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New Report on Danger of Taser Guns

By Jeralyn

pAmnesty International, span class="caps"USA /spanhas a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20081216001amp;lang=e"released a new report/a on police use of tasers. 334 people have now died from being tasered. The report finds 90% were unnarmed. CA and FL are the states with the most deaths, while Phoenix and Las Vegas have the highest death rates among cities./p pThe report says police should suspend the use of taser guns./p blockquotepAmnesty International#8217;s report -- which includes a study of 98 autopsies that were independently reviewed by a forensic pathologist -- found that 90 percent of those who died after being struck with tasers were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat. Police officers used tasers on schoolchildren, pregnant women and even an elderly person with dementia. More than 30 individuals died after being shocked in jails, where tasers are also widely used, or in the booking area of police stations after they were already under police control./p/blockquote p[More...]/p blockquotep#8220;Thousands of police departments have purchased these weapons, and there is ample evidence of officers using them repeatedly and unnecessarily. Is it any surprise that the number of people who died after being shocked is steadily rising?#8221; asked Larry Cox, executive director for Amnesty International span class="caps"USA. /span#8220;Taser use should be suspended until the weapons#8217; impact has truly been proven. At minimum they should be used as weapons of last resort, and police departments should ensure that policies are consistent and controlled to prevent the death toll from rising precipitously.#8221;/p/blockquote pSome of our past coverage of taser guns is accessible a href="http://www.talkleft.com/?op=searchamp;offset=0amp;old_count=30amp;type=storyamp;section=amp;string=taser+samp;search=Searchamp;count=30"here/a./pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=8wHcDWFH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=OsYd1iV8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=WxhGUdln"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?i=WxhGUdln" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=tJgarBty"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=NGXAnWhe"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=52" border="0"/img/a /div

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).