Apparently some police officers have a bone to pick with Taser
International Inc.
Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling
in a line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up.
All they knew of what comes next is this: It's going to smart.
This was called the "daisy chain." It was part of
the Metro Police Taser training program, the alternative to hitting
a single individual with thousands of volts from the weapon.
It was the option officer Lisa Peterson chose, a decision she
regrets.
The officers were at a training seminar in November 2003 to
learn how to use the newest weapon on their belts, a device the
manufacturer claimed would incapacitate a person but not do permanent
harm. You can't really comprehend the Taser, students were told,
until you're Tasered.
So an instructor attached alligator clips to each end of the
daisy chain. Two officers became electrical bookends, strung
at the shoulder by wires feeding back into a Taser gun. Pull
the trigger and the daisy chain shudders, seizes and pitches
forward, the pile of police officers becoming a portrait of Taser's
selling point: neuromuscular incapacitation.
In the middle of the chain, hands locked at her sides, Peterson
had only her face to absorb the impact. She fell hard on her
neck and fast into the rabbit hole -- traumatic internal disc
disruption, steroid injections, surgical reconstruction, temporomandibular
derangement, persistent dizziness, cognitive defects, numbness,
vertigo.
Officer Peterson sued Taser International Inc.
So did two other Metro cops who were seriously injured after
being shocked with Tasers during other training sessions in 2003.
In their lawsuits they say Taser failed to adequately warn the
police department of the potential for injury and minimized the
risks of being shocked, which officers had been assured was not
only safe but advisable.
Metro's initial approach to Taser instruction can be summed
up like this: Almost everything the police knew about Tasers,
and taught officers about Tasers, they learned from Taser.
Today, Taser warns that the device can cause burns. Moreover,
the company acknowledges these burns can become infected. It
warns that people who are shocked by Tasers can suffer bone fractures,
hernias, ruptures and dislocations. Today, Taser suggests students
be Tasered while lying facedown on the floor, eliminating falling
hazards and stray Taser probes to the eye.
And yet, police use these things indiscriminately.
And nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with the
police inflicting horrible pain on people on the thinnest of
pretexts. As long as there's no permanent damage, there's no
harm in it. Heck, even if there is permanent damage, it's the
victim's fault for failing to be properly cooperative -- or agreeing
to do it as part of their job.
You can see why waterboarding is now considered perfectly
acceptable. The authorities only use it when they believe they
need to (and ok, sometimes just because they're in a bad mood)
and it doesn't leave any permanent damage either. No harm no
foul. What's the problem?