A Change in Focus

I thought it would be easy to announce police departments adding tasers to their arsenal (see below). However, this is happening on a daily (even hourly!) basis in the United States and I can't possibly keep up with it, unless I quit my day job and send my children out to play in the traffic! I've been at this for less than a week and the daily developments are overwhelming!

From this day forward, I will focus on egregious uses of tasers as they are reported. And I will continue to make every effort to add other pertinent information, both historical (I still have much to add) and as it happens.

Suffice it to say that if tasers aren't already in use where you live, they will soon be coming to your town or a town near you, unless you make an organized and concerted effort to prevent that from happening. Even then, it's:

David versus Goliath. Recently, in the City of Palo Alto, California, a taser task force was mandated to review the issue and make recommendations to city council in response to the police chief's request to introduce tasers to the community. A highly organized group of people, including former deputy public defender Aram James, made incredible efforts to educate city council and the task force on the potential dangers of the weapon, in hopes that they would not approve the roll out of tasers in their city.

In the end, council approved the use of tasers in a very narrow vote - 5 to 4 - but ONLY in situations where lethal force would otherwise be allowed. Had Aram James et al not made the effort, the Chief of Police would have handily won the day and police there would have been given the right of way to use tasers as they saw fit.