Rules need to catch up with rising Taser use

[struggle4progress]

By Palm Beach Post Editorial
HASH(0x5e5e78)
Saturday, February 26, 2005

<snip> That death, and three others in South Florida that involved Tasers, have prompted deserved scrutiny of the weapons that many had assumed were less than lethal. Elsewhere, a 55-year-old Chicago man died after police Tasered him; a 14-year-old boy in a group home went into cardiac arrest after being Tasered; and police used a Taser on a 75-year-old woman who became distraught while visiting a Rock Hill, S.C., nursing home. <snip>

Irresponsibly, the Arizona-based manufacturer offers no guidelines on using the weapon, leaving to police such decisions as "reasonableness, community standards and the totality of the circumstances." Those are complicated by factors as varied as age, heart condition, medications, pregnancy and unknowns.

A Palm Beach Post survey found that one written policy in Palm Beach County cautions against Tasering a snake or an alligator, two warn against zapping the same person repeatedly during a single incident, and none offers specific guidance regarding an unruly elderly person. Understandably feeling a need to do something, the state House and Senate are considering legislation to bar the use of Tasers against children on school property. That hardly would address the case of the Miami-Dade County police officer who used a Taser to subdue a 12-year-old girl who was playing hooky and ran from police. <snip>

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/02/26/a12a_taseredit_0226.html