Published in the Toronto Sun, under the banner NEWS-WEIRD
January 21, 2011
By QMI Agency - Toronto Sun
Problem bear sneaking around your trash can? Don't get mad, get a Taser.
Taser International, the company known for making its stun gun, widely used by law enforcement agencies in North America, has unveiled a new weapon that will soon be available for wildlife managers.
The Taser Wildlife Electronic Control Device is a three-shot, semi-automatic Taser designed specifically to incapacitate large animals from as far away as nearly 11 metres.
With a retail price of $1,999.95, the wildlife stun gun is said to be nearly indestructible by the elements, able to survive "sea spray, rain, dust, electrostatic discharge and even short-term water submersion."
In a release about the product earlier this week, Taser International said that "published research has shown that wildlife managers sometimes need to use tools to modify animal behaviour to avoid dangerous human-animal conflicts and the loss of animal life."
Jan 21, 2011
Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch
An Anchorage Police Department officer zapped a black bear with his Taser in Alaska's largest city last summer. The 100,000 volts flipped the bear on its back. The bear got up and ran off.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game then warned that to Taser bears is a no-no, and the APD put out a press release telling people so. Months later, though, a state wildlife official revealed he'd been using his Taser on bears for years in an effort to see if they could be trained to avoid people.
Fish and Game did add the warning that people shouldn't try that trick at home, although bear man Charlie Vandergaw had been using similar training techniques on bears for decades. Yes, Vandergaw used a cattle prod instead of a Taser, but an electrical shock is an electrical shock.
And now, for those who want to get in on shocking bears or other big animals, Taser International in Arizona has just the thing: a Wildlife Taser.
For the weak of heart, Taser's "Wildlife Taser" trumps Vandergaw's cattle prod. The former will knock a bear on its butt. The latter might just make a wild bear mad, though it seemed to work well enough on Vandergaw's semi-domesticated bears.
Fish and Game, however, is sticking to its position that shocking the animals is a no-no. Tasers should only be used by professionals, the agency says.
And the Wildlife Taser has come under attack on at least one blog that reviews the latest high-tech gadgets.
A writer for Gawker Media's Gizmodo notes use of the device wouldn't be limited to bears; it could be used on any sort of big game: " ... from elk to moose, deer and grizzlies. This would be laughable if it wasn't so obviously cruel. Taser has a point -- a very small one -- in that some bears' lives might be saved if fishermen and other adventurers in grizzly country replace the firearms they sometimes use to defend themselves from attack with Tasers. But research about bears shows that they are rarely aggressive, and most dangerous encounters are the avoidable result of human stupidity or bears' desperation, rather than rogue animals inured to humans. As for other animals -- like bison -- there's plenty of visual evidence that it's the people who are the instigators, not the animals. My worry? That this weapon, despite its high price tag (almost $2,000), could encourage a new breed of ugly, empty-headed tourist behavior: will people approach animals they should keep away from knowing that if they have an animal-felling Taser they can get away with it? Given the way regular Tasers have been misused -- with their use sometimes a first resort and then being used to deliver repeated stun shocks to boot -- it's hard to see how this hardware could encourage a better relationship between people and animals."
And, as all real Alaskans and those elsewhere who've watched Discovery's "Sarah Palin's Alaska" know, there are simpler, cheaper and easier means than a Taser for maintaining the proper relationship between people and wildlife. You get a gun; you shoot them (if you can hit them and provided that you possess proper subsistence hunting licenses, you eat them.
Thus end any worries about the animals causing problems.
January 18, 2011
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Taser International Inc. will sell a version of its electroshock weapon designed to control animals that pose a threat, the company said Tuesday.
The Scottsdale, Ariz., company makes weapons that send less-than-lethal amounts of electrical current through the target to immobilize them. The technology is already in widespread use by law enforcement and the military. But this weapon, called the Taser Wildlife Electronic Control Device, is the first Taser product intended to control animals without killing or maiming them.
"Just as our Taser technology is a safer and more effective option to stop dangerous individuals, the Taser Wildlife ECD is an extension of Taser's technology to save animal lives," said Rick Smith, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer.
The device, intended to be used on larger animals with thick hides, has a slightly higher charge output than the Taser X3, which was designed to be used on humans. It has a range of 35 feet and is designed to withstand sea spray, rain, dust, electrostatic discharge and brief immersion in water.
The weapon will be on display at the SHOT hunting trade show in Las Vegas until Friday. It will cost $2,000 when it goes on sale in March. The Taser X3 costs less, at $1,800, but unlike the Taser Wildlife does not come with cartridges.
Shares of the company fell 6 cents to close at $4.75 Tuesday.
January 2, 2011
fox9.com
Mississippi police were continuing to monitor a camel that has a history of attacking people and damaging property Saturday after a bout of belligerent behavior forced a police officer to use a Taser to subdue it, the Sea Coast Echo reported.
The camel, which lives on a farm for domesticated animals in Kiln, Miss. was spotted by a woman driving by who noticed it was standing outside of its fence on Dec 4.
When she pulled into the farm’s driveway to alert its owners, she said the animal began attacking her car. Terrified, she called police.
Deputy Ed Merwin told the Echo he tried to chase the single-humped beast away from the car, but was unsuccessful.
"As I approached the animal in an attempt to run it away from attacking the female's car, the animal turned and started to come towards me," the paper quoted Merwin as saying.
"I tried to chase the animal away so the female could get her car to safety outside the gate,” he continued. “The animal was not complying with my commands. At this time, the animal was Tased once. It fled to the other side of the property."
The camel’s owner, Donna Berdine, offered to pay for the scratches the camel left on the car, the report said.
Following that incident, police received an additional complaint after the camel knocked a man down on Christmas Day, sending him to the hospital.
Hancock County Sheriff Department Major Bobby Underwood said the situation is unprecedented in the small town.
"In my 42 years in law enforcement, I've never had to deal with a camel problem," the paper quoted Underwood as saying. "I've been told the camel is really gentle. I don't know what got him fired up. We are going to continue to monitor the situation."
November 8, 2010
Telegraph
... Officers chased the American bulldog with poles as it ran off towards a High Street packed with shoppers. But they failed to calm it down and were forced to shoot it with a Taser gun, which can discharge 50,000-volts. The electric shock subdued the dog but it later died on the way to the vets, where it was due to be put down.
It is not known why the dog died on the way to the vets and there were no visible injuries when it arrived.
FLORENCE, Ariz. -- A Pinal County sheriff's deputy was fired for allegedly using his Taser on a frog, but now the sheriff's office is being forced to take him back.
CBS 5 News obtained the internal investigation on Deputy Raul Alvarado, who other sheriff's office employees said tortured a frog in August of 2009.
Another deputy told investigators that he saw Alvarado apply his Taser to the frog's back for five seconds and the frog's legs shot straight out. "He's taking it like a champion," Alvarado then reportedly told the other deputy. Alvarado allegedly told a female dispatcher that he planned to take the frog into the desert and perform sexual acts on it.
After the internal investigation was complete, the sheriff's office fired Alvarado but he appealed to the county's merit commission and they ruled that he should get his job back. "Alvarado's polygraph was inconclusive so the county couldn't prove its case," said Joe Robison, chairman of the commission. "We are 100 percent sure he did this. The sheriff wouldn't fire someone, especially for being untruthful, unless he was sure," said PCSO spokesman Tim Gaffney.
The sheriff's office has asked the Pinal County Superior Court to uphold the firing.
In the meantime, the Casa Grande Police Department did a criminal investigation on Alvarado and recommended that prosecutors file charges for felony animal cruelty.
As of now, no charges have been filed against Alvarado.
Thanks to KV, who provided the following information:
Oct 18, 2010, Deuce the Neopolitan mastiff, Corvallis, Wa. Bit officer, tased, died of suffocation (in his regular muzzle) while being transported to Humane Society. A previous injury caused swelling in his throat. First report said he was a pit bull.
July 12, 2010, Apollo the pit bull, Altoona Pa. Also was pepper sprayed. “After attempts to find the dog's owner failed, Cpl Boyles said Sgt. William Gibbons struck one of the dogs with a Taser. Boyles said he assumed that is what killed the animal."
Jan 3, 2010, Hershey the pit bull, Salem, Or. Fighting another pit bull, still fighting after 4 shocks, collapsed after 5th one.
Aug 27, 2009, Peatross’s pit bull, Danville, Va. Fighting pitbulls were tased, one lived, one died immediately. Also pepper sprayed. Catch pole choking was blamed.
June 5, 2007, Muscub the boxer, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Tasered, died en route to SPCA Police thought he was a pit bull.
June 5, 2005, Palfoss's pit bull, Portland, Or. 3 or more shocks. The Oregon State University's veterinary lab performed a necropsy on the dog. A preliminarly report concludes the pit bull died from circulatory collapse but reaches no judgement on whether repeated taser shocks killed it. Police insist that tasers didn't kill the dog; rather, they say it died from "over-excitement" after multiple 50,000-volt zaps. Earlier that week (June 1) Portland had issued tasers to all street police.
Oct 3, 2003, unidentified pit bull, Albany, NY. 30 sec+ in 5 second bursts, dead when tasing ended. Could not be revived with heart compressions.
In a September 2008 letter, entitled "Taser safety", published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Mark Kroll explains to Canadian doctors why dogs are better models for the human heart than pigs are: “The second erroneous implication is that small swine provide a reasonable model with which to measure the risk of electrical induction of ventricular fibrillation in humans. Swine, especially small ones, are extremely sensitive to the electrical induction of ventricular fibrillation. In pigs, the Purkinje fibers cross the entire ventricular wall whereas in dogs and humans they are confined to a very thin endocardial layer. Activation in swine proceeds from the epicardium to the endocardium, whereas it occurs in the reverse direction in dogs and humans. Thus, swine are much more sensitive to external electrical currents. In humans, even if the barbs of an electronic control device are placed directly on the cardiac axis, no effect is captured with echocardiographic monitoring.”
October 21, 2010
Gazette Times
The complaint of a vicious dog at large Monday ended with a pit bull biting one police officer, that officer Tasing the pit bull, and with the dog dying somewhere between its owner’s backyard and the animal shelter.
...Mable Akina said she arrived home Monday to find officers at her door. They told her the dogs were out loose and that they had been alarmed about the aggressive behavior of the big one (Deuce). It was after Akina went to the backyard to check on the dogs that the officers told her that they’d used a Taser (a device that shoots out a temporarily disabling electric shock) — on Deuce. The device is meant to be an alternative to lethal force.
Mable Akina said that both Deuce and the puppy looked fine, however, and she agreed to bring Deuce to the front and put a muzzle on him so that the officers could take him to Heartland Humane Society. That is the normal procedure after an owner is cited in connection with a dog attack.
“When he went into the truck he was fine,” she said. “Just scared.”
An officer later returned to the Akina house to tell them that when the doors to the animal control transport were opened at Heartland’s shelter in south Corvallis, Deuce was dead.
Mable Akina said that the officer suspected that the Tasing might be to blame, but Deuce’s body was transported to Oregon State University for testing to determine a cause of death.
As of Thursday, the pit bull’s body remained at OSU.
“We’re still waiting” to learn the official cause of death, she said
See also a story from April 2009, where Taser International spokesperson Steve Tuttle says: "The Taser has been used on animals with great success, so there must have already been a pre-existing condition in the dog that had nothing to do with the Taser device" - Stray dog's death apparently unrelated to Taser
July 12, 2010
Craig Schaffer, WRTA News Radio
A dog described as an aggressive pit bull was killed over the weekend by Altoona Police. After receiving a call from a neighbor of the dog's owner police found two pit bulls were running loose in the area of Howard Avenue and 1st Street about 6:30 Saturday evening. When the dog’s owner couldn’t be located a police officer used a taser on one of the dogs. That apparently caused the dog’s death. Published reports say the dog's owner, Elbert Feagin, of 100 Howard Avenue, says his dog was killed unnecessarily and only because it was a pit bull.
The matter remains under investigation.
June 12, 2010
by John Yantis, The Arizona Republic
Sluggish sales at Scottsdale-based Taser International have the company targeting a new market for its stun guns: wildlife.
Taser and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are testing the guns on distressed or aggressive wayward animals, including moose, bears and deer. Officials say the devices are successful because animals recover more quickly from an electric shock than the more traditional darts containing narcotics.
But animal-rights activists question the stun guns' safety and say the Tasers cause the animals overwhelming pain. Instead, they argue that loud noises such as horns and whistles can be used to run animals off.
They suggest pepper spray for personal safety and installing fencing or applying pepper-based repellents to keep animals away. Lastly, they say the state should require bear-proof enclosures around restaurant trash bins and make it illegal to feed wildlife.
"In extreme nuisance-wildlife cases, large wild animals (without young) can be live-trapped and relocated," the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said in an e-mail. "The safest and most humane way to deal with unwanted wild animals is to leave them alone. With a little time, they will move on. With a little thought, these issues can be resolved without resorting to high voltage."
Taser is familiar with controversy. For years, it has used an aggressive strategy for fighting product-liability and wrongful-death lawsuits over the use of its law-enforcement stun guns.
A sour economy has the company experiencing lower sales recently because of slow demand for its guns, particularly overseas. In April, Taser reported it lost $492,605, or 1 cent per share, in the fourth quarter on revenue of $23.8 million. Taser attributed the 3 percent decline in revenue to a slowdown in international sales that offset modest increases in the U.S.
Taser CEO Rick Smith said then that the company continues to work on diversifying through new software products, such as its Protector cellphone-monitoring system, which parents can use to see who their kids call or text. The company also recently began offering its first multishot stun gun and a video-recording device for police officers, as well as stun guns for personal safety.
Taser is hopeful the wildlife research that it began with Alaska four years ago will help drive orders in a new area.
"With four years of hard work, this now establishes some really solid research," said Steve Tuttle, a Taser spokesman. "We've never really had an agency of this size formally accept it after testing like this."
Tasers have a range of 35 feet and cost $800.
Local animal-control agencies in the past used the guns sporadically for aggressive dogs, moose and deer. They usually deploy them so they can subdue the animals, harness them and move them to safety.
"You'd be shocked how many deer will jump through windows of homes up in Michigan and Canada," Tuttle said, adding that moose tangled up in fences also present problems in some areas. "Nobody will go near these animals, but if they can control them, they'll use a Taser."
The guns are proving to be a viable option for wildlife managers when dealing with angry and confused animals, said Larry Lewis, an Alaska Fish and Game wildlife technician.
"We're finding there doesn't appear to be any deleterious long-term effects to the animals that are subjected to an electronic-control device if it's done properly," Lewis said.
Last winter, he and a supervisor received a call about a yearling male moose with a galvanized chicken feeder stuck over its head. The animal had put is nose down through the top of the feeder and couldn't see well. The situation was bad enough that Lewis shot the moose with a Taser to knock it down. His boss ran over, pulled the feeder off and checked for injuries. Seeing none, he came back to Lewis, who turned off the stun gun.
"The animal got up and ran off," Lewis said. "We didn't have to use drugs. There's always an inherent risk anytime we dart animals. Some of these drugs are very dangerous to work with."
Other methods that can be used to subdue animals include rubber bullets, pepper spray, bean-bag rounds and regular firearms.
The American Veterinary Medical Association has a formal policy against using Tasers, saying they can be lethal and should not be used on cats or other small animals.
When using tranquilizing guns, a large dose of medication is shot from a long distance into the animals with a .22-caliber shell, and it has to hit a specific spot, said Andrew Hinz, Taser director of technical services. He said there is a 60 percent to 70 percent mortality rate when using the guns with large doses of medication.
By deploying a Taser, wildlife managers are able to subdue the animals for up to 15 seconds, approach them and hand-inject the sedative into a specific location. The result, he said, is less impact on the animal's physiology. Hinz couldn't provide a comparable Taser mortality rate. But he said a Wake Forest University study, funded by the National Institute of Justice, showed a low rate of serious injury with a Taser device compared with other uses of force.
He said big moose and brown bears pay little attention to rubber bullets.
The company is receiving calls from wildlife officials from several states in the Midwest and West, where the stun guns could be useful against black bears and elk. He also expects a market to develop in Canada.
"Even ranchers in Montana, where they have their steers, they're looking at the safety of actually using this device," he said.
Lewis has taken calls from as far away as Africa, Britain and the Yukon Territory.
He recently presented his research to peers who attended a workshop in Alberta on the conflicts between humans and bears.
"I went in there fully expecting to be accosted and run out on a rail over this use," he said. "I was really pleasantly surprised. Even the people that I thought would be totally opposed to it actually embraced it and said, 'We think this is great. If an animal's life is saved, we're 100 percent for it.' "
Lewis and the Alaska state veterinarian carry Tasers full time. A select group of area biologists and conservation staff was recently trained to use them, Lewis said. He added that they may one day be used in animal-handing facilities, including zoos, stockyards and research facilities.
"We look at the electronic-control devices as another option for people to use in the field," he said. "It's another tool on the tool belt, basically. I still carry firearms and still use rubber baton and bean-bag rounds and all these other tools that we use, but Taser is now part of our arsenal."
For Immediate Release:
April 14, 2010
Contact:
Justin Goodman 757-622-7382
Minneapolis -- After learning about inhumane and ineffective Taser experiments that were conducted at Hennepin County Medical Center on methamphetamine-dosed sheep--experiments that were partially funded by Taser International--PETA has fired off a complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) calling for an immediate investigation into the experiments, which the group believes may have violated federal animal protection laws. A review of USDA records has revealed that Hennepin County Medical Center appears not to be licensed to conduct animal experiments on sheep and other regulated animals, as is required by law, and that the experiments apparently did not undergo proper ethical and scientific review. As a result, the experiments could be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act.
"Sheep don't do drugs and don't resist arrest--and they aren't good stand-ins for humans who do," says Kathy Guillermo, vice president of PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department. "Taser is apparently so dead set on proving that stun guns aren't dangerous, it's willing to subject sheep to deadly and irrelevant experiments that may violate the law to do it."
In the study, 16 sheep were restrained, dosed with methamphetamines and shocked with a Taser device for up to 40 seconds at a time. At the end of the study, the animals were killed. The study's authors include Taser's medical director, Jeffrey Ho, and Donald Dawes, a physician who advises Taser. Both of the men own shares in the company.
PETA, medical experts, and the authors of the new study themselves have noted that the results of animal studies on the cardiac effects of Taser shocks do not translate to humans and have frequently contradicted results from human studies. This is largely due to the fundamental biological differences between species and the fact that there is a vast difference between tasering humans on the street and tasering animals in a laboratory. Superior, human-relevant data on the effects of tasering are collected via post-tasering medical monitoring and tests on human volunteers.
April 18, 2009 - 7:39 PM
BY CHRIS McDANIEL, SUN STAFF WRITER
According to Taser International spokesman Steve Tuttel, the dog that died after being tased by a police officer on April 4 was not killed by the Taser.
"Dogs have been used in most of our animal Taser device studies that we conducted in the late ’90s and early 2000s. We continue to use canines and pigs in most of our studies today without any problems at all. Additionally, they are used against animals quite often as a secondary tool to stop them. If a dog has very aggressive, strange or attacking behavior, a Taser can be used."
Tuttel said the device has been used on many different animals with great success.
"It has been used on pitbulls, German shepherds, moose, elk, reindeer, mule deer, crocodiles and even Bengal tigers - really just a plethora of animals."
The company cited one of these studies as evidence of the product's safety.
According to them, in a study in 1996, Dr. Robert Stratbucker shocked an anaesthetized pig 48 times with an older lower-powered Taser and found that it did not kill the pig.
They said in a later study at the University of Missouri, he and another researcher, Wayne McDaniel, shocked five dogs 236 times in the chest area with no episodes of death. McDaniel later repeated the study on 10 anesthetized pigs and determined the device could be used safely even at 15 times its standard power.
Tuttel said the labrador must have been sick to begin with. "The Taser has been used on animals with great success, so there must have already been a pre-existing condition in the dog that had nothing to do with the Taser device."
The dog had been a stray and had bitten a Yuma police officer the preceding week. It was cornered and tased with a five-second burst after the police officer and an animal control officer failed to restrain the dog using conventional methods. It later died in captivity.
Meanwhile, over in Pennsylvania, an emu was tasered and died earlier this month.
September 25, 2008
By STEPHANIE RICE, THE COLUMBIAN
CAMAS -- Of all the drunk, belligerent or otherwise threatening subjects to meet the wrong end of a police Taser, the one stunned Tuesday in Camas stands out for his name alone.
There it is, on the front page of Clark County sheriff's office report 08-14151:
LAST NAME: EMU.
FIRST NAME: BIG.
MIDDLE NAME: BIRD.
Before this story goes further, let one thing be clear: The emu survived, and on Wednesday was showing no ill effects of having his feathers ruffled.
"He recovered," said owner Daniel Garrison. "He's up and running around now."
The emu tale began Saturday, when Garrison reported his big bird missing from his home in the 200 block of Southeast Everett Road. The day before, he and his wife, Svetlana, had sold two other emus and three llamas, leaving the emu by himself.
Lonely, he escaped his pen to search for his friends.
Garrison, who had recently sprained his ankle, wasn't feeling up for a bird hunt and assumed the emu would be home by Saturday morning. Wrong.
On Tuesday afternoon, drivers along the 700 block of Everett Road, near Grace Foursquare Church, reported a big bird was slowing traffic and pecking vehicles.
Some reports were exaggerated, with one caller describing the emu as a 7-feet-tall, 350-pound ostrich.
The emu, Garrison said, is actually 5 feet tall and 110 pounds. And unlike ostriches, emus don't have wings. But like ostriches, they run fast.
Also -- and this is what prompted use of the Taser -- they can rip people apart with their feet.
Also Tuesday afternoon, Kay Watson was at her home, which is in the middle of 7 acres on 271st Avenue, a private road east of Camas High School.
The retired teacher was cleaning her carpets when she glanced out at her patio and "saw something fluffy go by."
She thought it was a weird sighting, but shrugged it off because she has seen plenty of animals on her property.
Later, she left her home to run an errand and saw the emu in her field. Students had just been let out for the day at the high school, and students at Lacamas Heights Elementary School would be released next. She didn't want the emu to run up on Southeast 15th Street and tie up traffic or start chasing children.
She called her neighbor and asked him to call animal control.
Officers from the Camas Police Department and the sheriff's office responded instead. They called Garrison to let him know his emu had been found, and he showed up, too.
Watson said that before Garrison arrived, the officers were keeping their distance from the bird as they figured out what to do. The concern was the bird's big feet.
Watson said she remembered hearing once at the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup that a toe on each foot has a long talon for fighting, and could rip people apart.
Once Garrison arrived, a plan was hatched.
Deputy Gregory Chaney Tasered the emu, while Garrison bound the bird's feet.
Sergeant James Eastman kept his rifle on the bird, just in case.
Garrison took his emu home. He understands why people were afraid of his emu's feet, and said he was fine with the use of the Taser.
"They are dangerous (birds)," he said. "They've ripped three pairs of jeans right off my body."
September 3, 2008]
The Associated Press
NEW STANTON, Pa.—State police say they had to use a Taser on an emu, which died, because the flightless bird presented a danger on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Pittsburgh. Sgt. Anthony DeLuca says the bird created a backlog and nearly caused vehicles to crash into each other as it ran along the eastbound lanes Monday near the New Stanton exit, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
DeLuca says officers tried for two hours to capture the 4-foot-tall bird—even attempting to lasso it—but weren't successful. They opted for a Taser rather than using a gun, but the emu fell to the ground after it was shocked and died.
DeLuca says the emu didn't belong to any nearby farmers. Police say it may have escaped from a truck.
May 6, 2008
By Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times
Orange County sheriff's officials have found no evidence to prove that deputies used a Taser electric stun weapon on a stray cat at the Theo Lacy jail in Orange, a spokesman said today.
Last month, the department disclosed that it was investigating inmate reports that deputies had shocked a cat with a Taser and that the decomposed carcass of a cat was found on the jail grounds.
A necropsy was inconclusive as to whether the dead cat had been shot with a Taser, said department spokesman John McDonald.
"We were unable to determine if there was any connection between the dead cat and the reported Taser use," McDonald said.
The investigation concluded that deputies may have pulled the trigger of the Taser, without firing the darts through which electric current is transmitted into targets. The test-firing made a loud noise that may have spooked a nearby cat, causing it to run away, department sources said.
Results of the investigation have been turned over to Mike Gennaco, who is serving as an internal affairs consultant for acting Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson. Gennaco is chief attorney for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office of Independent Review.
Two newly hired deputies who had been assigned to Theo Lacy were discharged from the department after the investigation began, but there was no indication that their termination was related to horseplay with the Taser.
Deputies Joseph E. Mirander and Duy X. Tran each ended their employment with the Sheriff's Department on April 17, county personnel records show. Both had been assigned to Theo Lacy.
April 15, 2008
Stuart Pfeifer, LA Times
The Orange County Sheriff's Department has been under fire recently for its treatment of jail inmates, including the death this month of a man who was Tasered in his Santa Ana jail cell.
But there is a new alleged victim: a cat. The department is investigating a report that deputies used a Taser electric stun weapon on a cat at Theo Lacy jail, a department spokesman said today. A cat’s corpse was later found on the jail grounds in Orange.
The investigation comes one week after the release of grand jury transcripts that showed Theo Lacy deputies allowed inmates to discipline each other while guards watched television, played video games and exchanged cellphone text messages.
Sheriff’s officials were conducting a necropsy today to determine whether the dead cat was shocked with a Taser, said sheriff’s spokesman John McDonald. An unidentified person told sheriff’s officials that deputies used the Taser on the cat "a couple of weeks ago," McDonald said.
"We’ll know more this afternoon, after the necropsy is completed. This cat may not have had anything to do with the report," McDonald said. "This isn’t being taken lightly. This is a pretty serious matter."
January 30, 2008
CBC News
Taser stun guns may not be as safe as their manufacturer claims, according to a study carried out by Chicago researchers, CBC News has learned.
The team of doctors and scientists at the trauma centre in Chicago's Cook County hospital stunned 11 pigs with Taser guns in 2006, hitting their chests with 40-second jolts of electricity, pausing for 10 to 15 seconds, then hitting them for 40 more seconds.
When the jolts ended, every animal was left with heart rhythm problems, the researchers said. Two of the animals died from cardiac arrest, one three minutes after receiving a shock.
The findings call into question safety claims made by Taser International, the Arizona company that makes the stun guns, which are used by dozens of police departments across Canada.
According to Taser International's website, "independent medical and scientific experts have determined Taser devices to be among the safest use-of-force options available."
Taser director Mark Kroll has also published a paper called Safety of Taser Electronic Devices, in which he says when electricity kills, it is an immediate death that occurs within four seconds because electricity can't linger in a living being's body "like a poison."
But Bob Walker, one of the lead researchers on the Chicago study, said the fact that one of the pigs died three minutes after being stunned is significant.
"It says that the effect of the Taser shot can last beyond the time when it's being delivered," he said. "So, after the Taser shock ends, there can still be effects that can be evoked and you can still see cardiac effects."
Officers need to ask questions: researcher
Dr. Andrew Dennis, a trauma surgeon and ex-police officer who worked on the study, said if Tasers can affect pigs, more research needs to be done to study how safe the stun guns are. In the meantime, police should question when, and on whom, they use the devices, he said.
"The officers need to question themselves and ask themselves, 'Is this the appropriate situation for this device?'" Dennis said. "They need to have the understanding that this is not a truly benign device.
"What I would not want to see is an individual police officer thinking that this device can used with impunity, because I think there are certain risks to this device."
Stun gun safety was called into question after Robert Dziekanski, a 40-year-old Polish man, died at Vancouver International Airport after being shocked with a Taser by police on Oct. 14, 2007. Dziekanski's death renewed calls for a moratorium on Taser use.
'The human studies are clearly much more relevant'
Other Taser studies have been done on pigs and humans in the past — some finding medical problems with the stun guns, and others not — but the Chicago researchers said they wanted to do a study where subjects were exposed to longer bouts of the guns' electrical currents.
Because the researchers opted for 40-second jolts, their ethics board wouldn't allow them to use human subjects.
Rick Smith, the CEO of Taser International, doesn't think much can be concluded from the Chicago study because it focused on pigs that weigh less than 100 pounds and have a very different physiology from humans. Smith said studies done on humans have shown Tasers don't pose a serious health threat. "The human studies are clearly much more relevant to policy-makers, and to people that are interested in the science of how Tasers affect people," he said.
Dr. Jeffrey Ho, a researcher who has studied stun guns in the past, but was not involved in the Chicago study, stressed that the guns may not have the same effect on people as they did on the pigs in Chicago. "I think animals are good surrogates for research models in some situations," said Ho, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Minnesota. "In my modelling, I prefer to use humans."
However, pig studies have been used as evidence in arguments for and against stun guns in the past. Even the Taser International website points to studies on pigs in which the outcomes suggest the stun guns aren't a serious safety risk.
August 29, 2007
Daphne Larkin, Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Vermont
Police said they did not know why the dog died but it was shocked by the device more than once, they said. The first shock apparently wasn't effective to stop the dog so it was shocked more than once and the dog "stopped breathing."
A police spokesperson said police do not know if the dog had a medical condition that contributed to its death. "In this particular case with the dog, (Tasing) turned out to be lethal, and there wasn't any type of autopsy so we don't know why (the dog) died," he said.
They'd better do some toxicology testing on the poor dog to see if he was hopped up on drugs!
See the archived map for the period February 2009 to February 2010 here.
