D.C. man dies after Arlington police use stun gun to try to subdue him

The Washington Post ^ | January 18, 2010 | Maria Glod

[deks]

Arlington police said William R. Bumbrey III, who was suspected of stealing from a nearby pharmacy, was on the platform at the Pentagon City Metro station when an officer approached him. Police said the officer used his Taser, which administers an electric jolt and is designed to be safer than using a firearm, after Bumbrey became aggressive and refused to respond to spoken orders. . . . "He was still struggling," Nosal said. She said that because Bumbrey apparently did not react to the Taser shot, police question whether the Taser made contact with him. . . . Bumbrey was pronounced dead at a hospital, Nosal said. She said that the medical examiner's office will seek to determine a cause of death, and that police also have asked medical examiners to conclude whether the Taser's probes struck Bumbrey.

[deks]

Interesting use of electric shock on the heart. I forgot to post the link...

http://www.hrspatients.org/patients/treatments/cardioversion.asp

[Greysard]

Cardioversion is a brief procedure where an electrical shock is delivered to the heart to convert an abnormal heart rhythm back to a normal rhythm.

Perfect, now taser victims can also sue police for practicing medicine without license :-)

Indeed it is known how defibrillators work. However in most cases they are operated by medical personnel, and only when they are needed, and the paddles are placed exactly where they should be. There are automatic defibrillators now, to be used by anyone, but they are fairly complicated, contain an internal ECG, and their program has the final say on whether to administer shock or not. It won't do a thing to a healthy person, for example - or to a sick person whose condition is not treatable this way.

Tasers, on the other hand, are used indiscriminately by people with little training in medicine. Their purpose is not to help but to hurt. The shock area is random (depends on where the needles will hit) and the shooter can apply multiple shocks. I am an EE, and in the university we were taught how electric currents affect people. Heart damage is the most dangerous scenario, that's why you are supposed to work with one hand only, and stand on an insulating pad. Wikipedia says this:

The minimum current a human can feel is thought to be about 1 milliampere (mA). The current may cause tissue damage or fibrillation if it is sufficiently high.

[bert]

There should be no relief for arestees who resist.

You run or wrestle you get whupped

[Georgia1]

Now hear this: badge-lappers, badge-lappers, lay to the quarterdeck and man your tongues. Lick down and polish all law enforcement officer boots on the double. Set the special cop-worshiping and excuse-making detail. That is all.

[Ole Okie]

People get heart attacks all on their own. Heart is controlled by electricity, so Taser is a wild card here. It's like shoving an arc welder into a delicate computer.

That's a good analogy.

I spent a total of 6 days in the hospital being monitored to make sure that the anti-arrhythmic medicine being given me for afib didn't put my lights out permanently.

And I have an ICD implanted to shock my heart if it decides to go into ventricular fibrillation.

I have no intention to get involved with the police or to resist if that happened, but I shudder at the thought of a randomly placed 30 to 50K volt shock from a taser.

[Hildy]

you’d think. If you don’t want to die by police force...don’t do anything wrong. Period.

[csvset]

Bumbrey was released from prison two years ago after being convicted of a sex offense and other crimes.

Not sure if society will miss Mr. Bumbrey much.

[deks]

You said,"There should be enough data out there to get some measurement on it."

Apparently someone has been keeping track for one year!

61 Taser-Related Deaths in the United States

"We have tracked taser-related deaths in the United States since January 1, 2009. Today we added 36-year old William Bumbrey III (Arlington, VA) as the 61st victim on our list."

"America's police force is killing people on a weekly basis with taser guns. There are not many states in the nation who have not been involved in a taser-related death this year. Tasers are now deployed in law enforcement agencies in 29 of the 33 largest U.S. cities."

http://electronicvillage.blogspot.com/2009/05/taser-related-deaths-in-united-states.html

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

The stun gun is a weapon. If you use a weapon on people, it can very likely kill them.

[deks]

Applying your 999,999 to 1 analogy to "61 taser-related deaths in the United States" in one year, would give a figure of approximately 167,000 taserings per day.

While I can't vouch for the bloggers data in reply #28, they do list each name and the date of each event. I've seen enough headlines myself to think it may be true.

[deks]

You said, “Not sure if society will miss Mr. Bumbrey much.”

Is that the only point you have to make concerning ever increasing taser-related deaths in the U.S.?

[deks]

You said, "If you don’t want to die by police force...don’t do anything wrong. Period."

Yeah, like getting sick while you're driving, for instance...

Taser Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed By Family Of Nevada Doctor

January 7, 2010
"The family of a 33 year-old doctor who died after being shot with a stun gun by Nevada Highway Patrol officer has filed a lawsuit against Taser International, alleging that the stun gun maker failed to adequately warn about the potentially fatal effects of Tasers."

"According to the complaint, Dr. Rich suffered a seizure while on his way to work in January 2007. As a result of his inability to control the pick-up truck he was driving, he was involved in several minor accidents that left him dazed, confused and disoriented when his vehicle came to a stop."

"The family alleges that Taser International misrepresented the safety of their stun guns, failed to disclose and failed to warn Nevada Highway Patrol and their officers about the risks, including the risk of ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest when a Taser is applied to the chest and that multiple cycles on a single person increase the risk of injury or death. The complaint also alleges that Taser indicated their weapon was an effective, non-lethal control device, when it is actually potentially lethal."

"Scottsdale-based Taser International has vigorously defended the safety of the weapons in the media and in other cases, obtaining dismissals of most Taser lawsuits that have been filed against them. This fall, however, the company issued a memo to police agencies throughout the United States warning about the potential Taser heart risks, recommending that officers avoid chest shots."

http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/taser-wrongful-death-lawsuit-by-doctor-7569/

[Red Steel]

167,000 (taser events/day) x 365 = 60,955,000 (total taser events/yr)

(total taser events/yr) 60,955,000 / 36 (taser related deaths/yr) = 1,693,194.4 (taser events/death)

or is it?

(total taser events/yr) 60,955, 000 / 61 (taser related deaths/yr) = 999262.29 (taser events/death)

In other words, ~1.7 million taser events for every taser related death.

or at 61 taser related deaths/yr, it’s ~1 million taser events for every taser related death.

[deks]

Your 999,999 [one million] to 1 taser analogy applied to 61 deaths per year means 61 million uses for 61 deaths.

I understood that you meant that 1,000,000 uses causing 1 death might be an acceptable ratio in police work.

61 million uses per year is 167,123 per day (seems a bit high to me). So what I’m saying is, if there are *not* 167,123 taserings per day, then the million to one ratio does not hold up.

[Red Steel]

So what I’m saying is, if there are *not* 167,123 taserings per day, then the million to one ratio does not hold up.

Yes.

[deks]

I found an article here with quite a few statistics (a bit much to take in at once).

Adoption of stun guns spikes the risk of in-custody death in the first year
JANUARY 30, 2009 | Michael O’Riordan

“Calkins told heartwire that there have been approximately 300 in-custody deaths with 650,000 applications of the Taser, . . .”

http://www.theheart.org/article/938491.do