Amnesty International Taser Report

[Tgace]

No...its a "chemical burn" no real heat is involved.

 

[PeachMonkey]

I've been curious if the spray does anything to soft contacts...like melt them or something?

It doesn't melt them or anything, but contact lenses trap chemical contaminants and exacerbate the effects of pepper sprays. Moreover, Bausch and Lomb has shown that you can never fully remove capsaicin remnants from soft contacts after you've been pepper sprayed; make sure to throw away those soft contacts after resisting arrest!

Protestors are routinely briefed to wear glasses rather than contacts in case police use pepper spray for just this reason.

 

[Cryozombie]

not to distract this thread, but I am sitting here at work reading this, and "Shock the Monkey" is playing on the radio.

Coincidence?

When we were kids, my friend had a little 50,000 volt stun gun... we used to sit around shocking ourselves with it... putting it against the muscles in our arms and legs and making them twitch. The only thing is that if you left them there too long you got burns from the electrodes.

 

[Tgace]

Taser is MILES away from the "stun gun". I took 2-3 pulses from one once....miles away.

 

[Cryozombie]

Oh Im sure.

I was just sayin...

We werent exactly normal kids, ya know?

 

[Tgace]

Im shure...

 

[sgtmac_46]

The Taser/OC was designed to fill the gap between verbal commands and "hands on" in the force continuum. When you have to "roll" with a suspect, bad things happen. Often times to the suspect because the LEO has to control the situation ASAP and things escalate. And sometimes its the LEO who gets hurt or disarmed and shot with his own weapon. There has to be a tool to use when a person just plain refuses to obey a lawfull command. Sometimes you can talk until you are blue in the face and use all the "verbal de-escalation" techniques in the world and the suspect will just say "F-U". The AI statement about not using tasers on people who are verbally abusive, non-violent etc. is a little misleading. If I Taser somebody its because I am going to take them into some form of custody. They are wording it like we just use it in people who piss us off and thats not the case. If I tell you you are under arrest and you become verbally abusive and refuse to do what I tell you I can either put the leather gloves on and put us in a situation where one or bolth of us can get hurt, or I can use one of these tools that have been shown to be statistically safe and effective. And as its been stated previously, its "you" who have the choice.....

Amen brother. I posted this on another forum, but here's a link to a debate between Taser CEO Rick Smith and Amnesty International USA President William F. Schultz.
You can see the video here:
http://www.criticalmention.net/vg/taser
Or download the video here:
http://www.taser.com/debate_audio.wma
Or simply download the transcript here:
http://www.taser.com/documents/TASER_AIUSA_debate.pdf

In my opinion, Schultz's most honest statement was that he didn't know the truth. The rest was hyperbole and vague generalizations that were meant more for emotional response than any real addition to the dialogue.

The grandmother analogy was a hoot, and it worked against Schultz. It doesn't take a genius to know that Amnesty doesn't have much real standing on this issue, as evidenced listening to their spokesman and president here. I don't think Amnesty International wants too many people to hear this (as evidenced as the fact that I couldn't find any obvious link or mention of the debate, by it's president, on it's website).

Schultz had an ax to grind, and it came out as arrogance and sarcasm. Rick Smith ate his lunch, and even came off sounding like the nicer guy. Schultz just came off as an intentional distorter of facts and a chicken little scare monger. Listen to him spin when an audience member pins him down and asks him what other options police should use. He didn't sound exactly comfortable giving a straight answer. It also seemed as if he had to strain to be reasonable and admit police had a job that needed to be done. Specifics is where the rubber hits the road.

 

[Tgace]

Downloaded it and listened to it in my vehicle. Very interesting and pretty much covered most of the territory we have been discussing here....