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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Incident once again raises doubts about Taser A 36-year-old man is dead after Fayetteville police used a Taser on him Wednesday morning. Whether the Taser killed him or led to his death has not been determined. But I am again left doubting that a Taser is the right device to use on an unarmed man who is no clear threat to the public. Contrary to popular belief, a Taser is not “nonlethal.” Fayetteville Police classify it as “less lethal” weapon. Meaning it can be deadly, but less so. In the incident, which occurred near 1 a.m. Wednesday, officers responding to a business’s alarm on Murchison Road discovered a man whom police had encountered earlier. “The subject became combative,” a police department statement says. The officers warned him, then tried to shock him. The Taser gun’s darts, according to police, did not make proper contact. Then one of the officers put the Taser in direct contact with Otis Anderson, still to no obvious effect. They wound up having to grapple with him, getting him to the ground and cuffing him. One wonders why they couldn’t have started at that point to begin with. Maybe the department’s internal investigation will answer the question. Whether a Taser proves deadly depends on many factors, some of which an officer cannot know. For instance, a suspect’s pre-existing medical condition, like a bad heart, might be particularly susceptible to further damage from 50,000 volts. Amnesty International and other groups oppose the use of Tasers in part for such reasons. There can also be other conditions that enhance the weapon’s lethality. In 2005, a fleeing suspect was nearly burned alive when a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy fired a Taser that ignited gasoline near a vehicle the man had wrecked. More stories are surfacing of the Taser’s decided down side. Chilling video of a man in a Canadian airport who was shocked and died surfaced in October. He is one of three Canadians to die in recent months after being shocked. In Houston, activists are calling for a moratorium amid claims officers are quicker to use Tasers on black suspects. A Houston Texans football player sued the city’s police after he was shocked during a traffic stop. Law officials say Tasers save lives because they can prevent officers from using deadly force, or traditional methods of subduing suspects, like a baton. But let’s look at the situation involving Anderson. He was resisting officer’s instructions, but it seems unlikely they would have used deadly force, i.e., guns, to make him comply. Instead, they tried “less-deadly” Tasers because of the wrong perception that they are not deadly at all. And that fine shade of distinction can be the difference between life and death.
Poster Comment: LEOs that use tasers on unarmed people are wussies!
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