TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America

A United Nations committee said in November, 2007 that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Use of the electronic stun devices by police had been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada. Canadian authorities were taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there was a wave of demands to BAN them.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police had acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had “proven risks of harm or death”.

“The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use,” the committee said in a statement.

Tasers have become increasingly controversial in the United States, particularly after several notorious cases where their use by police to disable suspects was questioned as being excessive. Especially disturbing is the fact that six adults died after being tased by police in the span of a week.

In Frederick, MD, a sheriff’s deputy trying to break up a late-night brawl tased 20-year-old Jarrel Grey. He died on the spot. “I want to know what he did that was so bad?” the victim’s mother, Tanya James, said. “Did the deputy think that their life was in danger? Did he have a weapon?” The death came just weeks after Frederick police used a Taser to subdue a high school student.

Also in the same week, in Jacksonville, Fla., in two separate cases two men died after being stunned. One suspect, who fled a car crash and tried to break into a nearby home, struggled with a policeman, prompting the officer to tase him three times. The man continued to fight, and tried to bite the officer, while he was being tased. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another man died Tuesday of that week, after a Jacksonville officer pulled over his car. When the officer approached it, the man took off running. When the officer caught up with him, during a struggle, authorities say the officer used his Taser to subdue the suspect. After being placed in the back of the police car the suspect became unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

In New Mexico, 20-year-old Jesse Saenz died after Raton police used a Taser to subdue him. Police say Saenz was struggling and fighting with them as they attempted to take him into custody. Saenz died after being transported to a county jail.

A Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police. The man, Robert Dziekanski, 40, fell to the ground and died after the police officers piled on top of him. It was caught on a handheld video camera by a tourist. That horrifying video shows Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who spoke no English, become increasingly agitated. He was shocked twice, and then died. More than a dozen people have died in Canada after being hit by Tasers in the last four years.

Taser International, based in Scottsdale, AZ, released a statement following the Vancouver Airport incident saying no deaths have ever been definitively connected to what the company describes as: “the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser.” That’s 50,000 volts.

“The video of the incident at the Vancouver airport indicates that the subject was continuing to fight well after the TASER application,” Taser International said. “This continuing struggle could not be possible if the subject died as a result of the Taser device electrical current causing cardiac arrest. [Dziekanski’s] continuing struggle is proof that the Taser device was not the cause of his death.”

“Specifically in Canada, while previous incidents were widely reported in the media as ‘Taser deaths,’ the role of the Taser device has been cleared in every case to date,” Taser said.

While the medical questions about causes of death are not resolved, Cox said this is precisely why more study is needed. “Nobody really knows exactly why these people are dying, we only know that people are dying after they’re tasered,” he said. “It’s nearly 300 people who have died in the United States - they’re tasered, and then they die.”

“It may be because they have a heart condition. It may be because they’re on drugs. It may be because of some other factor that we don’t know about. The important thing is, they are dying after they are tasered. That cannot be denied, no matter how you spin the language.”

Amid a growing outcry, civil rights groups are urging police to put down their Tasers until more research is done.

“The danger of Tasers is that they seem safe, they seem easy and therefore I think it’s natural that police will be inclined to use them much more quickly than they would ever use a gun,” Cox told Chen. “Most of the cases we’ve looked at, there’s been no weapon involved at all [on the part of the suspect], let alone a deadly weapon” Cox said, “so these are not situations where necessarily the police officer sees a threat”.

“The penalty for resisting arrest should not be death,” Cox said.

krAzykrAkr01:
Tasers are becoming the “convenient” weapon of the Police State. It has been almost a year since these incidents happened. Despite all this, taser weapons are used more and more frequently across N. America. Supposedly non-lethal, so there is built in deniability. Did our grandfathers go fight the Nazi’s so that we could let them take the country at a later date? Was the American Revolution just a negotiation with England to rent the colonies for a certain amount of time, and now that lease is up? We can not continue to let tyranny engulf the United States and the Planet.

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