I’m not an expert on the conditions under which a Taser should be used. Nor am I a doctor to be able to tell you under what medical conditions Tasering could be dangerous.
But I am electronic engineering technologist. At least my BSc. EET degree telles me so.
And the past week I have heard numerous phone callers to Radio or TV talk shows talk about the voltage that kills people. I have probably heard a couple of TV/Radio Hosts repeat the phrase that it is not the amperage that kills you, but the voltage.
This is grossly inaccurate. It is the current that kills you. And actually the numbers that were given to me in school was that 500 milliAmps to 1 Amp is enough to fry you. Yet after investigating Taser.com I discovered that the current Tasers put out is in the neighbourhood of 2.1 milliAmps. You get more current from sticking your tongue between the two terminals of a 9V battery.
For clarification, Voltage does not kill directly at all. What it does is cause your muscles to contract. There are reports that Voltage can throw a man across a room. This is actually Voltage causing muscles to contract enough to have this man throw himself across the room.
The other lesson we learned is that you never let electricity cross your heart. i.e. you never touch something electronic with one hand while the other one is grounded. This is why electricians almost always have one hand in their pocket which means any jolt would travel down the side of their body to the ground through their legs and not cross the chest.
In light of all the recent Taser talk, I will wait for investigations/inquiries to take their course but my guess is that Tasers need to be fired away from the chest of a person to minimize the chances of the voltage contracting a heart muscle to the point it gives out.
On a similar vein, In this regard, I must point out that there was an episode of Mythbusters which they created a shocking statue and grabbed the two terminals with their hands. I was simply astounded that the show would let it’s hosts get shocked this way. Luckily no one was hurt or killed.
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Many people have also suggested that tasers should be eschewed in favour of pepper spray. These people are also misinformed. Pepper spray has a better chance of:
a) being used against the officer (being hit indirectly by spray)
b) is less effective at inducing compliance
c) hitting innocent bystanders
d) have effects that last about 8 hours
e) actually killing a suspect.
In a relatively small number of people, pepper spray will induce anaphylactic shock, and they will die within minutes of use if not administered epinepherine. The airway closes and the person dies. I know of at least 3 instances in Ontario alone where suspects have died after being Pepper sprayed (One each in Thunder Bay, Sault-ste.Marie and Ottawa).
Tasers are actually SAFER than pepperspray. They incapacitate a suspect briefly, and do so in a statistically safe manner.
Whether or not the RCMP used it safely in this particular case is another question, it certainly appears to me that they didn’t explore other options, but perhaps the video doesn’t show everything.
However, tasers generally prevent risk to the safety of the officer and the suspect, and ensure that suspects are taken into custody without injury.
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As you know, the current through the resistance depends on the voltage across it, and the resistance. Thus, saying that it’s the current that kills you ignores the fact that you would have to put a significant voltage across the resistance (in this case, between the two posts embedded in the body) to affect a measurable current. The voltage causes the electrons to flow which manifests as current between the posts. So technically, the voltage DOES kill you. You can just take a lot more voltage (by our units of measurement) than you can current, because of the resistance of the body.
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I should say that comparing current to voltage is almost pointless since they are in different units.
I also suspect that the Tasers numbers for generated current are approximate (maybe mean) values, since the path of the current is not always going to be the same and thus the resistance will be different. The Taser just generates a voltage and has a certain power rating that dictates how much current it can produce. The rest depends on the intervening medium.
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The answer is that the taser cannot be defined as non-lethal in police policy.
That or weak people (more likely to die after being tasered) deserve less rights than the strong of society. Buh-bye granny.
Heck, you can shoot a guy in the leg with a cannon and it will be non-lethal.
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No, they are still non-lethal.
A baton is non-lethal, but if you hit someone hard enough you can kill them.
Pepperspray is non-lethal, but if you get someone allergic it can kill them.
Wrestling a suspect is non-lethal, but if you land on them wrong, it can kill them.
Just because something CAN kill someone under the right circumstances, doesn’t make it lethal. A series of circumstances have to occur to compound the effect to make it legal.
The idea of shooting some weak individual with a taser is likely to kill them is both wrong and missing the point. Its wrong because even on a granny a Taser is not enough to kill them. The granny has a better chance of breaking a hip and dying from falling to the ground after being tased than killed by the taser itself. It also misses the point that tasers are supposed to be one of several avenues for dealing with a beligerant suspect that are supposed to be used, a series of non-lethal alternatives.
When a suspect is confronted by police, the various methods of enacting an arrest are supposed to be considered:
1) order the suspect to comply and take them into custody. If they will not comply, then:
2) if possible without threat to the officer, physically grab and take them into custody.
3) If that is not possible then the officer should use one of several non-lethal weapons: a baton, pepperspray or a taser. Of these, it should be noted, a taser is the least likely to result in death or injury to the suspect or officer than the others.
4) Only when those are exhausted, and the suspect remains an imminent threat to the officer or the public, should deadly force be used.
As for them being ‘dangerous’, a study by the Toronto Police Services in 2006 found that Tasers were deployed 174 times, 44% of the time they did not fire or use the taser, the mere presence of it was enough to pursuade the suspect into compliance. It was actually deployed (a dart was fired) 37% of the time. There was not one injury resulting from their use in any of the times they were deployed. There were no deaths or lawsuits lodged against TPS. 156 times of the 174 were used against ‘EDP’s or Emotionally Disturbed Persons (as in the vancouver case), in 6% of cases, another use of force had to be used (such as a firearm).
The Orange County FL Sherrif’s office saw an 80% is officer injuries after adopting tasers. After Phoenix AZ put them in the hands of every officer, the number of suspect injuries dropped 67%. A study of the Austin Police dept. found a 50% decrease in officer injuries and an 82% drop in suspect injuries. Virtually every police department that has adopted the taser has seen dramatic reductions in both officer and suspect rates of injury.
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Anon, if you took any electrical course or trade course, it’s the amps. That’s why GFI’s receptacles and breakers are needed. You can die on a telephone line if you grab it right, yet a 10,000V static shock just bites you on a door knob.
As always, those not in the know are arm chair experts…