without a doubt give you a little shock and surprise but it is hardly life threatening or lethal. Voltage is a carrier of amps in this case. It is the amperage that causes the disruption to a person's motor system, not voltage. Tasers deliver a very small amount of amps to achieve muscular and motor dysfunction. The amount of amps delivered has been extensively researched and even found not to interrupt or cause problems for those who have pacemakers. Even such, police are trained to avoid using tasers on people who they know have such medical devices such as a pacemaker just in case. Myth #3: Tasers cause long lasting injuries. There is no evidence to suggest that tasers cause permanent injury from proper usage. A taser shoots two sharp prongs which spread and embed into the skin. After removal of the prongs, two impact points remain which may bleed for a short period of time but heal like any other violation of the skin. Police are trained to shoot for mass areas of the body such as the back or chest area. Improper or accidental use can of course cause permanent injury like anything else such a prong that strikes a person's eye. Myth #4: Police overuse tasers. This myth is subjective. Different police departments authorize the use of tasers at different levels of non-compliance. In some departments, tasers may be used at the first indication of either verbal or physical non-compliance. Other departments, first require physical non-compliance before use. Either way, the taser is used to prevent a physical confrontation which is meant to avoid injuries from traditional methods of physical custody and control. Police tasers are very effective tools for police to use when they encounter violent or resistive people. In a perfect world police officers would not even exist and everyone would live forever. The reality is that people have from time to time died after fighting with the police for one reason or another. Tasers are simply a tool to attempt to circumvent more intrusive tools such as batons and literal hands on brute force to lessen the injuries sustained by both officers and suspects. Tasers have been successful in doing that and in comparison with other measures, are a much safer alternative, which contrary to what critics say, are not in and of themselves dangerous. In the highly critical society we live in, police tools, weapons and methods are always subject to scrutiny from some. Before tasers, pepper spray was under the microscope by police critics and claimed to cause death and serious injury which is not true either. Before pepper spray, batons were the culprit. The next advancement that replaces tasers, whatever that will be, will undergo the same scrutiny. Resource: www.taser.com |
|
Syndicate This Article: [HTML (copy & paste)] |
| Rate this article! | Report Article |
( 4 Votes )
