NationStates Jolt Archive

The UN has declared that tasers are a form of torture.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22814674-5001028,00.html?from=public_rss

"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.

Well, I think most people could've figured this one out.

It remains that I'd much rather be tased by the police than shot by the police.

How about someone tasered Yoko Ono? Would that be considered torture?

Andrew Meyer will sing Rule Britannia now.

Then lower the intensity of the taser if it is so excruciating. It is a very effective tool from what I have seen. If you resist arrest, it's virtually impossible to avoid pain and discomfort of some sort, a taser can turn what may be a 10 minute scrap into a 30 second procedure before cuffing the offender. I have even seen videos of tasers saving officers lives where they would otherwise likely get beaten to death.

How about someone tasered Yoko Ono? Would that be considered torture?

If I was the Secretary-General of the UN, I'd make it illegal to listen to and/or look at Yoko Ono.

tasers are torture in the same way that pepperspray is. it causes pain and incapitation, which is its job. Can it be used as a tool of torture? yes. should we ban it because of it? no. All I wonder is how long before we forbid cops to harm people in anyway, and give swat teams squirtguns?

Bit cruel to lumber the two together, imo.

Tasers have caused nothing like the widespread harm :p

Ok. Let's just shoot the uncooperatives with bullets. As long as you shoot them in the head, there isn't any pain.

Would the UN like that more?

They'd probably find some way to blast it. "Instant loss of life is torture." Probably something like that.

More like "Killing is Murder".

Ok. Let's just shoot the uncooperatives with bullets. As long as you shoot them in the head, there isn't any pain.

Would the UN like that more?

They'd probably find some way to blast it. "Instant loss of life is torture." Probably something like that.

I don't get the thread title...:confused:

I don't get the thread title...:confused:

Haha! Ahh..good one.

I don't get the thread title...:confused:

You've never listened to a Yoko Ono song? (Even on accident) She seems to think ses a better muscian then her (late) Husband.

I don't get the thread title...:confused:

It's saying that Tasers join the "methods of torture" category that Yoko Ono's music is already in

I don't get the thread title...:confused:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

Epic Win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

You should be banned for posting something that offensive and obscene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN VIEWING THIS! Far to obscene for anyone!

I have no doubt that we'll all come up with a very convincing justification for allowing cops to continue to tase people to death (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/taser-stun-gun-linked-to-fourth-canadian-death/2007/11/25/1195975865991.html). I mean...it's hardly the most outrageous thing some of you have justified over the years.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v711/sinuhue/story.jpg

Fourth Taser gun death in Canada: police

16 hours ago

VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) — Another man died in Canada Saturday after police used a Taser stun gun, becoming the fourth person to fall victim to the electrical pistol, the police said.

Robert Knipstrom, 36, died in a British Colombia hospital five days after an altercation with police, in which officers used a Taser gun to subdue him, they said.

The incident occurred last Monday in a shopping mall in the town of Chilliwack.

In October, Robert Dziekanski, 40, died after being shocked repeatedly by policemen with a Taser gun only 60 seconds after they first approached him at the Vancouver airport in western Canada.

A bystander's video released last week showed the four officers then piled on top of the distraught traveler as he lay writhing and screaming in pain on the floor, and falling still within minutes.

Days later, a Montreal man died in hospital after being shocked by police with a stun gun, touted as a safer alternative to firearms. Shortly afterwards another man died in halifax in Nova Scotia after a Taser was used on him.

In the wake of these fatalities, Amnesty International urged authorities to suspend the use of Tasers, saying it had documented 16 prior deaths in Canada that raise "serious questions about the health risks involved in electro-shock weapons."

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary heeded the call, suspending the use of Tasers in the Atlantic island province.

British Columbia province announced a public inquiry into Dziekanski's death. The coroner, the federal police homicide team, Canada's national police complaint's commissioner also launched independent probes of his death.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iQp9AiPFhnRBQzgeSh2Yn4ZNvJBQ

different one (Novernmber 15)
An amateur cameraman has released footage of the death of a man tasered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Vancouver International Airport.

Cameraman Paul Pritchard filmed Pole Robert Dziekanski,40, in a "clearly agitated" state on 14 October in a "secure area outside the Canada Customs exit". At the start of the 10 minute film Dziekanski, who had arrived hours before* to visit his mother, can be seen "taking office chairs and putting them in front of the security doors", as CBC News explains. He then "picks up a small table, which he holds, while a woman in the arrivals lounge calmly speaks to him in apparent effort to calm him down".

Dziekanski then "picks up a computer and throws it to the ground". Three airport personnel arrive and "block the exit from the secure area, but Dziekanski retreats inside and does not threaten them".

Video still showing Robert Dziekanski hit by a shot from an RCMP TaserFour RCMP officers arrive shortly after and roughly 25 seconds later, "there is a loud crack that sounds like a Taser shot, followed by Dziekanski screaming and convulsing as he stumbles and falls to the floor" (see pic).

CBC News continues: "Another loud crack can be heard as an officer appears to fire one more Taser shot into Dziekanski. As the officers kneel on top of Dziekanski and handcuff him, he continues to scream and convulse on the floor. One officer is heard to say, 'Hit him again. Hit him again', and there is another loud cracking sound."

As the video ends, officers "appear to be checking his condition and one officer is heard to say, 'code red'". An ambulance team arrived a few minutes later, but "their efforts to revive Dziekanski were unsuccessful and he was declared dead".

Pritchard gave police his footage "on a promise that they would return it within 48 hours". However, the next day, they told him "they would not be returning the recording as promised". He then hired a lawyer to recover the film, which police eventually returned to him on Wednesday.

Pritchard claims he was provoked into action because he "feared a coverup by police". RCMP's Cpl Dale Carr said police "kept the video longer than they anticipated in order to protect the integrity of the police investigation while they interviewed witnesses".

Police informed of tasered man's psychiatric illness - widow

1 day ago

HALIFAX - A Nova Scotia man with chronic psychiatric problems that at times fuelled a violent streak should have received special treatment for his illness, rather than being placed in a correctional facility where he later died, family and mental health experts said Friday.

Howard Hyde, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his 20s, died Thursday morning in a Halifax-area jail, about 30 hours after he was shocked with a Taser in a violent struggle with police.

Hyde's widow, Karen Ellet, said she made it clear in a 911 call to police that Hyde suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was off his medications and was so agitated he assaulted her.

She restated that when four officers showed up at her apartment late Tuesday to arrest him on the domestic dispute charge.

"He should have been taken to some kind of mental hospital to be medicated, to get him stable and get him rehabilitated," she said Friday.

"He just totally collapsed mentally. He was hardly coherent. That's what bothers me the most - he was so defenceless."

Hyde's sister, Joanna Blair, said officers should have treated Hyde with special care since he had a long history of run-ins with police, had been in and out of mental health institutions and feared police.

"I think that he should have been taken to a psychiatric hospital, and then his charge of abuse should have been dealt with when he was in a calmer state," she said from her home in Shelburne, N.S.

Jean Hughes, a professor at Dalhousie University who specializes in psychiatric nursing, said police officers need specific training on how to approach people with mental-health conditions to ensure such encounters don't turn violent.

She said mental-health patients who are paranoid can become afraid very easily, especially if they have had violent encounters with police in the past.

Hyde was tasered by police during an arrest in 2005.

"Once you've had encounters where people have used violent or corrosive or intrusive means of working with you, then you learn to expect that that's probably going to happen again," said Hughes, a former vice-president of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

She said police could use techniques to defuse a situation, including non-threatening body movements, limiting the number of officers that interact with a suspect and calm language.

Const. Jeff Carr with the Halifax police said there are no firm guidelines governing the treatment of people with mental illness and that officers judge each case individually.

"If we believe that a person is possibly going to harm themselves or someone else we can make an arrest, we can take them to hospital for assessment under the Hospital Act," he said.

"It's an individual call on the part of the officer."

Hyde wasn't taken to hospital for psychiatric evaluation or treatment.

The executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia said Hyde's case is a grim example of the police failing to respond appropriately to a mental-health patient.

Stephen Ayer said the police should have brought a trained mental-health clinician with them to the scene, or ensured Hyde received medical attention before he was brought to the police station.

"That individual with a mental illness should be taken to hospital as a first step, and if there's going to be any booking, it should be done in a hospital, because clearly a severe mental illness such as Mr. Hyde was suffering from needs to be treated," said Ayer.

"It's a tragedy that it wasn't treated appropriately."

Sgt. Mark Gallagher, a spokesman for the RCMP, which is investigating the death, said the priority is to ensure the safety of those arrested and the people around them.

"When you take charge of someone you have to remove the imminent danger to other people," he said.

"So is it safer to have them at a correctional facility with people who are watching them 24-7 and checking on them every 10 to 15 minutes or can they be left in a hospital when most times we're not asked to go into the examining room?"

Police have said Hyde, an amateur musician who did odd jobs, became violent when he was being booked. He jumped the counter at police headquarters, ran past two officers and a booking agent toward the door before one of the officers stunned him with a Taser.

He was at a correctional facility early Thursday when he got into a scuffle with security guards, Gallagher said. He went into medical distress and died of unspecified causes soon after at a nearby hospital.

After Hyde was shocked a day earlier, he went into medical distress and was sent to hospital, where he was assessed and released back into police custody.

The police have said it is far too early to speculate whether the Taser contributed to Hyde's death, and medical experts say it's unlikely it would have had an impact 30 hours later, but it raised further questions about how the police handled Hyde's arrest.

The case has also widened scrutiny over the use of Tasers and prompted the Nova Scotia government to order a review of the devices.

A number of reviews and inquiries have been set up into the use of Tasers since the death on Oct. 14 of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport.

Dziekanski's death was captured on video and elicited outrage from viewers around the world.
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gSEMJieaS_zra2Vc1lVoyt5IouXA

another one: http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=f173f91c-f6a0-41a5-88f8-c227f70920de&k=34172

more http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/14/children.tasers/index.html

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/tasers_teen_cardiac_arrest.htm

maybe it's better than a gun but the use should be much more restricted and it must be used only in situations when gun would otherwise have been used.

Or maybe you could just lower the intensity, and have the option to higher it in extreme conditions.

In Soviet Russia, the government controls the commerce.

Epic Win #27.

Thats all from Canada, whats the voltage up there, a thousand?

Thats all from Canada, whats the voltage up there, a thousand?

IT'S OVER 9000!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.
I can't decide...is it more "cat fell asleep on the engine block and I started the car" or "What more proof do you need that God doesn't exist?"

I have no doubt that we'll all come up with a very convincing justification for allowing cops to continue to tase people to death (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/taser-stun-gun-linked-to-fourth-canadian-death/2007/11/25/1195975865991.html). I mean...it's hardly the most outrageous thing some of you have justified over the years.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v711/sinuhue/story.jpg
Yes, less-lethal weapons are sometimes lethal. Yes, tasers have killed 4 people in recent months.

And yet, they are still better than the alternative (shooting the suspect or getting into a lengthy physical battle)

Tasers can kill. As can pepper spray. As can rubber bullets. Or pellets. Or any other thing that is "less-lethal". And it really is a shame when it does happen. But I can't fathom how one would justify banning these less-lethal weapons, leaving police with few other options...

A taser is hardly akin to thumb screws, water boarding, the iron maiden, etc. It hurts, yes. It sucks, yes. But to compare it to those is nothing short of willful fallacy.

Ok. Let's just shoot the uncooperatives with bullets. As long as you shoot them in the head, there isn't any pain.

Would the UN like that more?

The meaning of the statement is a bit unclear, in my opinion...

Portugal (http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/D3DD9DE87B278A87C125739C0054A81C?OpenDocument)

Following its consideration of the fourth periodic report of Portugal, the Committee noted with satisfaction the implementation of a law under which no alien person could be expelled to any country where this person risked to be submitted to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The creation of a body for the inspection of judicial services was welcomed with satisfaction. The Committee also welcomed with satisfaction the elaboration of the police forces’ ethics code.

The Committee regretted that Portugal used detention for identification purposes, that could sometime lead to collective arrests. The Committee was also worried by information it had received on the persistent violence between prisoners in places of detentions, including sexual violence, and by the high number of deaths in places of detention, due in great part to HIV/AIDS and suicide. The Committee was worried that the use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use.

The Committee recommended that Portugal envisage to take the necessary legislative measures to amend its Penal Code in order to include discrimination as a possible motive for acts of tortures, as stated in Article 1 of the Convention. Portugal should continue efforts to improve the conditions in places of detention, particularly by maintaining an adequate rate of prison occupation and by reinforcing the measures taken to prevent violence between prisoners, especially sexual violence, and suicide of detainees. Also, Portugal should pursue its efforts in its fight against human trafficking and adopt the necessary measures in order to take appropriates sanctions against the authors of such crimes.

Is it only in the cases where it's used against people already in detention, or is it in general?

They'd probably find some way to blast it. "Instant loss of life is torture." Probably something like that.

Violation of the right to life - article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN wouldn't need to act under article 5, but it would all be dependent on the situation...

Well, how 'bout we just put everybody on a 24/7 Soma drip? Then we wouldnt need police at all, or armies, or any of that sort of thing. Everybody would be happy and content and we could all get on with it.

It remains that I'd much rather be tased by the police than shot by the police.

Most times people are tased unnecessarily. They are tased when they could be coughed and put in the car by a cop or 2 wrestling them.

Besides, tasing is...unsporting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

You bastard....There was no need for that.....

Or maybe you could just lower the intensity, and have the option to higher it in extreme conditions.

Or maybe it should be used only in extreme conditions, full stop. Most videos where its been controversial seem to show them using it as a first- rather than a last resort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fmPMmmrkw&feature=related

Now you will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

Now for more mellow music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

Now for more mellow music.

gah...rick rolled...again..
You fiend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

Now for more mellow music.
I personally find this more to my taste :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dPXxPGbmM

I don't get the thread title...:confused:

Yoko Ono's music has been used by the US military as an interrogation tool.