EDITORIAL: Limit taser use to most-dangerous situations

November 8, 2008
Doug Millroy, Sault Star

I have held off commenting on the controversy that for some time has been swirling around the use of Taser stun guns by police and RCMP because I wasn't totally sure of where I stood on the issue.

On one hand, I see the police and RCMP as the people we count on to keep us safe, even to the point where it means laying down their lives for us. So surely it is incumbent on us to provide and allow them the use of the best equipment available.

However, on the other hand, even while seeing the merits of the Taser as a police tool, I find myself unable to fully escape the nagging thought that something has been going wrong, very wrong.

While there have been many occasions were police officers did lay down their lives for us, seemingly some members of the public, too many, in fact, are now dying at their hands either through their use of the Taser or something caused by the use of the Taser.

Alberta Solicitor General Fred Lindsay, obviously attempting to downplay the role a Taser played in the death of an Edmonton man in late October, was quoted in a Canadian Press story as saying there's no proof Tasers have caused any deaths.

He said there is plenty of evidence, however, to suggest that they have prevented people from being killed.

"What I will say is the Taser is an effective tool and it's an alternate tool to lethal force," said Lindsay. "In over 2,000 cases where it's been used in this country, it's actually saved people's lives."

That may indeed be the case, but it would have been nice if he had trotted out a few examples so we would be able to compare the number of lives saved with the number that have been lost among those who have been hit with a Taser.

More than 20 people have died in Canada after being shot with Tasers.

In the United States, when CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews first started looking into police use of the Taser stun gun a year ago, the weapon had been connected to more than 40 deaths.

Recently CBS News updated that count, now saying 70 people have died after being zapped by a Taser, including 10 in August alone.

Of course, Taser International, the U. S. company that makes the stun gun, insists that none of the deaths was the Taser's fault, that the weapon simply lacks the power to kill or injure. It maintains tests on dogs and pigs proved the latter.

The use of a Taser on the individuals who died may not have directly caused their deaths but if it didn't, then it obviously triggered something that did. That in itself is worrisome.

But beyond that, although it is certainly possible that some of the "victims" may have died without the Taser, we are left with the preposterous thought, if we extrapolate the company line, that within a very short time all these people would have dropped dead on their own.

The Taser gun shoots two barbed hooks into the body, bringing 50 thousand volts. The idea behind this is that the suspect will go down, most of the time, at least, and therefore police won't have to use their lethal revolvers.

"You can use it before you would have to use the revolver," Rick Smith, CEO of Taser International, told CBS news. "If you have someone who has a knife, who is threatening other people but isn't quite at the level where you'd use lethal force, you'd pre-empt with the Taser, get them safely under control before it escalates."

Andrews said that technically the company may be right when it says the Taser has never caused a death. However, he said, he also discovered that since 2000, five different medical examiners in the U. S. have listed the stun gun or the Taser specifically as a factor in someone's death.

Dr. Roland Kohr, Indiana regional medical examiner, called a death in his state "the straw that broke the camel's back."

Speaking to the death of James Borden who, while high on drugs was stunned six times by an officer and died on an Indiana jailhouse floor, Kohr said Taser is overlooking the stress that multiple shots from the weapon can cause, especially to someone high on drugs.

"The application of the Taser was the trigger factor or the stressful event that caused the elevation of blood pressure, the elevation of heart rate, which stressed an already damaged heart to the point that it went into cardiac arrest," Kohr said, ruling the a Taser was a factor in Borden's death.

This could fall in line with what Lindsay was saying about the death of the man in Edmonton.

The Alberta solicitor general, referring to the case of Trevor Grimolson who died after being zapped by a Taser by police as he ran amok in an Edmonton pawn shop, said a condition known as excited delirium may be responsible for the deaths rather than the Taser itself.

I find that a stretch, but if it is indeed the case, one has to ask, would it have occurred without the Taser?

Premier Ed Stelmach noted that Lindsay himself was jolted with a Taser during a demonstration earlier this year.

"The minister is standing. He got zapped by a Taser and he's alive," he said.

That, of course, is an idiotic statement. A lot of people who have been zapped by a Taser are alive. The problem is, if he would look at the situation seriously, is that "some" people seem to be dying directly as the result of Taser zapping or an offshoot of it.

One of the most famous cases in Canada was the a Taser by RCMP of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being zapped by a Taser in Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.

The a Taser of Dziekanski, which some claim was not warranted because he seemed more distraught and disoriented than violent, has been likened in some quarters to the violent clubbing of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.

Police across the country continue to use the Taser but Michael Tochor, chairman of the Saskatchewan Police Commission, said there hasn't been a national policy set out that will allow the appropriate use of Tasers, yet prevent abuses of Tasers.

"When do you use a Taser? Do you use it because a 16-year-old girl in Manitoba isn't doing what the police are telling her to do?" he asked in reference to the girl who said she was zapped by a stun gun three times while in an RCMP holding cell in Selkirk, Man. "Or do you use it when someone is swinging a sword at you?"

The answer is probably somewhere in between but I think Saskatchewan already has the answer. It allows only police tactical teams to employ the use of Tasers.

As these are the people employed in the most dangerous situations, I believe this is the way to go. Because as it stands in the rest of the country, too many deaths are occurring.

Stun gun makers sue experts over safety criticisms

March 9, 2006
James Randerson, The Guardian

The company that manufactures the stun guns used by police is suing two technical experts who claim that the weapons can kill, in a move which some scientists say is intimidation.

The electric Taser guns, which use a 50,000-volt shock to incapacitate suspects, were adopted by police across the country in 2004.

The weapons are marketed as "non-lethal", but critics disagree. Since 1999 about 120 deaths have been linked to the weapon's use worldwide, but the manufacturer, Taser International, says that in all cases other factors were the cause.

Currently 28 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales and four of eight Scottish forces use the stun guns. Between April 2003 and January this year they have been fired 97 times by English officers.

The company is suing two scientists who have raised safety concerns. "[The company has] a lot of money and they are playing hardball," said forensic engineer Peter Alexander, secretary of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) engineering section. The company denies it is trying to silence legitimate criticism.

Both men facing legal action say they have been putting forward legitimate technical arguments, and that the company is using the courts to extinguish dissent. One of the defendants, Roland Kohr, is a forensic pathologist and medical examiner for Vigo County, Indiana. He performed an autopsy on James Borden, who died after being "Tased" six times while in police custody in November 2003. Dr Kohr concluded that the electric shock had contributed to Mr Borden's death.

Last month, Dr Kohr was due to speak on Tasers at the AAFS annual meeting in Seattle, the premier international meeting for forensic experts, but following legal action by Taser International, his lawyers advised him to pull out.

"In essence I am being sued for giving my opinion," Dr Kohr said. "Draw your own conclusions as to the timing of this. Maybe their whole intent was to prevent me from speaking at this meeting." Thomas Bohan, of MTC Forensics in Maine, said even if Dr Kohr was wrong, his evidence should be heard: "When medical examiners rightly or wrongly make a judgment in a case, they should be able to do that without the threat of legal action."

Taser International is also suing James Ruggieri, a certified professional engineer from Virginia. The action was initiated just before publication of a paper last year in a peer-reviewed journal. This argued that the Taser's power output is higher, and therefore more dangerous, than the company claims. He had also been intending to speak in Seattle, but pulled out.

Rick Smith, CEO of Taser International in Scotsdale, Arizona, said: "We did not sue Dr Kohr because of his medical opinion." He claims both men are part of an organised campaign which is advancing "wildly flagrant and defamatory" claims about stun weapon safety and that Mr Ruggieri does not have the necessary technical expertise to evaluate the device. Dr Kohr denied any knowledge of an organised campaign.

Mr Smith says there is no evidence that Tasers can kill, but added that they are not risk-free. To properly assess the risks, he said, the stun guns should be compared with alternatives such as pepper spray, batons and firearms. The company has documented more than 900 "saves" in which a suspect was subdued safely using a Taser, rather than being shot.

British police use them only as an alternative to firearms, but Angela Wright of Amnesty International said Taser International was lobbying the government to extend this. "It is in their interests to see it used as widely as possible," she said.

One case study presented in Seattle suggested that Tasers can kill healthy subjects. Amy Sheil at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, described the death of a fit, 28-year-old black prisoner who had attacked prison guards with a pencil. The man was "Tased" six times, culminating in a 169-second bout of electricity. "This is a very long duration," she said, concluding that the Taser had stopped his heart.

Mark Kroll, a cardiologist on Taser International's scientific advisory board, rejects Dr Shiel's verdict, claiming a Taser shot is simply not powerful enough. "The safety factors are enormous," he said.

He pointed out that an independent study by the UK police scientific development branch last year concluded that it was unlikely Tasers could influence the electrical functioning of the heart in healthy people.

Is 'non-lethal' taser deadly?

December 1, 2004
By PHUONG CAT LE AND HECTOR CASTRO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

Willie Smith was high on cocaine the night he pinned his wife down and told her he wanted to get the devil out of her. She broke free, crawled out of their bedroom window and called for help. Auburn police say that when they came and tried to arrest Smith, he resisted. So officers used a Taser, subduing him with 50,000 volts of electricity. When Smith finally emerged from the apartment, he was rolled out on a gurney -- hogtied, face down with his hands and ankles cuffed behind him, his wife said. She could hear him whimpering. The 48-year-old man had a heart attack in the ambulance. He died in the hospital two days later.

Willie Smith was the third person in Washington state to die after being shocked with a Taser. Smith was the third person in Washington to die after being shocked with a Taser; others died in Silverdale and Olympia. Nationwide, there have been 69 such deaths since 2000, raising concerns about a new breed of electric shock devices in widespread use by law enforcement.

In dozens of cases nationwide, autopsies showed the victims died of a heart attack, cocaine intoxication or underlying causes such as heart disease. But autopsies in at least five cases found Tasers were a contributing factor in the deaths.

The company that manufactures Tasers insists they are safe and non-lethal, and some medical professionals think some of the deaths may be the result of a combination of physical restraint and drug-induced agitation. But Amnesty International and other groups say such deaths are troubling and shouldn't be overlooked as more law enforcement officers use Tasers in a wide variety of situations.

In a report issued yesterday, Amnesty International said Tasers couldn't be ruled out as a factor in seven of 74 deaths in the United States and Canada it asked a forensic pathologist to review. That underscores the need to ban such non-lethal weapons until it is known whether they're responsible for the deaths, it said.

Across the country, 6,000 law enforcement agencies have equipped some or all of their officers with the tools. According to the manufacturer, Taser International, Houston police last month placed a $4.7 million order to buy Tasers for all 3,700 of its officers.

Company says they're safe

Taser International, a publicly traded company with nearly $50 million in sales this year, says the devices have never directly caused a death. The company points out that many of the people died hours, even days, after they were shocked, and of other reasons, such as cocaine overdose or heart disease.

Steve Tuttle, a company spokesman, said a study showing Tasers did not cause ventricular fibrillation in 10 pigs has been accepted for publication in Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology, a peer-reviewed journal. The study will be published in January. Ventricular fibrillation is a condition in which the heart's electrical activity becomes disordered, which could lead to cardiac arrest in minutes.

He said the company has offered to provide funding for more medical studies using standards agreed upon with Amnesty International, but that the group has not responded. "We're not saying Tasers kill people," said Mike Murphy, coroner of Clark County, Nev., where two men have died after being shocked by Las Vegas police officers. "We appear to be seeing some issues that need to be addressed."

The Taser was one of several methods used to restrain William Lomax, a 26-year-old who was under the influence of PCP when he fought with security guards and a Las Vegas police officer earlier this year. He died after being handcuffed, shocked several times and held down, Murphy said. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy said the Taser played a role in Lomax's death, but couldn't say how big a role.

The Taser, powered by batteries, fires two darts that hook into a person's skin, then deliver an electrical charge that temporary subdues them. It can also be pressed against a person's body in a stun mode.

Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said an in-custody death isn't unusual, so "it's a huge leap to say the Taser caused the death. It's natural to expect, whether it's a huge ingestion of drugs or alcohol or from some other type of injuries, that there are going to be some deaths that are also associated with Taser use," he said.

Chief Sue Rahr, who has been named to replace King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, said she believes the tools are safe and give officers better options than wrestling or fighting someone with a baton or nightstick. She said she wants every deputy to have one. About 250 of 700 deputies now carry them.

"If there were a case where the Taser was shown as the direct cause of death, absolutely we would reconsider," she said. "But I haven't seen any information that directly correlates the Taser with the death."

But while law enforcement officers have accepted the devices as safe, relatives of those who have died aren't convinced.

"A Taser gun did the same harm that a regular gun would have done," said Tammie Smith, who believes the tool helped bring about her husband's heart attack in July. "I don't understand why he had to be Tasered."

The King County Medical Examiner Office last week ruled the 48-year-old machine operator died of "a combination of acute cocaine intoxication and physical restraint," but declined to offer more details. An inquest into Smith's death is pending.

The Auburn Police Department completed its investigation this week and forwarded the case to the King County Prosecutor's Office, which is standard procedure. Cheryl Price, department spokeswoman, said the investigation was focused on Smith's "felony assault," not any issue with the officers' involvement in his death. "He was resistant to arrest and we utilized different levels of force to subdue him, and he happened to have a cardiac episode," she said. She said she couldn't say why the department was still investigating Smith after his death.

Coroners in the two other Washington fatalities ruled that the Taser did not contribute to the deaths of:

Stephen L. Edwards, 59, of Shelton, who fought with a security guard outside a grocery store before an Olympia police officer arrived and shocked him four times in less than a minute and a half;

Curt Lee Rosentangle, 44, a Silverdale business owner, who was high on cocaine and reportedly pounding on doors at an apartment complex when a Kitsap County sheriff's deputy shocked him at least twice.

Some see deadly combination

Some say that for those already agitated, high on cocaine or other drugs or have existing heart problems, the Taser can inhibit breathing and become lethal. Dr. William Anderson, a private forensic pathologist in Florida, believes those people may be particularly vulnerable. Although the Taser is generally safe for most people, he said, the company hasn't done the scientific study to conclude it's safe for everyone. "If you're in that particular situation at the time you get Tasered, it may be the straw that breaks the camel's back," said Anderson, who added that it can be a good tool.

As deputy medical examiner in Orlando two years ago, he ruled that the Taser contributed to the death of Gordon Jones, who was cocaine-intoxicated when he was Tased multiple times. Another pathologist contradicted Anderson's ruling.

Amnesty International's report raised similar questions about whether the devices could exacerbate breathing difficulties caused by violent exertion, drug overdose or other restraint devices, triggering heart attacks.

A British government report warned "excited, intoxicated individuals or those with pre-existing heart disease could be more prone to adverse effects from the M26 Taser, compared to unimpaired individuals." But it also concluded that the risk of serious injuries was "very low" and it wasn't medically necessary to hold off using them until more was known.

"Testing that we've done hasn't identified any groups of people at risk," said Taser's Tuttle, who added that the company supports continued research on the device. "There's no use of force that's risk-free. But studies continue to show that this is one of the safest uses of force that's out there on the street."

The company has cited both the British report and a report sponsored by the Department of Defense to bolster its claims. In September, the DoD released an abstract of the report concluding that the device "does not appear to pose significant risk" and wasn't the primary cause of reported deaths. It recommended more research into how such tools affect "sensitive populations."

But the Air Force Research Laboratory, which conducted the DoD study, released a statement last week saying the devices could be dangerous in certain circumstances and that there wasn't enough data to evaluate it. The need to rely on case reports from the manufacturer and the lack of laboratory data "generate uncertainty in the results," the report said. "There's a huge gap in the scientific data that has been performed," said Larry Farlow, a spokesman with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Brooks City-Base in San Antonio.

'Very little controlled research'

Kenneth Foster, who was on the independent panel that reviewed the U.S. report, said there is no indication the Taser is unsafe, though there has been "very little controlled research." "If a medical device company wanted to put a device on the market, they have to prove the safety and effectiveness using rigorous tests and to get federal approval," said Foster, a bioengineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "The Taser doesn't have that requirement, so there's been rather little systematic study as far as I can tell."

Yet, he and others say any significant hazard would have been obvious by now, given the thousands of times they've been used.

Although some Taser supporters feel more research is needed, they say Tasers shouldn't be pulled from the streets. Doing so would remove a valuable less-lethal option, they say. "I can't overemphasize (that) the value of the Taser is it allows us to gain control of somebody without injuring them. That's huge," said Rahr, of the Sheriff's Office. "What better way to protect the public than to not have to wrestle with them or hit them with a nightstick or shoot them?"

The company cites animal studies it funded, as well as tests on older versions of electric shock devices, as evidence of the product's safety. In a study in 1996, Dr. Robert Stratbucker shocked an anaesthetized pig 48 times with an older lower-powered Taser and found that it didn't affect the pig's heart.

In a later study at the University of Missouri, he and another researcher, Wayne McDaniel, shocked five dogs 236 times in the chest area with no episodes of ventricular fibrillation. McDaniel later repeated the study on 10 anesthetized pigs, and determined the device could be used safely even at 15 times its standard power.

Kerlikowske said police agencies are left to their own devices when determining the safety of new policing tools, but his agency didn't buy Tasers as a knee-jerk reaction. A citizens group researched the options and compared notes with other police agencies. "There are some departments that have a controversial shooting and, within a month, they buy 500 Tasers and issue it to every officer," he said.
"We went into this as methodically and thoroughly as any agency as I've ever seen."

Taser says the device operates at a fraction of the electricity used to resuscitate heart attack victims -- 1.6 joules. A joule is a unit of energy. "That amount of energy applied to the chest, probably only a fraction ends up going to the heart," said Dr. Peter Kudenchuk, professor of medicine at the University of Washington. "Simply the pain created by a shock of 1.6 joules might make the heart rate faster, but I'd be surprised if much of the energy reaches the heart itself," he said. "In terms of causing a cardiac arrest, the risk is probably low."

Some medical experts believe the common denominator in the publicized deaths is not the Taser, but how officers restrain out-of-control, agitated people. Some of those who died while in custody were hogtied, handcuffed or held down, which compressed their chests and restricted their ability to breathe. A person's delirious, excited state combined with the way he or she is restrained plays a more significant role in a fatal outcome, they say.

In a British Columbia report this fall, a group of medical professionals said the deaths of four people there may have been because the individuals were restrained while in an excited, delirious state and that the Tasers didn't cause their deaths.

Tasers cited in five deaths

But Tasers played a part in at least five deaths nationwide, according to medical authorities. A county coroner in Indiana ruled that electric shock contributed to the death of James Borden, who died in an Indiana jail after being shocked several times while handcuffed. The jail officer faces two counts of felony battery. "People who carry these should be warned," said David Brimm, an attorney representing the Borden family in a wrongful death suit against the county and Taser.

Pathologist Ronald Kohr ruled Borden died of cardiac dysrhythmia, or disorder of the heartbeat. He listed an enlarged heart, pharmacological drug intoxication and electric shock as contributing factors. But a pathologist working for the jail officer's defense, Dr. Cyril Wecht, wrote in a memo that there was no basis to conclude the Taser contributed to Borden's death.

Electric shock was also listed as one of four causes of death for Jacob Lair, a 29-year-old who died last June after a struggle with police officers in Sparks, Nev. The autopsy report said methamphetamines combined with delirium, the Taser and restraint combined to kill him. "There's not a single one of those that you can make the sole cause of death, and not one that you can ignore," Washoe County Coroner Vernon McCarty said of Lair's case.

A coroner in South Carolina also ruled the Taser contributed to the death of William Teasley, who died in August after he was shocked at the county jail. "The Taser gun was a last straw because he was Tased and he collapsed to the floor," said Charlie Boseman, a forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy. Teasley died of cardiac arrhythmia, with the Taser and health problems, including an enlarged heart and heart and liver diseases, contributing. Boseman said two Taser representatives called him and asked him "could we not use the Taser as part of the man's death." "I told them that we could not change the report and leave the Taser out, because the Taser was used to bring the man down to the floor," Boseman said.

Tuttle said the company has never pressured any medical professional to alter a report involving a death in which a Taser was involved. Rather, they called Boseman's office to offer technical information on Tasers that the pathologist requested, he said.

Smith, who has been waiting for her husband's death certificate, is convinced the shock played a role in her husband's death. She said she hoped police would "take responsibility for their part in it."

Stun Gun Cited In Prisoner's Death

July 26, 2004
CBS News

It's not often that a camera records a man's death, but, as CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports, that's what's happened in an Indiana jail. As 47-year-old James Borden hits the ground, officer David Shaw is shocking him with a 50,000-volt Taser stun gun.

According to medical records, Shaw used the Taser at least six times before Borden died. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. The coroner, Dr. Roland Kohr, called the Taser shock partly responsible for Borden's death. He found that Borden had heart disease and toxic levels of two drugs, but that the stress from the Taser is what pushed him off edge.

"The application of the Taser was the trigger factor which stressed an already damaged heart to the point that it went into cardiac arrest," says Kohr. "The Taser is what triggered his heart attack."

Kohr's autopsy has sent its own shockwaves because it directly contradicts safety claims made by the company. "The Taser is not involved and has not caused a death," says Taser CEO Rick Smith.

Smith remains adamant the weapon has never been blamed for a death, even in the face of Kohr's ruling and even as the number of Taser-related fatalities has now passed 50. "I rely on the advice of medical experts who have told me there is absolutely no basis to conclude the Taser contributed to this man's death," says Smith.

In all its public statements, Taser Corp. tells investors and the police agencies that buy the weapon that Taser has never caused a death. However, CBS News first reported more than three months ago how an Indiana autopsy found that Taser was a contributing factor in the Borden death.

Yet, on Taser's Web site, where the company keeps a list of the fatalities and all the official findings that exonerate the weapon, you won't find the opinion from Kohr. Every other time a medical examiner has ruled in its favor, the company includes it in a grid on its Web site. But Kohr's findings were left out.

Asked why, Smith says, "They were disputed by our medical experts who read them and thought they were inaccurate."

Nationwide, the Taser is more popular than ever. Police believe it saves lives by ending confrontations short of gunfire. But Kohr, who agrees the Taser is generally safe, believes that on the wrong person, it's more deadly than the company claims.