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Tasers pose problems for doctors

From twisted testicles to babies electrocuted in the womb, Tasers are presenting emergency departments with unprecedented injuries, a paper by a New Zealand doctor shows.

Tasers, which are being introduced into New Zealand and Australian police forces as an alternative to firearms, paralyse a person by delivering electrical pulses through metal barbs shot from a gun.

A New Zealand emergency medicine doctor  led a review of 86 international medical studies on Tasers, dealing with heart and respiratory problems, drugs, alcohol, pregnancy and trauma.

The article is published in the journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, highlights several cases:

* A psychiatric patient who removed the barb from his skin and swallowed it.

* A pregnant woman who miscarried after a barb lodged in her abdomen.

* A 16-year-old boy whose skull was penetrated by the dart.

* A man whose lung was punctured after being shot in the chest.

* Two police officers who suffered compression fractures in their spines from muscle spasms.

* A man who developed a twisted testicle.

Australian police were criticised last week when glue-sniffer Ronald Mitchell, 36, caught fire and suffered third-degree burns to 10 per cent of his body when he was Tasered.

A 2006 study by Amnesty International found Tasers were implicated in more than 150 deaths.

The doctor and her colleagues found that, despite Tasers being used extensively for decades, there was limited research into their implications for those most likely to be shot, such as the mentally ill, those under the influence of drugs and violent offenders.

"The Taser is not likely to be used on normal, healthy resting adults, where much of the research has been performed."

Emergency departments could expect to see more patients who had been Tasered, and it was important for doctors to be aware of those at higher risk of complications the doctor said.

More than 60 per cent of cases requiring the use of force involve people believed to be affected by alcohol or drugs and 13 per cent involved people having "some kind of mental health crisis".

Source

Idaho man sodomized by police Taser

A Boise, Idaho, police officer who pushed a Taser inside a man’s buttocks and threatened to “Taser his balls” violated use-of-force policy, but didn’t break the law, an ombudsman has found.

The man in question, whose identity is being withheld, plans to sue the Boise police.

On February 14 of this year, the “complainant,” as he is called in police reports, physically blocked the door to his residence when police arrived to investigate a domestic disturbance. Believing the police officers, who he claims did not identify themselves, to be a person coming to “beat him up,” he refused to allow them entry.

When officers forced their way in, “three officers rushed in and within nine seconds, had the man face down on the floor and had deployed the Taser against the small of his back. Only after the first [tasing] did they order his hands behind his back.” 

 Community Ombudsman Pierce Murphy “said the officer who used the Taser — described as Officer #3 in the report — also coarsely threatened to use the Taser in the man’s anus and genitals.

A transcript of an audio recording of the altercation:

Officer #3: Do you feel this?
Complainant: Yes, sir.
Officer #3: Do you feel that? That’s my -
Complainant: Okay
Officer #3: -Taser up your ass.
Complainant: Okay
Officer #3: So don’t move.
Complainant: I’m trying not to. I can’t breathe.
…
Officer #3: Now do you feel this in your balls?
Complainant: I do, sir. I’m not going to move. I’m not gonna move.
Officer #3 Now I’m gonna tase your balls if you move again.
A minute later, this exchange occurred:
Officer #3: Okay, I’m gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?
Complainant: No, not at all, sir.

The audio file can be found here (MP3).

The Statesman is now reporting that the complainant “plans to sue the Boise Police Department for excessive use of force.”

But the complainant’s lawyer, Ron Coulter, said that the officer in question is still walking his beat.

“I don’t think he should be back on the street, but then I’m not the chief of police,” Coulter told the Boise Weekly. “When you do things like he did I’m not sure that person’s even fit to wear a uniform.”

Police Taser Deaf Mentally Disabled Man

Police in Mobile, Ala used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf,
mentally disabled 37-year old man who they said wouldn't leave a
store's bathroom.

The officers shot pepper spray under the bathroom door after knocking
several times. After
forcing the door open, they used the stun gun on the man.

Police spokesman say police didn't realize the man had a
hearing impairment until after he was out of the bathroom.

The newspaper says the officers attempted to book Love on charges including
disorderly conduct, but a magistrate on duty wouldn't accept the
charges.

UN Calls Use of Tasers Torture

The United Nations Committee against Torture reports that the use of Tasers can be a form of torture, due to the acute pain they cause, and warns against the possibility of death in certain cases. ^{[15] [16]} The use of stun belts has been condemned by Amnesty International as torture, not only for the physical pain the devices cause, but also for their heightened abuse potential, due to their perceived "harmlessness" in terms of causing initial injuries like (e.g.) ordinary police batons do. Amnesty International has reported several alleged cases of excessive electroshock gun use that possibly amount to torture.^[17] They have also raised extensive concerns about the use of other electro-shock devices by American police and in American prisons, as they can be (and according to Amnesty International, sometimes are) used to inflict cruel pain on individuals.^[18]

Tasers may also not leave the telltale markings that a conventional beating might. The American Civil Liberties Union has also raised concerns about their use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_weapon#Controversies