By Peter Pyke
0427 388 598
pykie@republicandemocrats.org.au
The Tasering of a lone, petite, seventeen-year-old girl by three well-built male Queensland Police officers at the counter of a fish and chip shop in Toowoomba recently should finally end disgraced Queensland police commissioner Bob Atkinson’s career.
I’m calling for the sacking or immediate resignation of police commissioner Atkinson and the disciplining of the senior Toowoomba police officer present at the incident in the Toowoomba CBD at 7.00 PM on Wednesday night 16 March.
I’m a former-Queensland police sergeant who saw duty as an academy lecturer and operational trainer and I’m also a former-Queensland ALP state member. In 2008 I warned that commissioner Atkinson’s incompetent introduction of Tasers to the Queensland Police Service would lead to a Taser death in Queensland, making that prediction just months prior to the Taser death of Antonio Galleano in Ayr.
I have been highly critical of senior Queensland Police over what are the Police Service’s irresponsible attitudes to the dangers Tasers present to some categories of citizens, and while the police commissioner is ultimately responsible for the administration of the Police Service, the blame for the Tasering of the girl in Toowoomba lies squarely at the feet of Premier Anna Bligh, now universally-known as the ‘weather girl’ for her filibustering role fronting the media to the exclusion of all others during recent disasters in Queensland.
On Wednesday 16 March 2011, at 7.00 PM, witnesses at Bernie’s Fish and Chip Shop in Herries Street in the Toowoomba CBD were present when a seventeen-year-old girl standing at the shop counter who was carrying a kitchen knife was Tasered almost as soon as three large male uniformed police officers arrived. A witness, whom I can only describe as ‘pro-police’ says he was horrified at the actions of the uniformed police officers. The witness who does not wish to be named has told me that the girl was petite, about 165 cm tall and weighing about 75 kilograms. He says she appeared to possibly be affected by drugs and to present little threat to the three large male officers, all of whom were equipped with batons which one of them had drawn.
The witness, a young man in his late teens was in the fish and chip shop buying a meal with his younger brother and sister and he says he saw that the girl had a kitchen knife but at no time did he feel threatened or that the girl was a threat to his younger siblings. When police arrived, he says, the three male officers, one with a baton drawn, barely even spoke to the girl before one of the police drew a Taser and fired the device at the girl. The witness says he was horrified at the unnecessary violence and the effect on the girl who screamed in pain and fell heavily to her side, injuring herself.
The witness says he believes that any one of the three officers could have overpowered the girl without using a Taser and it seemed to him that the police response was ‘completely over the top’ and demonstrated to him that police training about Tasers must be inadequate. He says it is his concern that just one application of the Taser to the girl might have killed her and he does not understand why police could not have dealt with her without using a potentially lethal weapon on such a small, young person.
Queensland police argued for access to an Electronic control Device weapon to be used ‘as a last resort before using a firearm’. What, were all three of these cops in fear of their lives from one small seventeen-year-old girl? I am aware that the girl is alleged to have been armed with a ten inch kitchen knife, but there were three male officers present and I wonder why a baton strike from any one of them could not have disarmed the girl. I understand that the girl was threatening self-harm and had asked police to shoot her which are less the actions of a person who is a threat to police than the actions of a person in serious mental distress, one of the categories of citizen most at risk to the most harmful consequences of a Taser application, I understand.
The Queensland Police Service top cop’s attitude to Tasers has been beyond moronic and could only be described as ‘lethally dangerous’ from the start of the flawed and premature introduction of the devices to general duties police in 2007 but the unnecessary Tasering of a seventeen-year-old-girl of small stature in Toowoomba that night demonstrates spectacularly that the Bligh Government is either unable or unwilling to stop police from misusing the weapons when civil society agencies world-wide have linked the devices to the deaths of nearly 500 people and many agencies in other jurisdictions categorise the weapons as ‘potentially lethal’.
In relation to the Palm Island death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee police commissioner Atkinson’s leadership of the Queensland Police Service has been nothing but outrageous, but his failure to prevent his officers from using Tasers on children – and female children at that – is beyond the pale. Whether this is a training or a disciplinary matter, Atkinson must go.
Premier Bligh, what sort of a police state have you created?
The girl Tasered on 16 March is the second female child under-eighteen to be Tasered in Queensland since Tasers were supplied to Queensland police in 2007. The first incident which happened at South Bank in Brisbane was concealed by police but came to light when a magistrate refused to suppress the matter at a police prosecutor’s request.
Queensland police either don’t care or don’t understand that just one application of the Taser to a small person, a person with a weakened heart, or a person affected by drugs and/or alcohol may end their life, something which has been recognised by United States law enforcement agencies since December 2009.
While Atkinson’s inadequacies as a police commissioner have drawn concerned and weighty condemnation from senior legal sources, civil society and the community, none of that was of any consequence to Premier Anna Bligh when she last year inexplicably extended commissioner Atkinson’s contract.
If we have an uncaring and/or incompetent police commissioner, then we can only blame the weather girl.
BACKGROUND:
In 2007, Western Australia was the first Australian state to equip its police with Taser stun guns. By January 2008, the Northern Territory began handing out Tasers to its cops. It was in July 2009, that New South Wales spent $10 Million of tax-payers’ hard-earned to equip frontline general duties cops with 1,962 Taser stun guns paying top-dollar at about $1,800.00 a unit.
In my home-state of Queensland, the state government announced a trial of Tasers would commence on 1 July 2007, “for 12 months to examine the use of the Taser X26 as a less than lethal force option in a general policing environment.” At this same date, even Vision-Impaired Freddie might have seen the writing on the wall that Tasers were trouble. 79 North Americans alone died in 2007 after being Tasered by police, five in Canada. In 2006, there were 80 deaths ‘proximal’ to police use of a Taser; in 2005 there were 77; in 2004 there were 57; in 2003 there were 20; in 2002, 13; in 2001, four; in 2000, one; and in 1999, one.
Since 1999, at least 463 people have died in North America ‘proximal’ to police use of Tasers. As many as twenty-eight people have died in Canada since 2003 after police used Tasers on them.
One Canadian and 56 Americans died in 2009 after they were Tasered by police, including a 16-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old who became at least the fifth 17-year-old to die in North America proximal to the Taser.
At least 72 North Americans died in 2008, including five Canadians. One person has died in Britain. Three people have died in Australia. Taser International says the Taser had nothing to do with any of these deaths.
Despite these stats, in September 2008, $14 Million of Queensland taxes went the way of Taser International Inc. for Taser X26 stun guns, again paying absolute top-dollar of about $1,800.00 per unit.
In early 2009, I publicly warned Queenslanders the introduction of stun gun weapons to the armoury of frontline Queensland police had been bungled and told officers they had either been lied to about the safety of the stun gun selected - the Taser X26 - or the State’s top cops were so incompetent they had missed important evidence from overseas jurisdictions that Tasers can kill.
Australian general duties cops have gained access to stun guns by using the emotive argument: ‘we need a less than lethal option for armed offenders’,
Alarmed at early reports of Taser over-use and abuse, and incensed at Queensland Police Service public utterances and advice to officers and the community on its official website that Tasers were safe, on 14 January 2009, I said top cops were playing God with citizens’ lives and predicted that Queensland would experience a Taser death during 2009.
Using talkback radio programs and the print media, and writing to every police association in the nation, I began urging Australian cops in all states and territories equipped with the Taser stun gun to treat it as a potentially lethal weapon which should only be used against citizens as a last resort before using a firearm. Regrettably, my tragic prediction came true when a North Queensland man, Antonio Galeano died after being Tasered on 12 June 2009. It is now known that Galeano died of cardiac arrest soon after three or more applications of a Taser at Brandon, near Townsville.
Australia’s first Taser-proximal death occurred in 2002 when a 56-year-old New South Wales man died 12 days after he was shocked with a Taser. The man received three Taser shocks after threatening police with a frying pan. According to his death certificate, the man died of a heart attack. He is said to have had a pre-existing heart condition and hepatitis C, and to have been a schizophrenic. (“The Australian”, November 20, 2008.)
In 2005, serious questions about Taser’s ability to cause heart attacks arose in Chicago following two separate incidents in February that year when Chicago police Tasered a 54-year-old man who later died and a 14-year-old boy who went into cardiac arrest. (“The Arizona Republic”, Mar. 5, 2005.)
Despite all of Taser International’s assurances and protestations to the contrary, direct evidence that Tasers can disrupt the heart’s rhythm has been available since 2007. The source of this evidence is data downloaded from a pacemaker obtained in 2007 following an incident involving a 53-year-old prisoner in California who had one of the devices implanted. The man escaped and whilst “running from his jailers… was… Tasered many times,” according to Leslie Saxon, chief of the cardiovascular medicine unit at the University of Southern California University Hospital.
A week after re-capture, the prisoner complained about chest pains and during hospital treatment Doctor Saxon downloaded the pacemaker’s memory. This data recorded that with every 5 second Taser pulse the man’s heart beat had ‘synced up’. During these events, the man’s heart beat 15 times per second, about five times faster than during vigorous exercise.
“In the same way, if you stuck a fork in a light socket, you could induce a very bad heart rhythm and you could die,” Saxon said. “It will cause the heart to go really fast, and because it’s going so fast it can’t pump enough blood out.”
This ability to control the heart’s rhythm is medically termed ‘capture’ of the heart.
Taser-Induced Rapid Ventricular Myocardial Capture Demonstrated by Pacemaker Intracardiac Electrograms
MICHAEL CAO, M.D., JEROLD S. SHINBANE, M.D., JEFFREY M. GILLBERG, M.S. and LESLIE A. SAXON, M.D.
This report describes the first human case of ventricular myocardial capture at a rapid rate resulting from a Taser current application. This raises the issue as to whether CEDs such as the Taser can cause primary myocardial capture or capture only in association with cardiac devices providing a preferential pathway via the pacing system to the myocardium. Further investigation is required to understand the effects of CEDs on people with cardiac devices. (“Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology”, Vol. 18, No. 8, August 2007.)
Reported in March 2008, Darryl Turner was a healthy 17 year old male who had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was Tasered in the US and his heart went into ventricular fibrillation. The coroner determined that the cause of Darryl Turner’s death was acute ventricular dysrhythmia, a lethal disturbance in heart rhythm precipitated by the use of the Taser. (Report of Autopsy Examination, Darryl Wayne Turner, Mecklenburg County M E Office, March 2008.)
But the death which seems to have shaken Taser the most seems to be that of Brian Cardall, in Utah, on 9 June 2009.
Autopsy links Taser to Cardall's death: Coroner cites being stunned near the heart as a key factor. By Melinda Rogers The Salt Lake Tribune Updated: 11/20/2009 10:25:59 AM MST
A Taser that twice shocked Brian Cardall contributed to or caused heart irregularities in the 32-year-old man that led to his death on the side of a southern Utah highway [9 June 2009], the Utah Medical Examiner's Office has ruled.
Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Erik Christensen cited "ventricular fibrillation following conducted energy weapon deployment during a manic episode with psychotic features" as Cardall's cause of death.
In an Oct. 12 2009 bulletin, Taser told police not to aim a Taser at a suspect's chest. Shooting the device lower will incapacitate a suspect more effectively, it said. The bulletin notes police still can shoot at a chest lacking a better option.
Taser critics say the bulletin is the company's first admission that the weapons pose a cardiac risk - an allegation the company denies. The company based its decision on best practices research and will help police avoid lawsuits from those who claim the devices cause injuries and other health problems, Taser's Rick Guilbault said in the bulletin.
Taser's bulletin states the risk of cardiac arrest when a Taser is deployed on a suspect is low, but notes reactions can't be predicted, particularly when other underlying medical conditions or drugs are added to the equation.
"We have not stated that Taser causes [cardiac] events in this bulletin, only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this topic," Tuttle said.
He added changes "specifically had nothing to do with the Cardall incident."
But Williamson is skeptical.
"It's interesting to note within the last 30 days, Taser has issued its [new training bulletin]," Williamson said, adding that in addition to the Cardall case, Taser is dealing with another pending California trial where a man died after being shocked in 2004.
According to a recent AMA report, studies indicate that heart rhythms usually can be
disrupted with “prolonged discharges and electrode placements that bracket the
heart.”112 p 42 mar
Victorians are fortunate they have a police chief who has adopted a particularly wise approach to the use of Tasers. It seems plain that Chief Commissioner Simon Overland has worked out that the Taser X26 is a potentially lethal weapon which can kill and is attempting to protect his community and his officers from harm. Overland is the only police commissioner in Australia to set in place procedures which direct that his officers should only use a stun gun weapon as a last resort before using a firearm, and ruling that his cops will only have authority to use a Taser in situations “presenting a real threat to life, or a real threat of serious injury".
As for all other Australian states where Taser use is not restricted to ‘a last resort before lethal force option only’, law enforcement authorities in the United Kingdom as early as 2003 could find evidence that Tasers may pose a heightened risk to people with certain vulnerabilities, including heart conditions, drug intoxication or severe agitation. These concerns caused UK authorities to make the call seven years ago that Taser use must be restricted to situations where lethal force is justified, and the Taser could then be used as a less-lethal alternative to firearms, which Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland has echoed, so what’s the problem in my state?”
In Maryland, US, the Attorney General established a Task Force on Electronic Control Weapons which reported in December 2009. It found:
“Another unique challenge of ECWs is that they can, in rare instances, be lethal, even if there was no intent to use deadly force…. Officers must be trained that the ECW is a less-lethal weapon, and not a non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapon… While most injuries caused by ECWs are minor, there are a number of documented cases finding that ECWs caused death or serious injury, and there is some evidence that the number of deaths associated to ECW use has been underestimated.” p29
During the past decade, police departments all over the world have ramped up their use of Tasers. By June 2009, Taser International was able to brag it had sold Tasers “to more than 14,200 law enforcement agencies in over 40 countries, and that 29 of the 33 largest U.S. cities now deploy the weapon”.
Taser International claims its technology is relatively safe - the official terminology is now “less-lethal” - and equipping police with Tasers “decreases injury and death among both police officers and arrestees”.
Robert Anglen The Arizona Republic May. 21, 2005 Taser International was deeply involved in a Department of Defense study that company officials touted to police departments and investors as "independent" proof of the stun gun's safety, according to government documents and e-mails obtained by The Arizona Republic and interviews with military officials.
Robert Anglen, a reporter with The Arizona Republic, documented the first 167 Taser-related deaths. Mr. Anglen launched a journalistic investigation of Taser International, linking the Taser to multiple deaths, among other eye-openers.
At the 2005 Arizona Press Club Awards, Mr. Anglen won first place in the Investigative reporting category. He was the recipient of the Don Bolles Award for his report entitled "Taser tied to 'independent' study that backs stun gun'. “As part of an extraordinarily thorough investigation of Taser International, Anglen uncovered ‘smoking gun’ documents that showed the manufacturer was heavily involved in the key study that purported the devices are safe. Anglen also uncovered conflicts of interest and documented wide-spread problems with Taser safety — a matter of national and international public interest.”
Last year, Taser Internationals’ sales reached $100 Million US. Taser International is cashed up and notorious for fiercely protecting the worldwide monopoly it has enjoyed for more than a decade. At the end of 2009, Taser International had lost one case out of the 97 lawsuits filed against the company since its inception in 1993. But Taser has settled others out of court. But the tide is turning…
Taser International loses first liability lawsuit
by: Pam Spaulding Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 09:00:00 AM EDT
The winning streak for the arrogant stun-gun manufacturer is over. A San Jose, California, jury yesterday said Taser had failed to warn police in Salinas, California, that prolonged exposure to electric shock from the device could cause a risk of cardiac arrest. The jury awarded $1 million in compensatory damages and $5.2 million in punitive damages to the estate of Robert Heston, 40, and his parents. The jury cleared the police officers of any liability.
...``I think Taser's going to have to rethink its litigation strategy and its warning policies,'' said John Burton co-counsel who along with California attorney Peter Williamson won the first suit against Taser International.
The jury awarded $5 million in punitive damages to Heston's parents and $200,000 in punitives to his estate.
Heston died on Feb. 20, 2005, after his father had called Salinas police because his son was ``acting strangely,'' and seemed to be on drugs, according to the lawsuit complaint. Salinas police shot Heston multiple times with the stun-gun, continuing to discharge their Tasers into him until he stopped moving, the lawsuit claims.
Heston went into cardiac arrest and died, his family said.
Taser International had boasted that it had never lost a lawsuit. This verdict may be a change in that tide.
The UN's Committee against Torture checked out Tasers and reported on 24 November 2007, "The use of these weapons [Tasers] causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture… 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. Source: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH and the AFP.
Taser International Inc. chose not to sue the United Nations. But in 2009, it did commence an action against the State of Canada.
Robert Anglen and Andrew Johnson - Aug. 15, 2009 The Arizona Republic The 18-month-long Canadian Braidwood Inquiry, headed by retired Judge Thomas Braidwood, concluded in July 2009 that Tasers can cause death.
In his 556-page report, Braidwood criticized law enforcement for putting the stun gun on the street with little or no independent testing and recommended restricting use of Tasers. Within hours, the head of public safety in British Columbia adopted all 19 of Braidwood's recommendations, including a ban on Tasers in non-criminal situations or where there is not an imminent threat of bodily harm.