DEATHS BY TASERS                                                      

A Taser is an electroshock weapon.  The shooting of a stun gun fires two small dart-like electrodes which stay connected to the main unit and also attach themselves to a person’s flesh. The electrodes are pointed to penetrate clothing and barbed to prevent removal once in place.  The voltage of Tasers are 50,000 volts but that is only to make the initial contact between the Taser probes and the skin. Once contact is made, the voltage drops to about 1,200 volts at about 19 pulses per second. The voltage has nothing to do with the strength of the Taser or any stun gun..  It is used to disrupt the person’s voluntary control of muscles, of anyone who is tased by causing the person to suffer from the incapacity of being able to control their muscles.

Someone struck by a Taser will experience pain and over-stimulation of his or her sensory nerves and motor nerves, resulting in strong involuntary long muscle contractions. (violent shaking) The force applied to apprehend someone is therefore proportional to the strength of the person receiving the shock rather than the strength of the police officer. Taser darts can incapacitate and not just cause pain—unfortunately in many cases, it has also caused deaths.  

As we all know, a person’s heart is a muscle so it follows that when fifty thousand volts reaches a person’s heart, it could stop the heart from beating. However, it doesn’t always stop someone’s heart from beating. When I was in a science class in high school, I was accidentally shocked with fifty thousand volts. There were n0 amps with the voltage so I wasn’t killed since my heart didn’t stop however, my arms were numb for about five minutes.

There are definitely problems with Tasers since this so-called "non-lethal" device has killed a great many people in the past years. It's time to look at the real electrical details of a Taser and how it compares to known electrical effects on the human body.

Some believe a Taser is all about high voltage and no current. That is far from the truth. This only applies to static electricity, when no capacitor is used. Static electricity occurs when you walk across a rug and touch a mental door knob. Tasers are also about current (amperage.) A current of 20 milliamps (.020 amps) or more is known to fatally stop a human heart from pumping blood throughout the body. Any voltage above 50 volts (such as a phone line) will be felt as a tingle (or even worse.) The electric chair uses 2,300 volts and yet one man actually survived.

The 90 volts that is alternate current that rings your telephone will hurt you if you have your fingers across the two wires when the phone rings but it won’t kill you. Remember that telephone ringing voltage is just 30 volts less than your wall outlet has. However, 50,000 volts from a Taser is far more harmful, especially when the Taser darts penetrate the skin, and there is a connection between the Taser's high voltage transformer and the internal, highly conductive wet saline (salt) fluid in the human body.

Any voltage over 48 volts is not considered safe low voltage. Low voltage electrical wiring is similar to that used for your stereo speakers, and on small DC power packs used to replace batteries to power radios, tape players, CDs etc. Any voltage higher than 48 volts (telephone lines) must be wired much like house wire, with proper grounding and junction boxes. This is according to the national electrical code.

Tasers output as much as 50,000+ vo;ts. Even if a Taser's current is less than 20 milliamps, it may not matter if the person has a weak heart. Mt heart is very weak since only 27% of my heart functions. One jolt of a Taser would stop m heart from functioning. However, a much lower current could still cause cardiac arrest. Autopsies have proven this to be true But no manufacturer ever talks about this. So let's look at how the so-called "non-lethal" 50,000 volts is fatal in many cases where the victims died.   

The number of people directly killed by the Taser is very, very low ( close to zero) considering how many times it has been used. The competing numbers you see occasionally are mostly due to secondary effects of being Tasered. For example, if a person is Tasered while standing in a high place, he may fall to his death. The Taser made him fall, but it didn't actually kill him. However, as I said earlier, many Tasered persons died because their hearts stopped functioning after they were Tasered.                   

 Approximately as many as 500 people had died in the U.S. between 2011 and 2013 after they were shocked by a Taser— according to Amnesty International.  If you add those figures to the years of 2014 to s017, the figures could be 1,250 deaths by Tasers in the U.S. alone. It is hardly possible that any of these Taser victims deserved the death penalty at the hands of the police.

Reuters documents have stated that in 104 prisoner fatalities, corrections officers deployed Tasers, often with other forms of force. Most inmates were unarmed and many were handcuffed or pinned to the ground. Some abuses against the inmates were akin to being purposely tortured by the correctional officers.

Here is an outrageous example of Taser abuse that took place in a correctional facility in Ohio.  

Corporal Matthew Stice pointed his Taser at Martini Smith’s bare chest.  Ms. Smith was 20 years old, pregnant and stripped nearly naked, standing in a cell in the Franklin County jail in Columbus, Ohio. She had been detained on charges of stabbing a boyfriend she’d accused of beating her. Stice and a deputy had ordered her to disrobe, take off all jewelry and don a prison gown. Unfortunately she hadn’t been able to obey one command that was to remove the silver stud from her tongue.

“Take the tongue ring out,” Deputy Shawnda Arnold said. Smith continued struggling to unscrew the ring, inserting fingers from both hands into her mouth. No luck. Her fingers were numb, she protested: She had been cuffed for six hours with her hands behind her back.

“I will Tase you,” Stice said. The ring was slippery, Smith said, asking for a paper towel. The deputies refused. “I just want to go to sleep,” Smith cried.

Stice warned her again and then fired his Taser at her. The Taser’s electrified darts struck Smith’s chest; she collapsed against the concrete wall and slid to the floor, gasping, arms over her breasts.

“Why did you Tase me?” she moaned. “I wasn’t harming nobody. I can’t just take it out.”

Five days later, Smith had a miscarriage. “It stays with me like it was yesterday,” Smith said of the Taser’s pain and the memory of her loss of the child. The charges against her in the domestic violence case were subsequently dismissed.

The 2009 incident is among hundreds documented by Reuters in which Tasers have been misused or linked to accusations of torture or corporal punishment in U.S. prisons and jails.

This so-called "non-lethal" device has killed a great number of people. It's time to look at the real electrical details of a Taser and how it compares to known electrical effects on the human body.

Some believe a Taser is all about high voltage and no current. This is far from the truth. This only applies to static electricity, when no capacitor is used. Tasers are also about current (amperage.) A current of 20 milliamps (. 020 amps) or more is known to fatally stop the human heart. Any voltage above 50 volts (such as a phone line) will be felt as a tingle (or even worse.) The electric chair uses 2,300 volts.

Tasers output 50,000+ volts. Even if a Taser's current less than 20 milliamps, it may not matter if the person has a weak heart. A much lower current could still cause cardiac arrest. Autopsies have proven this to be true. But no manufacturer ever talks about this. So let's look at how the "non-lethal" 50,000 volts worked in a few cases below. Remember these are some of the cases that made it to the media, or were correctly identified as the cause during an autopsy performed shortly after death.

Mathew Ajibade had been acting strangely shortly before Savannah, Georgia USA, police officers arrested him on suspicion of hitting his girlfriend outside a convenience store. 

Officers said he was combative, so after booking the 21-year-old Wells Fargo bank employee into the Chatham County Detention Center, a sheriff’s deputy Tasered Ajibade’s abdominal area after he was handcuffed with his ankles bound. They left him in an isolation cell and didn’t check on him for at least 90 minutes which was in violation of department policy. When they did check on him, he was already dead.

According to a Washington Post examination of scores of police, court and autopsy records, Ajibade was one of at least 48 people who have died in the United States in 2015 which came to about one death a week in incidents in which the police used Tasers.  

The link between the use of Tasers and the 48 deaths that year is unclear. At least one of the deaths occurred when an incapacitated person fell and hit his head. Other factors mentioned among the causes of death were excited delirium, methamphetamine or PCP intoxication, hypertensive heart disease, coronary artery disease, and cocaine toxicity.

More than half of the 48 suffered from mental illness or had illegal drugs in their system at the time. At least ten were Tasered while handcuffed or shackled. Only one was female. Nearly 55 percent of the people who died were minorities. The Ajibade case was the only one that resulted in officers being indicted.

The deputy who drive-stunned Ajibade, Jason Kenny, was indicted in June along with another deputy and a nurse. Kenny was acquitted of manslaughter and assault, but found guilty of cruelty to an inmate by using excessive force. The other deputy was convicted of public records fraud and perjury, and the nurse was convicted of making a false statement (to covet up the incident) to a state agent. Kenny was sentenced to one month in jail and three years’ probation.

Deaths after Taser usage by police are relatively rare, accounting for a fraction of the people who die during or after encounters with officers, according to a comprehensive study by the National Institute of Justice. Research shows that when used correctly, the devices are generally safe and prevent injuries to both police officers and civilians. But when Tasers are used excessively or if officers don’t follow department policy or product guidelines, the risk of injury or death can increase, according to company product warnings and police experts.

Taser International has issued product warnings to law enforcement about Taser stunning, noting the need for caution and restraint when using the technique on people with mental illnesses.

Taser stun-gun use may not be effective on emotionally disturbed persons or others who may not respond to pain due to a mind-body disconnect,” the company warned in 2013. “Avoid using repeated drive-stuns on such individuals if compliance is not achieved.” I should also mention that it won’t be effective if someone is extremely excitable. Here is an example of such a Taser stun-gun event that occurred in a Canadian airport.

Robert Dziekański was a construction worker by trade, but had also worked as a miner. He was in the process of emigrating from Gliwice, Poland, to live with his mother, Zofia Cisowski, in Kamloops, British Columbia.

Dziekański's flight was two hours late, and arrived at about 3:15 pm on October 13, 2007. According to official sources, Dziekański required language support to complete initial customs formalities. After he completed initial immigration processing, his whereabouts between 4:00 p.m. and about 10:45 p.m. remain unclear, though at various points he was seen around the baggage carousels. No one he saw in his travels around the airport spoke Polish ^.  Dziekański's mother, Zofia Cisowski, had told him to wait for her at the baggage claim area but it was a secured area where she was not allowed to enter. At 10:45 p.m., when he attempted to leave the Customs hall, he was directed again to secondary immigration as his visa had not yet been processed. Dziekański's immigration procedures were completed at about 12:15 a.m. After 30 minutes in an immigration waiting area, he was taken to the international arrivals reception area. Mrs. Cisowski had been making enquiries to the airport staff since the early afternoon.  Airport staff told her Dziekański was not at the airport so she then returned to Kamloops at about 10 p.m. since she believed that her son had missed his flight.

When Dziekański left the Customs hall, he became visibly agitated. Bystanders and airport security guards were unable to communicate with him because he did not speak English. He used chairs to prop open the one-way doors between a Customs clearing area and a public lounge and at one point threw a computer and a small table to the floor before the police arrived. Obviously his frustration made him very angry.

Four RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officers, Constables Gerry Rundel, Bill Bentley, Kwesi Millington, and supervisor Corporal Benjamin Robinson, arrived and entered the Customs room where Dziekański was pacing about. They apparently directed him to stand near a counter, to which Dziekański complied but he picked up a stapler sometime after being told to place his hands on the counter. Picking up te stapler was a stupid move on this man’s part.

Shortly thereafter, about 25 seconds after arriving at the scene, Corporal Robinson ordered a Taser to be used. Constable Millington then Tasered Dziekański. The Tasered man began to convulse and was Tasered several more times after falling to the ground, where the four officers pinned, handcuffed, and continued to Taser him. The third and fourth ones were at the same time" delivered by the officers at Dziekański's right and left, just before Dziekański fell to the floor. Then he was Tasered when he was on the ground. He by then had been Tasered five times.

Admittedly, this man was a big man and strong but Tasering him that many times was unnecessary and a risk to the man’s immediate health.

Dziekański writhed and screamed before he stopped moving. Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson stated he then checked for a pulse, but his heart had stopped. Testimony from the other RCMP officers state they never saw anyone including Robinson check for a pulse. Dziekański did not receive CPR until paramedics arrived on the scene approximately 15 minutes later. They were unable to revive him and pronounced him dead at the scene. This unfortunate man was literally tortured to death by the police.

I can see justification in Tasering him once but when he fell to the floor, there was no need to Taser him again. The Four cowardly officers could have pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him.

The RCMP officers involved in the Dziekański death, Constables Gerry Rundel, Bill Bentley, Kwesi Millington, and supervisor Corporal Benjamin Robinson have been widely criticized for their handling of the incident.           

A retired Vancouver Police superintendent commented after viewing the video that Dziekański did not appear to be making "any threatening gestures" towards the police officers.  

In August 2007, before Dziekański's death, the RCMP changed its protocol on Taser use when suggesting that multiple Taser shocks may be appropriate under certain circumstances. Didn’t the dummies who came to that conclusion realize that multiple jolts of a stun gun can kill people?

The BC Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint in 2007 arguing that the evidence shows that the Taser was not used as a last resort and condemning the RCMP for its attempt to suppress the video and for casting aspersions on the character of Dziekański. An RCMP spokesman, Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, was heavily criticized for providing a false version of events prior to the public release of the video. He stated that Dziekański "continued to throw things around and yell and scream", after the arrival of the police officers, which was later revealed by the video to be false statement by the RCMP spokesperson.  Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone reading this article.

On December 12, 2008, the Criminal Justice Branch of British Columbia issued a statement, finding that although the RCMP officers' efforts to restrain Dziekański were a contributing cause of his death, the force they used to subdue and restrain him was reasonable and necessary in all the circumstances; thus there would not be a substantial likelihood of conviction of the officers in connection with the incident and accordingly criminal charges were not approved. Three of the officers remained on duty with the RCMP elsewhere in Canada, while the supervisor, Corporal Benjamin "Monty" Robinson, resigned from the force on July 20, 2012 prior to a sentencing hearing after being found guilty of obstruction of justice stemming from a vehicle collision that resulted in the death of a 21-year-old Vancouver man.

The coward with the Taser had repeatedly deployed his Taser without justification and he and the other cowards failed to adequately reassess the situation before further deploying it. It was also noted that afterwards these four cowards misrepresented facts in notes and statements, while appearing before the  Braidwood Commission of Inquiry   and provided further misleading information about other evidence before the commission. The four officers each sought judicial review to prevent the commission from making findings based on written statements of the four officers. Their petitions were dismissed. Three of the officers appealed and lost. In July 2013 one of the three officers was cleared of perjury. The remaining two officers stood trial in 201.

On February 20, 2015, Constable Kwesi Millington, the RCMP officer who fired the Taser on the night Robert Dziekański died eight years previously, was found guilty of perjury and colluding with his fellow officers before testifying at the inquiry into Dziekański's death, and on June 22, 2015, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for committing perjury. Needless to say, his career with the RCMP was terminated.

Almost two and a half years after the incident, the RCMP issued an apology to Dziekański's mother, Zofia Cisowski. Gary Bass, the RCMP deputy commissioner of the Pacific region formally apologized during a news conference at the Vancouver International Airport on April 1, 2010. Cisowski accepted the apology, confirmed she had accepted a financial settlement as compensation for her son's death and that she would drop the lawsuit she filed in 2009 against the federal and provincial governments, the airport and the four RCMP officers who fired the stun gun at her son. Prior to this apology, Sgt. Tim Shields who was at that time the head of the Communications Section for the BC RCMP, issued the RCMP's first apology on the case on April 21, 2009 for inaccuracies in the RCMP's public statements and communications and admitted that errors had been made.^[92] This was the first apology given by the RCMP.

Let me give you some advice. If the police in any police force want to apprehend you and they pull out a Taser, then cooperate immediately. I can tell from my experience that having been accidentally shocked with 50,000 volts, being shocked by a stun gun is painful and it is something you don’t want to ever experience. What is scary, your heart might stop beating from the Taser shock and stupid police officers may not try to make the effort to get your heart beating again.

There have been suggestions that all police officers should carry Tasers with them when they are on patrol. What are the chances that some of these police officers will carelessly kill suspects with their Tasers?  Alas, Taser deaths will continue. Hopefully, the numbers of deaths will not keep increasing every year.