[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS : A particularly well-argued letter to the editor of an Ontario paper about providing the police with tasers (see also the 89 comments here): Tasers are not needed; police must be better able to respond physically to threatening suspects; juries which say the taser does not cause death are mistaken; “excited delirium” […]
[[SUMMARY /COMMENTS : Following the tasering of a man with Down’s syndrome, changes to Vermont state police policy regarding Tasers includes placing people with cognitive impairments in a category that requires special consideration before use of a Taser, and the devices will be used only if the person is armed and presents a risk of […]
[[SUMMARY / COMMENTS: An initiative to be encouraged: Harris county officials approve a pilot program pairing police with mental health workers to deal with mentally disturbed suspects. Sheriff Adrian Garcia said he wants to treat the mentally ill, not jail them . Note this comment, which counters the typical police attitude: “One of the things you’re trying […]
[[GlobalShock: An excellent shgort article, from the police perspective, on the need for Crisis Intervention Training (CIT): “Brian Cardall suffered from a mental-health disorder in 2009 and died after being hit with a Taser multiple times. He had stopped his car outside Hurricane and had run naked into the middle of state Route 59. He […]
An initial version of this text was published on the Canadian Dimension blog on 10 February 2011 (http://canadiandimension.com/articles/3723/) The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported on December 6 2010 “Taser killed Ontario man: Ontario Special Investigations Unit”. The SIU, a provincial independent police oversight body, had just issued its report on the death of Aron Firman […]
[[GlobalShock: This relatively brief article – ironically published in an online magazine that otherwise consistently defends the TASER discourse – it may even have been created by the corporation – should be required reading for all police patrol-officers, members of Public Safety Commissions overseeing policing, critics and defenders of tasers. It gives a clear answer […]
[[GlobalShock: (A letter to the editor – from a doctor (?) in Malaysia – which presents very clearly the best alternative to tasering: the “soft” way of dealing with disturbed members of the public who get into trouble and the police are called in … A very sensitive report about a man who was in […]
[[GlobalShock: The debate goes on in San Francisco, where the Police Commission voted in 2010 to withdraw all tasers from police officers … ” Commissioner Petra DeJesus, who led the successful opposition to implementing Tasers last year, raised the issue with Sam Cochran, a retired Memphis Police Department Major who helped create the Crisis Intervention […]