Tasers Tell the Truth About Our Police State

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Tasers a form of torture, says United Nations
November 24, 2007Herald Sun (Australia)

TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America. "The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture," the UN's Committee against Torture said.


ABC news
By DAVID SCHOETZ
Nov. 19, 2007
E-mail Print Share
Three men died this weekend after being zapped by Tasers during confrontations with police.
The three deaths came one week after a video surfaced of a Polish immigrant writhing in pain at Vancouver International Airport moments after being Tasered by Canadian police. The 40-year-old man died a short time later.
...

Sheriff's officers in Jacksonville, Fla., discharged a Taser on Christian Allen, 21, after he and a passenger in his sport utility vehicle tried to flee on foot after a traffic stop, Melissa Bujeda, spokeswoman for the Jacksonville, Fla., sheriff's office, told ABC News.



An officer pursued Allen in his car and then caught up to him on foot before discharging his Taser multiple times on the suspect. "They were in a struggle at the time," Bujeda said.
Allen, who had a previous arrest record, was carrying bags containing what police believe is crack cocaine and had a loaded handgun in his jacket pocket when an officer finally subdued him. Allen did not raise the gun at the officer, Bujeda said.

Back to the Herald Sun from Australia:

Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after 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. There have been three deaths in Canada after the use of Tasers over the past five weeks.


...The company that makes the weapons has said that similar deaths have been shown by "medical science and forensic analysis'' to be "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser".The UN committee made its comments in recommendations to Portugal, which has bought the newest Taser X26 stun gun for use by police. Portugal "should consider giving up the use of the Taser X26,'' as its use can have a grave physical and mental impact on those targeted, which violates the UN's Convention against Torture, the experts said.

...
Today a man in Chilliwack died after being tasered, pepper sprayed and beaten by the RCMP, and after languishing in hospital for a few days he slipped away. Once again our RCMP was the judge, jury and executioner.

Under Stephen Harper, Canada has gone from being known world wide as a peace keeping nation, to a hypocritical environmental joke, a war mongering groupie nation who will follow Bush anywhere, and part of the corporate coup running North America into the ground.

Let's take away torture and tasers. Let's get back on the road to peace by teaching people how to be peaceful. Slamming 50,000 volts of electricity through another human being is more indicative of where our empathy and skills of communication are than anything.