Death by Taser: The Killer Alternative to Guns

By Silja J.A. Talvi, In These Times. Posted November 18, 2006.

Editor's note: This article is especially relevant given the recent unwarranted and brutal taser attack on a UCLA student. The video to the right is the taped recording of the attack this week.

Taser International Inc. maintains that its stun-guns are "changing the world and saving lives everyday." There is no question that they changed Jack Wilson's life. On Aug. 4, in Lafayette, Colo., policemen on a stakeout approached Jack's son Ryan as he entered a field of a dozen young marijuana plants. When Ryan took off running, officer John Harris pursued the 22-year-old for a half-mile and then shot him once with an X-26 Taser. Ryan fell to the ground and began to convulse. The officer attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Ryan died.

According to his family and friends, Ryan was in very good physical shape. The county coroner found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his system and ruled that Ryan's death could be attributed to the Taser shock, physical exertion from the chase and the fact that one of his heart arteries was unusually small.

In October, an internal investigation cleared Officer Harris of any wrongdoing and concluded that he had used appropriate force.

Wilson says that while his son had had brushes with the law as a juvenile and struggled financially, he was a gentle and sensitive young man who always looked out for his disabled younger brother's welfare, and was trying to better his job prospects by becoming a plumber's apprentice.

"Ryan was not a defiant kid," says his father. "I don't understand why the cop would chase him for a half-mile, and then 'Tase' him while he had an elevated heart rate. If [the officer] hadn't done that, we know that he would still be alive today."

Ryan is one of nearly 200 people who have died in the last five years after being shot by a Taser stun gun. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would review these deaths.

Over the same period, Taser has developed a near-monopoly in the market for non-lethal weaponry. Increasingly, law enforcement officials use such weapons to subdue society's most vulnerable members: prisoners, drug addicts and the mentally ill, along with "passive resisters," like the protesters demonstrating against Florida Governor Jeb Bush's attendance of a Rick Santorum fundraiser in Pittsburgh on Oct. 9.

Taser has built this monopoly through influence peddling, savvy public relations and by hiring former law enforcement and military officers -- including one-time Homeland Security chief hopeful, Bernard Kerik. And now that questions are being raised about the safety of Taser weaponry, the company is fighting back with legal and marketing campaigns.

Birth of a Taser

In 1974, a NASA scientist named Jack Cover invented the first stun gun, which he named the TASER, or "Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle," after Tom Swift, a fictional young inventor who was the hero of a series of early 20th century adventure novels. Because it relied on gunpowder, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms classified Tasers as registered firearms.

That changed in the early '90s. According to Taser's corporate creation story, co-founder Rick Smith became interested in the device after friends of his "were brutally murdered by an angry motorist." Smith contacted Cover in the hopes of bringing the Taser as a self-defense weapon to a larger market. In 1993, with money from Smith's brother Tom, they created Air Taser Inc., which would later become Taser International Inc. When Tasers were re-engineered to work with a nitrogen propellant rather than gunpowder, the weapon was no longer categorized as a firearm. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department adopted the guns, but they were not widely embraced by other departments.

Taser's fortunes improved in 1998, after the company embarked on a new development program, named "Project Stealth." The goal was to streamline stun gun design and deliver enough voltage to stop "extremely combative, violent individuals," especially those who couldn't be controlled by non-lethal chemicals like mace.

Out of Project Stealth, the Advanced Taser was born. When the weapon premiered in 2000 -- a model eventually redesigned as the M-26 -- the company brought on a cadre of active and retired military and law enforcement personnel to vouch for the weapon's efficacy. The new spokespersons ranged from Arizona SWAT members to a former Chief Instructor of hand-to-hand combat for the U.S. Marine Corps.

Taser began to showcase the Advanced Taser at technology-related conventions throughout North America and Europe, billing it as a non-lethal weapon that could take down even the toughest adversary. Soon to be among those "dangerous" opponents were the protesters assembling in Philadelphia for the 2000 Republican National Convention.

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Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times. Her work appears in the anthology, "Prison Nation" (Routledge, 2003).

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