Personal Injury Law

The Public Accepts Casual Taser Use and Death Because It's A Clean Kill

By Steve Lombardi

Tasers are without a doubt capable of causing either alone or in combination with other human factors, a person to die. Even if there is no proof that Taser alone can cause a death, and I'm not assuming that, the fact people die after being Tased should be alarming to anyone in a civilized society. How then can they be so casually and frequently used? Which brings up the question of whether ordinary citizens are tolerating the frequent use of Tasers simply because it's a clean kill? In other words there is no blood to clean up so society is putting the dead citizens out of mind.

Clearly in many of these instances the use of a Taser is not law enforcement, but the dishing out of punishment by law enforcement. Punishment of course is the Constitutional power of the Courts, not law enforcement or the legislative branch. At what point have we become as repressive as the Communist society?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMalKZkU3yk

Where are the guidelines for when a Taser should be used? And what is the punishment to the officer violating these standards?

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on August 19, 2009 (boomark / email).