A Recipe for Disaster: School Cops Are Being Armed with 50,000-Volt Tasers

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted September 16, 2009.

Tasers aren't 'nonlethal'; they've killed hundreds. With younger people being especially vulnerable to the Taser's shock, the risks could be very deadly.

One spring day this April, at the Franklin Correctional Institution on Florida's Highway 67, Sgt. Walter Schmidt pulled out his electronic immobilization device -- EID in correctional officer parlance -- and zapped two people, who immediately "yelped in pain, fell to the ground and grabbed red burn marks on their arms," according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The two were not inmates at the prison, however. They were students visiting as part of "Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day."

The move cost Schmidt his job, despite his claim that he merely intended to demonstrate how the devices worked. He had even asked the children's parents (who were also employees at the prison) permission first. "When they said 'sure,' I went ahead and did it," he told the Times.

Read on...


2 comments:

Mike said...

The author of this piece should be careful how she slings around words. I'm sure TASER International will have a few words to say about her claim that tasers have killed hundreds of people. According to recent statistics there were only a score or so of cases where the taser device was proved to be a contributing factor to death

Mike said...

Further, the fact that 8 year olds were safely tasered as explained during the introduction of this piece really goes a long way in affirming my belief in their safety