Antonio Galeano died last week after Queensland police hit him 20 times with a 50,000-volt Taser. Galeano was an amphetamines addict who was tasered for five second pulse each time.
Police initially claimed that he had been tasered only three time after being confronted in an alleged attack on a woman with a metal pipe.
For the full story, click here.
If they cannot withstand the scrutiny by having the light of day shine on their dubious activities, then the Fed. ,
Taser tells police to avoid shooting at chest.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJFYhxLKUUqqOdeDMoYP0y1IZe3wD9BFQCN82
Issuing this advisory just attempts to shifts liability from the manufacturer to the user.
The logical flow is from molecular foundations, cardiovascular sufficiency, body control, external object control, and ultimately mastery and application. ,
I have gone through the letters to the Sydney Morning Herald for this month and found only 3 letters referring to this event all in the 16 June edition. One of the three is pro taser two against.
The address for the Herald letters for 16 June is:-
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/letters/its-time-we-all-discarded-the-labels-of-victimhood-20090615-c96g.html?page=-1
However the Sydney Morning Herald is a broad sheet read by the less uncivilised sections of society. I have gone through the feedback section of the Daily Telegraph which is a more usual bash the easy targets tabloid and find one article on tasers with 28 comments. If I did not loose count 19 of the 28 were pro taser. The link to the article and the last 10 comments is:-
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25636083-5006009,00.html
Mike.
Strangely enough I am not the best person to ask about Australian reactions since I spend much more time browsing US blogs and news sites than I do Australian ones. The response by the Queensland police minister to halt the taser roll out seems fairly prompt and I doubt that he would have been so prompt if he had not already seen a backlash or did not expect one.
The 3 taser deaths so far in Australia have been in Western Australia and Queensland the two most red neck states. The Northern Territory is the most redneck of all but it is not a state.
I think Australia may be lucky in having 3 deaths occur so quickly. This may create sufficient opposition to halt the deployment whereas a larger number of deaths occurring over a longer time would not. There is also controversy in Sydney about unnecessary use of a taser on a drunk man in Oxford street recently. I will have to monitor Newspaper letters pages for a while to get an impression whether Australia is more anti-criminal than anti-taser. While we are following the US trends for mass incarceration, prison privatization and so on it is from a long distance behind.
The transcript of the 7:30 report from last night is http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2602381.htm.
The 7:30 report letters blog has no responses as yet, its address is http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/letters.htm. or http://www2b.abc.net.au/guestbookcentral/list.asp?guestbookID=156 if you want to jump past the sign in screen, you do not need to sign in to view letters.
I will monitor Australian papers over the next week to monitor reactions.
Incidentally there are three very good taser related blogs:-
1/ Excited-Delerium.com http://excited-delirium.blogspot.com/;
2/ Tasered While Black http://taseredwhileblack.blogspot.com/;
and
3/ TNT – TRUTH … not TASERS http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/.
I would recommend that JT includes some of them in a blog roll if he implements one.
A TNT entry related to this Australian case is http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/2009/06/taser-victim-died-from-heart-attack.html.
These polic officers must have been trained in Texas.
From article:
“The data on the Taser sparked Police Minister Neil Roberts and Commissioner Bob Atkinson to suddenly freeze the rollout of the tasers on Monday and order a Crime and Misconduct Commission review of Taser policy and training in Queensland. ”
Good response, I hope the scrap the plan entirely. It would set a good example for the rest of the ‘cililized’ world.
AY:
“Makes my heart go pitter patter. Do you think at 50,000 volts these things should be used in life saving measures only for heart attack victims?”
Kinda’ like “Crank”/”Crank II”
I’ve thought that carrying around a tazer might not be such a bad idea for us old fa***, if we think we’re having a heart attack we could deploy our own ‘defib device’.
Carlyle,
I knew you would comment, so I’d like to ask what the reaction of the Australian public was to this incident? I know in the US the reaction is often, at least in the South something like “he got what he deserved,” is that true where you live?
The Queensland Minister for Police has stated that he knew the number was 28 and not 3 as originally claimed for several days.
Actually on the ABC’s 7:30 report tonight the number mentioned was 28 not 20. By ABC I mean the Australian Broadcasting Comission.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/18/2602360.htm
This reminds me of the classic stop for Drunk driving: How Much have you had to drink, only a couple. Only a couple Datamaster .27 humm how many fifths did you drink at that point?
I only tasrer him a couple of time the “The senior constable, who shot the Taser, has told investigators from police Ethical Standards Command that he only Tasered Mr Galeano several times.”
I wonder how much he drinks?
Makes my heart go pitter patter. Do you think at 50,000 volts these things should be used in life saving measures only for heart attack victims?