The Robert Dziekanski tragedy is shining a light on some frightening little factoids about police use of tasers. Like this: Out of 563 cases recently reviewed, more than 3/4 of the people who were blasted with the 50,000 volt cop-toy were unarmed:
"Three out of four suspects stun-gunned by the RCMP were unarmed, indicates a review of 563 cases that shows Tasers are often used for compliance rather than to defuse major threats.A Canadian Press analysis of Taser incidents reported by the Mounties reveals that more than 79 per cent of those zapped were not brandishing a weapon.
In just over one-fifth of cases, the suspect had a knife, bottle, club or other weapon."
That means the cops don't even have to feel like a situation is particularly threatening before they use a taser -- they could just be pissed off that you're not following their orders quickly enough. "Move along. I said move..." *ZAP* "along!" *ZAP* Hey, it works with cattle, doesn't it? Are we not cattle?? If not, we need to revisit the parameters of this weapon's use.
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