here's a long but good article i just read, don't know if anyone's read it, or posted it before. also i cut and pasted a few selected quotes below:
[url=http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=770]
Torture by Taser
When police abuse their newest “nonlethal” toy, people die. <link>
By PETER GORMAN[/url]
— In Kansas City, Mo., a 66-year-old African-American woman was tasered twice in her home after she resisted being handed a ticket for honking her car horn at a police car...
Still, the abuses continue. In January, officers assigned to security for the Fiesta Bowl college football game in Salt Lake City used the Taser on at least 24 fans who tried to rush the field in celebration after their team won...
...means that if an officer asks you to produce your driver’s license and you ask “Why?” rather than immediately complying with the order, there’s a chance, in some jurisdictions, that you could, within their rules, be hit with a Taser for refusing the command. That’s in part how Tasers have begun to be used, not as serious, life-threatening weapons, but as a bully’s tool of compliance, something to get people in line — with sometimes egregious consequences...
“Cops now approach suspects with a completely hands-off investigative technique,” he said. “They used to have to talk with people, do some real police work. Now it’s ‘Do what we say or we’ll Taser you.’ The cops are way over the top in their use of these things despite what they tell you,” he said. “A lot of them are just plain Taser-happy. And the police policies justify that approach.”...
“The thing to remember when you’re talking about Tasers is that they are not non-lethal weapons,” Sullivan said. “They are less-lethal weapons. That’s a big difference.”
...Tasers are to batons what bombs are to hand-to-hand combat, he said. “With the baton the officer hears the sound, watches you grimace, hears your scream. With the Taser, you just fall down and shake. You can’t scream. It gives the officer a more comfortable distance from the experience.”
