I received an email from Dan Walter about a petition he is circulating to put an end to Johns Hopkins endorsement of the Taser. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore acts as a paid adviser to this scandal-plagued company: “Dr. Hugh Calkins, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Arrhythmia Service at Johns Hopkins Hospital, concluded,’I have had an opportunity to review the studies and the results of the studies confirm the general safety of the TASER devices…”

The Johns Hopkins name adds some pretty heavy weight to the “We heart Tasers” crowd.  Cha-ching. When functioning properly, meaning that they don’t kill the victim, they have been called a form of torture by a United Nations committee.  When things don’t work as well and the victim dies, they are tantamount to a death penalty.  Is this really the sort of thing that Johns Hopkins should put its name to for a wad of cash?  If you think not, then you might want to sign Dan’s petition.

As any reader here knows, I’ve had some issues with the taser, and with those taser-lovers who promote the idea that the taser is the cure-all for law enforcement.  But, that doesn’t mean that I support the elimination of tasers from the law enforcement arsenal.  Sorry to those who will find this shocking, but let me explain.

There is no doubt in my mind that a taser is hardly as safe as its proponents (and those who suck hard on the teet of Taser International, right Bernie Kerik?) would claim.  It can, and does, result in death at times, an unwarranted and inexcusable result.

But I’ve spent too many years seeing clients die at the hands of police to be so simple in my view.  My biggest problem with tasers is their inappropriate use by police.  They have become the easy substitute for doing their job, the weapon of choice to show citizens who’s the boss.  They are the billy club, the brass knuckles, the rubber hose.  The issue is the use of tasers as a show of force when there is no lawful or rational reason to use force at all. 

It’s just too damn easy to taser someone rather than do their job.  Cops are supposed to use their voice and reason to diffuse a situation and avoid force and violence.  Tasers change that, since they can zap anybody who annoys them with seeming impunity.  And cops are annoyed by pretty much everybody who doesn’t bow and scrape.  This is what’s wrong with tasers.  Toleration of this improper use must stop.  Tasers are still weapons, and no improper use of force should be tolerable to any civilized people.  Or cops for that matter.

But here’s the rub.  I would still prefer that a cop zap a person with a taser than shoot them in the head with a 9mm bullet.  The chance of surviving the taser is far, far greater.  And I am very partial to people surviving their encounters with police.  Without the taser (or some other not-always-lethal alternative), I fear that cops will go back to the old days when they pulled out their handgun first and asked questions later.  Remember, the old “furtive gesture” excuse.  Cops can always come up with an explanation for their killing someone that can’t be refuted by pulling out one of those great old police saws about conduct that no one but them ever sees.

If there was a safer way, a truly non-lethal weapon, that would allow people to survive their police encounter, I would lead the march against tasers.  They are hardly safe, and it is outrageous that some Johns Hopkins doc would prostitute himself to say so.  But they remain a better alternative than a Glock.  And that’s the best I can say about tasers.