| Fun With Tasers
Here's my question: If Saddam Hussein's use of applying live electrodes to prisoners in Abu Ghraib was torture, and the suggestion to prisoners by US guards at Abu Ghraib that they might run electricity through cold electrodes attached to their bodies to create feelings of fear was torture, what does that say about Tasering someone with 50,000 volts?
Having read Digby and Pam Spaulding for a long time, I know that there are a significant number of cases where police tasered someone who was otherwise youngish and healthy and they either died immediately or went into shock immediately and then died. A man in Ukiah, CA died just this week after being tasered twice.
Thank goodness it didn't come to that when a school resource officer broke up a fight between two 14 year old girls with a Taser. But really? It's okay with everyone that 14 year olds can be tortured for fighting with each other. Would it be okay if that school resource officer had been thwacking at them with a police baton?
This doesn't even begin to touch on the horror of using Tasers against disoriented, mentally ill people being uncooperative but not posing a threat. The worst case being that of a mentally ill man whose mother called police to help get her son under control after he responded badly to medication. Police used a Taser to attempt to subdue the man while he was on a fire escape and he fell to his death. The officer who ordered the tasering was so distraught he killed himself - it probably never occurred to him that this (marketed as) non-lethal device could have resulted in the death of an innocent person, making for two families devastated by a rapacious marketing lie.
Not that Tasers usually get listed as a cause of death anymore. No. Because coroners around the country are on notice that Taser will sue you to remove the name of their product from death certificates and might win.
Or what about the tasered grandmother at the traffic stop:
A 72-year-old Texas woman who was Tasered during a traffic stop when she dared a deputy constable to use the stun gun said Tuesday that if she got pulled over again she would say nothing.
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Kathryn Winkfein acknowledged that she lost her temper during the May 11 confrontation and that if she had to do it over, "I would just not say anything, not react." ...
According to the article, an internal review concluded that the officer's conduct was fine. Since when is 'but they dared me' an excuse for otherwise stupid behavior? You can't even get away with that when you're 11.
So, get this: police officers are apparently within their rights to torture people who pose no physical threat if they're dared or mouthed off to. This has been true in practice towards the minority and protest-attending populations of the country for some time, often with much harsher force. Yet now that it's just torture, it can be administered to sassy 72 year old women pulled over for going 15 mph over the speed limit.
Is this the way a police force should function in a democratic society? Is it all right that some of them act like mad dogs who can't resist abusing their power, any power, when people are other than completely submissive and deferrent, or that the public is taught to think of them that way? Is it all right that others of them buy the line their department heads and the manufacturers tell them, that there's no way they could hurt anyone with these torture devices, only to be subjected to terrible anguish when they inadvertently discover they've been lied to? Is sanctioning randomly administered torture a good way to promote a trusting relationship between law enforcement and the public that serves the goal of keeping the peace and ensuring public safety?
To the extent police forces are told that it's appropriate to brutalize people in their custody or who may not have even done something warranting arrest, that it's just the price that has to be paid to keep the public safe in what can't be that cheerful of a job, we all share culpability for the results. They're asked to do things most people wouldn't want to be subjected to and it's partly up to the rest of us to set bright lines around things like torture, brutality, treatment of prisoners and support for constitutional principles that leave the determination of guilt and punishment in the hands of the judiciary.
And while I hope more law enforcement agencies will follow in the footsteps of the Sheriff who just said no to issuing weapons that can unpredictably kill people, I do wish they'd do so because it's torture. And torture is wrong.
You Will Comply
Now, on to the coming attractions in bulk torture.
Following on the heels of the use of "louder than bombs" sonic cannons on crowds at the Pittsburgh G-20 protests, was the story that a pain compliance burn weapon that's been under development by the military might be handed over for police to use in crowd control situations. It's supposed to create an intense, overwhelming sensation of having your skin burned as if held in an open flame, without creating permanent damage.
Is making someone feel as though they're standing in an open flame torture? Is that an appropriate punishment for someone standing on the street in a manner that annoys police? If a protestor dares police to use a pain compliance burn weapon, like our 72 year old speed demon did, would that legitimize torturing them and everyone in their vicinity?
Susie Madrak has been following burn weapon story for a while, from back when initial tests showed that it could cause burns from zippers and metal buttons, as well as other problems.
A 60 Minutes report on this infrared pain ray talked about some of the early military tests. If you use it properly, there are very few burns. If you test it with people facing away from the device, no one gets eye damage or has their contacts melted onto their retinas. What could go wrong with a device like that aimed at a large crowd, aside from the potential to cause a deadly panic and stampede?
Also, does your answer to the 'is this burning sensation device torture' question change if there's a risk of injury?
Now that there's a portable, handheld version, it may go mainstream and there are questions to be asked about the ethics of the situation:
"I'd like to know why they want another advanced pain compliance weapon like this," says Steve Wright, non-lethal weapons analyst at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. "Persuading by pain rather than brain - through conversation - has led to push-button torture in the past. If it leaves no mark on the skin how will anyone prove it's been abused?"
Let's hear it for calling this movement towards non-lethal weapons for what it is: an invitation to officially sanctioned mass torture. More than torture, it's often punishment without any conviction in a court of law for what may not even have been an offense worthy of an arrest.
Considering how safe and responsible Taser use has been in this country, what could possibly go wrong? |
