A recent RAND Corporation study in response to the police killing of Sean Bell recommends that all New York City police be armed with tasers. The study, calling for this addition to the police arsenal, has been widely condemned. Tasers shoot up to 50,000 volts of electricity through the victim’s body and have been implicated in several deaths.
There have been numerous lawsuits against its manufacturer, Taser International, Inc. An appeals court judge in Georgia recently overturned a $6.2 million ruling against the company, which had lost a wrongful death lawsuit filed after police tasered and killed Robert C. Heston in Salinas, Calif.
Three Seattle police will face trial in July for tasering a woman who was seven months pregnant. Her crime? Refusing to sign a traffic violation ticket.
