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Electric shock “non-lethal” weapons have become popular in law
enforcement circles, with the most popular - the Taser - leading the
way. It’s even available in pretty pink as a consumer product bought at house parties.
But
last Friday the Taser juggernaut hit its first speed bump. A jury in
the US District Court for Northern California held Taser International
responsible for the 2005 death of Robert Heston who had been repeatedly
electric shocked by Taser-wielding police officers in Salinas,
California - awarding his family $6.2 million in damages.
The
family’s attorney called it a “landmark decision” as it’s the first
time in more than 60 cases that Taser has lost such a lawsuit. At issue
in this case was the fact that Taser had allegedly not informed the
police of the risks of using multiple shocks to subdue somebody. The
man in question was thought to have been on methamphetamine and the
officers gave him stun blast after stun blast. Bloomberg’s court report
is here.
“The
plaintiffs alleged that the muscle contractions associated with an
extended simultaneous discharge from the three Tasers it took to subdue
Mr. Heston, together with his methamphetamine intoxication and
protracted violent activity, contributed to metabolic stress that
ultimately lead to the death,” Taser International said in statement.
The company, whose stock price plunged on the news, plans to appeal.
This risk of multiple shocks should surprise no-one. New Scientist
readers will know that we have long highlighted the risks of such
abuse. Graham Cooper, head of the UK’s Defence Sub-committee on the
Medical Implications of Less-Lethal Weapons, told us: “If they have to shock somebody five or six times, there is something fundamentally wrong with their approach”.
Doug
Klint, vice president and general counsel for Taser International, says
Heston’s death fits “the well established symptom pattern for
methamphetamine intoxication and associated excited delirium.” This is
always Taser’s mantra in such cases: that the drugs somebody had taken
had so compromised their heart that they would have died anyway. But
that’s based on tests on animal (guinea pigs, pigs and sheep) tissue in
vitro - not even live animals.
There is very little evidence
that excited delirium actually exists - it only ever comes up in cases
when the police are involved in trying to restrain somebody and is
often cited in deaths-in-custody cases. Wikipedia has a good summary of the issues from all sides.
Right
now, Taser is set to branch off into new fields - with a Taser
landmine, a robot equipped with stunguns (a joint venture with iRobot)
and an electric-shock projectile that’s fired from a shotgun.
The
firm’s entry into these new markets will now depend on it presenting a
convincing body of research that shows people die from “excited
delirium” when they have not been tased. Because the last time I
looked, being out of your head on drugs did not carry a death sentence.
Paul Marks, technology correspondent , New Scientist
