8 ms·

Detailed study of fatalities and litigation involving police use of stun guns

68 points by hownottowrite 9y ago

sokoloff 9y ago
1005 fatalities during which a stun gun was used at all in the encounter; 153 where the medical examiner listed the stun gun as a cause or contributing factor in the death since 1983. 153 in 34 years is 4.5 per year. Even the higher figure (where a subject might have been both Tased and shot) represents under 30 per year. I'm fairly sure that less-lethal weapons/tactics like stun guns have saved more lives than they've cost. I don't mean to diminish the suffering of families who are in the 153 or 1005, but the numbers tell me that this is a good addition to police spectrum of force rather than a bad one.
- damnfine 9y ago
  The problem to me is often their caviler use as torture devices to force compliance. I have seen many used where some calm words or listening would have gotten their way. Now cops just yell commands, often 3 at a time, and use less lethal force as a first resort.
  - taxicabjesus 9y ago
    > I have seen many used where some calm words or listening would have gotten their way. In the United States we have a sort of trench warfare between 'citizens' and 'la policia'. No one wins. Many people hate the police because they're routinely harmed - financially and otherwise - for not hurting anyone. Police officers justify hurting people with "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them." I think this is the origin of the term 'cop out' [1]. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copping%20out https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copping%20out I remember a fellow who I picked up at a police substation around 2am. ~7 hours before he'd pulled into the convenience store, on his way home from the bar... His car had automatic headlights, it was twilight, and the car didn't think it dark enough to turn the headlights on yet. The police officer was right behind him. He blew a .04 (half Arizona's legal limit of 0.08). The police officer decided to arrest him under the state's Zero-Tolerance laws... My passenger said that he'd complained, "you don't actually have to tow my car", but policy is policy... 7 hours later I took the guy home. As I recall, this passenger was rather frustrated, but could probably afford to spend a couple thousand dollars getting his car back & on a lawyer to deal with the legal system on his behalf. Most people get stuck with public defenders, who mostly just provide small amounts of lubrication to those who get screwed by the system.
- droopyEyelids 9y ago
  153 deaths listed after an organized effort by the makers of the weapon that includes coaching police, organizing autopsies, creating a new medical condition that excuses deaths, and paying for & organizing expert witnesses to defend tasers.
- haroldp 9y ago
  That makes sense if police are using stun guns instead of pistols. The concern is that they are using stun guns instead of defusing situations verbally, or using stun guns instead of billy clubs, allowing them to punish/torture people without leaving marks. You could say our drone warfare technology is creating that same sort of problem. On one hand they are much cheaper and do not risk a pilot being shot down in some enemy country. On the other hand, that makes it cheap and relatively risk free to drop bombs on people, so why not use them all the time?
  - js2 9y ago
    "Don't tase me, bro." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_in... My opinion on that incident is that the police over-reacted. Police in the US seem to be sorely undertrained in defusing situations, and in fact often are the ones escalating. They certainly (in my experience) do not like to have their authority challenged. They are the professionals - shouldn't the onus be on them to maintain calm? That said, there are thousands of police/citizen interactions every day that don't end up in the news. Maybe the bad apples have biased my opinion. Disclosure: white middle-aged middle-class male. I've had maybe a dozen interactions with police, mostly traffic incidents, mostly when I was much younger. I can think of two incidents in particular where the officer became verbally abusive with no obvious provocation on my part, and I had to de-escalate through calm and submission.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      They have no incentive not to escalate, they gain more legal advantages as the situation escalates and the DA gains better statistics.
      - jschwartzi 9y ago
        I find it hard to believe that an individual officer in a situation where they are scared chooses to escalate on the basis of how the DA looks. It's more likely that the situation triggers an emotional reaction which they're unable to process at the time, and because they're unable to remove themselves from the situation they cease to act rationally.
- yequalsx 9y ago
  I don't have statistics to back me up but I wonder if using stun guns means police don't feel the need to learn de-escalation tactics. There have been a number of situations where police use taser on kids, or repeatedly use a taser on a person in seemingly torture like ways. I've seen videos where a police officer tases someone for not complying but after each tase it appears the person is not able to comply due to pain.
- vkou 9y ago
  One of the most common uses of a taser is to force compliance of a person who is not complying, but is not behaving violently.
- pyre 9y ago
  > where the medical examiner listed the stun gun as a cause or contributing factor in the death This is the operative phrase. There are many cases where someone gets hit by a stun gun and dies, and the medical examiner rules the cause of death as "unknown" or "inconclusive." I remember hearing these claims a decade ago. The whole point being that cops and Taser International didn't want the devices to be associated with the deaths, so they were trying as hard as they could to make sure it was never listed as a cause of death. BS like: "this guy just happened to have a heart attack at the moment he was hit with the stun gun, but the stun gun in no way contributed to his heart attack."
- raarts 9y ago
  Did the number of people killed by police drop since tasers were added? Any research on that?
  - bashinator 9y ago
    Exactly. If Tasers are supposed to be an alternative to more lethal force, then metrics plz.
jMyles 9y ago
It seems to me that the takeaways from stun-guns in the hands of police are simple and easy to observe: * The instances of their use as a substitute for lethal force are vanishingly rare. So much so that it's hard to find a case by googling. They're always and only used in a lower stage of the use-of-force continuum than as a substitute for a firearm. * They're often used completely inappropriately, with no self-defense component at all (ie, used as a way to torture people into complying). * They're sometimes used purely as a torture device against people who are restrained, already subdued, or even already unconscious. * They cause a lot of lasting injuries and some fatalities. It's been an interesting experiment, but it's time to end it. Let's just remove them from the police arsenal (like we have mostly done with nunchaku, which were a less-lethal fad in the 80s and 90s). I'm of the mind that police force needs to be more black and white, just as the law needs to be more black and white. If there is serious cause to use lethal force, the police need to use (and be trained with) dependable firearms. If there's not, then I don't really want them using weapons at all. Let's treat failure to comply with lawful requests as a civil matter. You can continue non-compliance as long as you want, but you'll be liable for all the costs incurred by your doing so. Let's not torture or injure people on this basis. This middle-ground / gray area in the use-of-force continuum creates a strange mindset for everyone involved. Are the police simply dispassionately enforcing discrete laws? Or are they forcing their own will or an unwritten will of the state?
- pps43 9y ago
  The problem that stun guns are designed to address does exist. There is a place in use-of-force continuum between shouting and shooting. You can't really require police officers to get into fistfights, especially when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc. Like any technology, stun guns can be misused, and oftentimes are. It's important to recognize this problem and address it, through raising awareness, improving training, etc. If you simply take stun guns away, the police will simply shoot people with real guns more.
  - adrianpike 9y ago
    > when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc. Private security, club bouncers, bodyguards, all seem to be trained and conditioned for physical advantage, but I've seen a lot of out of shape officers, at least in the US. I wonder if we're leaning on force equalizers too much, or if it's just something that's happened organically.

68 points by hownottowrite 9y ago

1005 fatalities during which a stun gun was used at all in the encounter; 153 where the medical examiner listed the stun gun as a cause or contributing factor in the death since 1983. 153 in 34 years is 4.5 per year. Even the higher figure (where a subject might have been both Tased and shot) represents under 30 per year. I'm fairly sure that less-lethal weapons/tactics like stun guns have saved more lives than they've cost. I don't mean to diminish the suffering of families who are in the 153 or 1005, but the numbers tell me that this is a good addition to police spectrum of force rather than a bad one.

damnfine 9y ago
The problem to me is often their caviler use as torture devices to force compliance. I have seen many used where some calm words or listening would have gotten their way. Now cops just yell commands, often 3 at a time, and use less lethal force as a first resort.
- taxicabjesus 9y ago
  > I have seen many used where some calm words or listening would have gotten their way. In the United States we have a sort of trench warfare between 'citizens' and 'la policia'. No one wins. Many people hate the police because they're routinely harmed - financially and otherwise - for not hurting anyone. Police officers justify hurting people with "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them." I think this is the origin of the term 'cop out' [1]. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copping%20out https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copping%20out I remember a fellow who I picked up at a police substation around 2am. ~7 hours before he'd pulled into the convenience store, on his way home from the bar... His car had automatic headlights, it was twilight, and the car didn't think it dark enough to turn the headlights on yet. The police officer was right behind him. He blew a .04 (half Arizona's legal limit of 0.08). The police officer decided to arrest him under the state's Zero-Tolerance laws... My passenger said that he'd complained, "you don't actually have to tow my car", but policy is policy... 7 hours later I took the guy home. As I recall, this passenger was rather frustrated, but could probably afford to spend a couple thousand dollars getting his car back & on a lawyer to deal with the legal system on his behalf. Most people get stuck with public defenders, who mostly just provide small amounts of lubrication to those who get screwed by the system.
droopyEyelids 9y ago
153 deaths listed after an organized effort by the makers of the weapon that includes coaching police, organizing autopsies, creating a new medical condition that excuses deaths, and paying for & organizing expert witnesses to defend tasers.
haroldp 9y ago
That makes sense if police are using stun guns instead of pistols. The concern is that they are using stun guns instead of defusing situations verbally, or using stun guns instead of billy clubs, allowing them to punish/torture people without leaving marks. You could say our drone warfare technology is creating that same sort of problem. On one hand they are much cheaper and do not risk a pilot being shot down in some enemy country. On the other hand, that makes it cheap and relatively risk free to drop bombs on people, so why not use them all the time?
- js2 9y ago
  "Don't tase me, bro." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_in... My opinion on that incident is that the police over-reacted. Police in the US seem to be sorely undertrained in defusing situations, and in fact often are the ones escalating. They certainly (in my experience) do not like to have their authority challenged. They are the professionals - shouldn't the onus be on them to maintain calm? That said, there are thousands of police/citizen interactions every day that don't end up in the news. Maybe the bad apples have biased my opinion. Disclosure: white middle-aged middle-class male. I've had maybe a dozen interactions with police, mostly traffic incidents, mostly when I was much younger. I can think of two incidents in particular where the officer became verbally abusive with no obvious provocation on my part, and I had to de-escalate through calm and submission.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    They have no incentive not to escalate, they gain more legal advantages as the situation escalates and the DA gains better statistics.
    - jschwartzi 9y ago
      I find it hard to believe that an individual officer in a situation where they are scared chooses to escalate on the basis of how the DA looks. It's more likely that the situation triggers an emotional reaction which they're unable to process at the time, and because they're unable to remove themselves from the situation they cease to act rationally.
yequalsx 9y ago
I don't have statistics to back me up but I wonder if using stun guns means police don't feel the need to learn de-escalation tactics. There have been a number of situations where police use taser on kids, or repeatedly use a taser on a person in seemingly torture like ways. I've seen videos where a police officer tases someone for not complying but after each tase it appears the person is not able to comply due to pain.
vkou 9y ago
One of the most common uses of a taser is to force compliance of a person who is not complying, but is not behaving violently.
pyre 9y ago
> where the medical examiner listed the stun gun as a cause or contributing factor in the death This is the operative phrase. There are many cases where someone gets hit by a stun gun and dies, and the medical examiner rules the cause of death as "unknown" or "inconclusive." I remember hearing these claims a decade ago. The whole point being that cops and Taser International didn't want the devices to be associated with the deaths, so they were trying as hard as they could to make sure it was never listed as a cause of death. BS like: "this guy just happened to have a heart attack at the moment he was hit with the stun gun, but the stun gun in no way contributed to his heart attack."
raarts 9y ago
Did the number of people killed by police drop since tasers were added? Any research on that?
- bashinator 9y ago
  Exactly. If Tasers are supposed to be an alternative to more lethal force, then metrics plz.

jMyles 9y ago

It seems to me that the takeaways from stun-guns in the hands of police are simple and easy to observe: * The instances of their use as a substitute for lethal force are vanishingly rare. So much so that it's hard to find a case by googling. They're always and only used in a lower stage of the use-of-force continuum than as a substitute for a firearm. * They're often used completely inappropriately, with no self-defense component at all (ie, used as a way to torture people into complying). * They're sometimes used purely as a torture device against people who are restrained, already subdued, or even already unconscious. * They cause a lot of lasting injuries and some fatalities. It's been an interesting experiment, but it's time to end it. Let's just remove them from the police arsenal (like we have mostly done with nunchaku, which were a less-lethal fad in the 80s and 90s). I'm of the mind that police force needs to be more black and white, just as the law needs to be more black and white. If there is serious cause to use lethal force, the police need to use (and be trained with) dependable firearms. If there's not, then I don't really want them using weapons at all. Let's treat failure to comply with lawful requests as a civil matter. You can continue non-compliance as long as you want, but you'll be liable for all the costs incurred by your doing so. Let's not torture or injure people on this basis. This middle-ground / gray area in the use-of-force continuum creates a strange mindset for everyone involved. Are the police simply dispassionately enforcing discrete laws? Or are they forcing their own will or an unwritten will of the state?

pps43 9y ago
The problem that stun guns are designed to address does exist. There is a place in use-of-force continuum between shouting and shooting. You can't really require police officers to get into fistfights, especially when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc. Like any technology, stun guns can be misused, and oftentimes are. It's important to recognize this problem and address it, through raising awareness, improving training, etc. If you simply take stun guns away, the police will simply shoot people with real guns more.
- adrianpike 9y ago
  > when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc. Private security, club bouncers, bodyguards, all seem to be trained and conditioned for physical advantage, but I've seen a lot of out of shape officers, at least in the US. I wonder if we're leaning on force equalizers too much, or if it's just something that's happened organically.