UPDATED: Don't tase me, bro! U.N.-cited torture tool coming to Philadelphia!
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UPDATED: Don't tase me, bro! U.N.-cited torture tool coming to Philadelphia!
The Taser X26 is...Torture Tested, Torture Approved!
TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America.
"The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,'' the UN's Committee against Torture said.
"In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events,'' the committee of 10 experts said.
And so now the cash-strapped city is spending on the order of a million bucks or so to bring them to the streets of Philadelphia! This means that after blogging frequently about torture over the last five years, it's now a local issue. That's whacked -- the thing next you'll be telling me is that the Inquirer is hiring John Yoo for its op-ed page...oh yeah, right. Anyway, here's the actual news -- notice the irony here that Obama-backed stimulus dollars (get it, "stimulus"!) may have paid for the purchase:
Taser International, Scottsdale, Ariz., says the Philadelphia Police Department last month agreed to buy 1,000 of its Advanced Taser X26 Electronic Control Devices for shocking suspects into submission. Plus accessories.
The X26, pictured here, "can penetrate up to two cumulative inches of clothing," says Taser. "Philadelphia now has 1,200 X26 units," plus over 100 larger, older M26s, Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle told me.
Philadelphia's order was unusually large, he added, compared to recent purchases by Chicago and other big cities. "When we see bulk orders, this could have come from stimulus funding or grant money."
Advocates of Tasers insist they they're humane, in the sense that they allow to cops to subdue unmanageable or threatening suspects without using lethal force. In some cases that happens, but in other cases Tasers are used to restrain people who clearly could have been arrested using more conventional means, and in a few of those cases death or serious injuries have occurred. Here's what happened in the reality-based world, in Houston, when police use of Tasers increased:
Officers have used their Tasers more than 1,000 times in the past two years, but in 95 percent of those cases they were not used to defuse situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly would have been justified.
Instead, more than half of the Taser incidents escalated from relatively common police calls, such as traffic stops, disturbance and nuisance complaints, and reports of suspicious people.
In more than 350 cases, no crime was committed. No person was charged or the case was dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by judges and juries, according to the Houston Chronicle's analysis of the first 900 police Taser incidents, which occurred between December 2004 and August 2006.
So I guess this means you're going to be hearing this phrase -- "excited delerium" -- a lot more around Philadelphia in the months ahead. It's also a little disturbing that the city spends $1 million on such a controversial item, and the citizens learn about it not from our elected officials but through a business news release from Taser International. At least we know the devices are handled in a department run by Commissioner Charles Ramsey and its not like Ramsey has a problem with human rights issues, unless you're one of those crazies who thinks there's a problem with allegedly ordering the mass arrest of hundreds at a park protest site, including scores of innocent bystanders, after declaring that "we're going to lock them and teach them a lesson."
UPDATE: The purchase, which apparently is being paid for by "grants," was buried down deep in an Inquirer article on Nov. 1 with this riveting headline: "Phila. police sharpen their ability to intervene nonlethally."
Next week Will will equate the police using water pistols to water boarding. You are so clueless Will and all your lackey backers it is comical. You would not be able to last 2 minutes in a cops life in North Philly at 10:30 PM without wetting your pants over and over again. But you think you could do a cops job better - then I say go for it big guy. Get in the middle of 9th and diamond one night and talk nice to people and see where that gets you. Just tell them to vacate the corners and see what kind of reception you get.— reddog44- Why does wilbur so flagrantly evade discussing the incompetent,inept and totally unqualified empty suit living in the White House? THis blog has become a joke for ignoring the fact that GITMO IS STILL OPEN, unemployment has DOUBLED under Hussein, the Democrats are bankrupting our GRANDCHILDREN, has given INTERPOL free reign to surveil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!in this country....Did you know that lefties? YOur man has done what Bush never did, gave a FOREIGN police service spying capabilities ON YOU!!!!!!!!! Where is the ACLU when you need them?— WriteWinger
- I'm all for the cops no longer using tasers - I have no problem with them shooting someone that puts their safety or the safety of others at risk. Knowing that many police officers dread the day they have to pull the trigger, the least we can do is let them know we back them up if such a situation arises.— mikegdj
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I was wondering after watching this video would if the U.N. has sanctioned my knife set. http://www.annoy.com/sectionless/doc.html?DocumentID=100614— bird11- Jawsoflife, perhaps I could use your brain, since it doesn't seem to be in use in your head. Somehow you completely missed my point about using a non-lethal tool to subdue criminals/suspects and ranted off wildly on whatever your meth-soaked liberal brain was thinking of at the moment.— IggleFan68
- The issue here isn't the tool, it's the police. The lefties don't LIKE the police, much in the same way as they don't like the military. They feel that the police abuse their authority and reign havoc over the general citizenry. And they are right... in very limited and specific cases. Our police forces occasionally hire bad eggs and cover up their own wrong doing. This is, of course, a completely separate issue from whether the police should have a non-lethal tool available for subduing suspected criminals. With the proper training and use, a tazer is an excellent tool in the hands of professional law enforcement.— IggleFan68
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- It is a red herring to produce statistics demonstrating that they have been misused to support the notion that they are not effective. Whether law enforcement is going to abuse its authority has nothing to do with whether non-deadly force is an attractive alternative. As has been said already, abuse of this weapon is preferable to the pistol. This is pure law enforcement baiting at its finest.— Mills
The tasers might be for the teachers at that s.philly high school.
I am in favor of police carrrying a folding time-out chair. When a suspect gets unruly, they can give the suspect a time-out, and make them sit in the chair. 5 minutes in time-out usually is enough to make anyone calm down. Unless they are throwing a real hissy fit, in which case you might need a strap to keep them in the time-out chair, but I'm not sure about what the UN says about strapping suspects into the time out chair. Depends on the materials the strap is made out of.— Mr. Smith- Comment removed.
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