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Electroshock Injustice
Fatal and NorrFatal Taserings By Police
A y. Least 618 people have died after being tasered by
ii t- American police from 2001 through Oct. 13, 2013.
After years of research we have established a website which
catalogues these fatalities.
We have examined virtually every news report we can find
about taser incidents, most of which are not fatal, but many
of which, perhaps even a majority, are frightening abuses of
authority and exercises of violent power.
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lasers are electroshock weapons which disable persons by a
combination of extreme pain and muscular disruption. "Taser"
itself is a brand word, like Kleenex or Band-Aid. Tasers are
referred to with a multitude of Orwellian euphemisms both in
the press and by law enforcement organizations: "stun weap
ons," "stun guns," "electronic control devices," "conducted-
energy devices," and "conducted-energy weapons," that
"[administer] an electrical shock" and that utilize an "electro-
muscular-disruption technology." In this article we will use a
few names interchangeably, including "electroshock weapon,"
and most often simply "taser." The word "taser" is nowadays
also used as a verb.
Sixteen thousand United States law
enforcement agencies???89 percent of all
American local, state, and federal police
forces???issue tasers to their officers.
Originally conceived and accepted on the
premise of its being a rarely-used weapon
for extreme circumstances, the Thomas
A. Swift Electric Rifle???whose acronym is
"taser"???is now used by police in a wide
range of situations: on Alzheimer's patients
who wander out of nursing homes; on col
lege students asking questions of political
leaders; on cyclists who refuse ridiculous
orders not to ride their bikes; on pregnant
women who refuse to sign traffic tickets; on
pregnant women trying to regain custody of
their young children; on 72-year-old women
who refuse to sign speeding tickets; and
on fathers holding their newborn children
when the family tries to leave the hospital.
Police have used tasers on pregnant women
multiple times (to some media attention
and public disgust), over parking tickets and
speeding tickets, and when they respond to
the scene of fender-bender accidents.
Police officers have become so desensitized to administer
ing taser electroshocks that they have been heard to say such
things as "it's taser time!" shortly before they taser a citizen.
Unbelievably, some police departments now make people they
shock with a taser pay the costs of the tasering!
It is now apparent that police regularly apply tasers to any
situation where they perceive themselves not to have abso
lute control over the other people present. These cases often
occur where women (especially women or girls of color) are
not immediately passive in the face of police officers???perhaps
they curse, or refuse to sign a ticket, or get angry and shout,
or none of those things???but the police response is increas
ingly to inflict electroshock violence on people who don't sub
mit to their authority as soon as the police demand they do so.
While it was impossible to find concrete data on the fre
quency with which police taser men of color, our extensive
observations lead us to conclude that African-American men
and Latino men are tasered (both fatally and nonfatally) at a
disproportionate rate. This conclusion is also commensurate
with the well documented rates at which American police apply
other forms of violence against people of color.
Cruel and Unusual
AIL over the country tasers are now the go-to weapon police
use in any situation where they decide that someone is acting
disrespectfully or inappropriately or out-of-line. On Aug. 3,
2013 in Wrightsville, PA police tasered a man during a traffic
stop when he tried to comfort his child in the back seat. Last
June 19, Nebraska police held tasers against the hearts and
necks of Oglala Lakota activists. Last June 18, police in New
Hampshire tasered an unarmed heckler at a political rally. Last
June 10, police in Illinois fatally tasered naked Mark Koves
in a park. Police in Florida tasered naked Thomas Edwards
for alleged spitting at an officer. In Colorado they repeatedly
tasered a man lying naked on the ground at a music festival,
shocking him at least three times, even after paramedics
arrived, in front of a crowd angrily denouncing their conduct.
An Orlando, FL police officer tasered a young black man for the
offense of holding out his arms after the officer shoved him
twice on camera. In 2008 an NYPD Lieutenant caused a man to
fall 10 stories to his death after tasering him for threatening
suicide on a building ledge. In September 2011, Arizona police
tasered a mentally-ill man with his hands already up.
An "off-duty" Syracuse, NY police officer moonlighting as a
security guard tasered a disabled man for holding onto a stand
ing safety pole on a transit bus; he dragged the man off the
bus, breaking his hip, and then tasered him again. Rehoboth
Beach, DE police officers tasered a man with his hands in the
air for refusing to talk to them and then tasered him at least
four more times while he lay handcuffed on the ground.
Police now regularly use tasers on children, like the
10-year-old boy who refused to clean an officer's car at his
school's career day; on middle-school girls who get into fights
and on "non-compliant" 10-year-olds having tantrums; police
have become so inured to using the weapon on minors that
they will "demonstrate" them on teenagers at birthday parties.
When police use tasers on people there are often conse
quences beyond the fact of administering a painful, debilitat
ing electrical shock. They cause people to Lose control of their
muscles and to convulse and collapse; they probably caused
Alejandro Sanchez-Escoto to fall to his death off a highway
overpass. Police and guards regularly use tasers on "unruly"
prisoners and inmates, like 20-year-old Danielle Maudsley, who
tried to flee from a police station while already handcuffed and
now lies brain-dead in a persistent coma caused by striking
her head on the ground after the electroshock. Law enforce
ment officers also see no problem in tasering people who are
already physically restrained, as when two Idaho police officers
threatened to taser a handcuffed man in the anus and genitals
after already having tasered him; or when jailers tasered a
prisoner who was already tied into a "restraint chair" (another
frightful coercive device widely used against prisoners in jails).
The combination of tasers and extreme restraints happens
frequently, and this has been going on across the country for
many years.
Police cornered non-violent Robert Guerrero in a closet and
tasered him five times in under a minute, killing him; police
tasered handcuffed James Borden six times, killing him; police
tasered 18-year-old Antonio Wheeler twice while kneeling on
his chest as he was strapped to a hospital bed and having a
catheter forcibly inserted into his penis. Two police officers
tasered the naked Samuel DeBoise seven times in 97 seconds
on his own front lawn, then knelt on his chest until he was
dead; two police officers electroshocked Emily Delafield, who
was wheelchair-bound and having a schizophrenic episode, 10
times for a total of 165 consecutive seconds, killing her; and
police tasered Maurice Cunningham five times for six to nine
seconds each time while he was having a psychotic episode,
then followed with a single continuous shock lasting two min
utes and 49 seconds that killed him.
(Here in Georgia police across the state are armed with
tasers and possess a willingness to use them on virtually
anyone, of any age, that police deem to be uncooperative or
unsavory.
George Harvey died in front of his children on June 29,
2013 when shocked by three sheriff's deputies in Augusta, all
of whom were cleared of wrongdoing by the GBI only 10 days
later; last June 21, Alpharetta police tasered a teenager flee
ing arrest for "shouting obscenities" and "exposing himself' to
officers; Georgia police have tasered school children for being
disobedient: in 2010, Savannah police tasered and kicked in
the teeth of an autistic teen who "seemed drunk." Also in
2010, Richland police tasered a schoolteacher multiple times
after she called the police because someone
broke into her home; in 2011, College Park
police sent a mentally disabled man with the
mind of a small child to the hospital for two
weeks after tasering him while he was stand
ing peacefully in his own front yard with his
hands in his pockets. Our research has docu
mented 17 fatal police taserings in Georgia
since 2003, nine of which occurred in the
Last six years.)
A Solution?
Our research Leads us to the conclusion
that the current system of police use of
tasers is intolerable and in need of immedi
ate reform. We conclude that the only real
istic, adequate way to bring an end to the
evils of the current system is to take one or
the other of two alternative reform steps.
The first possible reform would be simply
to forbid???effective immediately???any fur
ther use of tasers by police, on the grounds
that experience has demonstrated that police
simply cannot be trusted not to abuse their powers in the way
they deploy the electroshock weapon. Use of tasers by police
would be permanently prohibited.
The other possible reform would be to immediately declare
a nationwide moratorium on police use of tasers and to permit
police to again use tasers only after the following: (1) the
carrying out of extensive and impartial scientific and medical
studies on the dangers and consequences for human beings of
using tasers to administer painful, paralyzing electrical shocks;
(2) the passage of nationwide legislation restricting, regulat
ing and establishing strict standards governing police use of
tasers (which would necessarily include a flat prohibition on
use of tasers for pain-compliance purposes) and (3) the imple
mentation of nationwide programs for training and educating
police in regard to both the proper and the forbidden uses of
tasers.
Having done research which has revealed the appallingly
frequent cruelties committed by American police in their taser
ings of citizens and having catalogued hundreds of unneces
sary and tragic deaths resulting from police taserings, we favor
the first of these two possible reforms.
Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. and Lauren ???Elle??? Farmer
Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. is a Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of
Georgia School of Law. Lauren ???Elle??? Farmer is an attorney and activist in
Athens, GA.
This article is excerpted from a longer piece which can be read in its
entirety at flagpole.com.
hew cause people to lose control of tlieir
rrusdesEncf to convulse and collapse.
8 FLAGP0LE.C0M ??? JANUARY 8, 2014