Why Is It So Hard to Track Taser Use?

[damnedifIknow]

"Sandra Bland was threatened with a Taser even though she posed no harm to officers. She’s not the only one. "


In the video, Bland, the 28-year-old woman whose hanging death in a Texas jail cell is the subject of a federal investigation, is pulled over by an officer for failing to signal a turn. The officer, a Texas state trooper named Brian Encinia, exchanges words with Bland, then demands she step out of the car. It’s unclear why he made this request—he first asked her to stop smoking a cigarette, which Texas state law permits her to refuse—but he continues to insist on it, saying the demand is a “lawful order.”

And then: He appears to threaten her with his stun gun. Encinia tells Bland he will “light you up” if she doesn’t get out of her car.

The footage is disturbing, but it also reflects a common problem: Tasers are not only used by law-enforcement agents as less lethal alternatives to guns, or even as weapons for self-defense—but often as tools to get people to do what they want. "

*The Centers for Disease Control, which keeps some of the most comprehensive mortality data in the United States, told me it does not keep records on Taser-related deaths. The best source may be Amnesty International, which counted 540 Taser deaths in the United States over a 12-year period."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/why-is-it-so-hard-to-track-taser-use/399467/

[DVRacer]

1. I was joking with my Nuerosurgeon about getting tazed

His response was no joke he said with my implants in my spine it would be fatal. That the titanium is so close to my spinal cord that it would shut down my central nervous system. How do I ever explain that to a cop that decides because of my size I am a threat of some kind. They are trained that they are less than leathal but for some of us they as leathal or more so than a firearm. I'm a big guy and have been told how intimidatiting I look I honestly worry about this.

[Igel]

2. Moreover, there's no reason for the cop to believe you in the first place.

If lying to police is widespread, then police will assume that people are lying routinely.

Some people say it's fine to be uncooperative with police and lie to them. Then they get upset when a cop doesn't assume that every word a suspect tells him is the unvarnished truth and the complete truth. One inevitably leads to the other.

[beevul]

3. The answer to that is simple.

Because the people (mis)use them do not want it to be tracked.