Set the tasers on Kill!

Searching the headlines in recent days, it seems like each new day provides another victim of Law Enforcement and its over-reliance on the Taser. O'er the land of the cowards, and the home of the slaves (America-btw), the portable electroshock device has proven itself a cop's best friend. “You can gain compliance just by having it,” said Jeff Petty, a Loves Park (IL) police Taser instructor. “The value of that is priceless. A lot of times people will say, ‘Don’t tase me! Don’t tase me! Sometimes just the presence of a Taser can calm a situation down.” Unless, of course, YOU TASE HIM! Police cheerleaders and other neocon-bootlicker-types, who bow in reverence to the festooned badgery, cheered and snickered at Andrew Meyer (you know, the "Don't tase me, bro" guy from the University of Florida). Four police, who were each pinning down a limb, found it necessary to shock the young man in front of a public audience. Tasers were supposedly originally deployed as an alternative to the use of deadly force, but in this case (like many, many others) UF officers used it as a form of punishment. As the Taser instructor stated above, their goal is to gain compliance.
Below are the names of the thirty-four men killed by American law enforcement tasers in the last six months. Now, I would not sit here and try to defend all of these individuals: some attacked officers with weapons, but some were mentally ill, and others were just trying to run away. We must let our local law enforcement agencies know that we are against cruel and unusual punishment, and tasers are exactly that. Moreover, until it is made clear that tasers cannot be used to dish out punishment (ie. torture), they should be off our streets. People can accept using a taser to thwart an attack against a suspect with a weapon-- and if the taser kills him, it was the perpetrators own fault. But we must no longer accept casualties to irresponsible LEOs who use the device to teach a lesson to a restrained suspect, or to subdue someone because they're too lazy to do the physical part of the job.


*God Bless the families and friends of those who have been killed at the hands of Taser,
International. May they one day inherit what is rightfully theirs.

Douglas Boucher (Mason, OH) 12/13
Paul Martin Martinez Jr. (Roseville, CA) 12/11
Hatchel Pate Adams III (Hampton, Va) 12/11
Andrew Grande (Panama City, FL) 12/11
Edward Buckner (Chattanooga, TN) 11/27
Jesus Gillard (Bloomfield Township, MI) 11/19
Ronald Petruney (Washington, PA) 11/17
Matthew Bolick (East Grand Rapids, MI) 11/16
Darryl Bain (Long Island, NY) 11/14

Herman George Knabe (Corpus Christi, TX) 11/13

Jeffrey C. Woodward (Gallatin, TN) 10/27
Frank Cleo Sutphin (San Bernardino, CA) 10/17
Christopher John Belknap (Ukiah, CA) 10/12
Derrick Humbert (Bradenton, FL) 9/28
Richard Battistata (Laredo, TX) 9/21
Robert Lee Thompson (Anderson, SC) 9/20
Yuceff W. Young II (Brooklyn, OH) 9/19
Alton Warren Ham (Modesto, CA) 9/16
Shane Ledbetter (Aurora, CO) 9/7
Manuel Dante Dent (Modesto, CA) 8/27
Miguel Molina (Los Angeles, CA) 8/26
Mark Anthony Barmore (Rockford, IL) 8/24
T.J. Nance (Arizona City, AZ) 8/22
Francisco P. Sesate (Mesa, AZ) 8/20
Ronald Eugene Cobbs (Greensboro, NC) 8/18
Hakim Jackson (Philadelphia, PA) 8/14
Ernest Owen Ridlehuber III (Greenwood, SC) 8/12
Terrace Clifton Smith (Moreno Valley, CA) 8/9
Jonathan Michael Nelson (Riverside County, CA) 7/30
Rory McKenzie (Bakersfield, CA) 7/2
Shawn Iinuma (Fontana, CA) 6/29
Derek Kairney (South Windsor, CT) 6/20
Dwight Jerome Madison (Baltimore, MD) 6/13
Brian Cardall (Hurricane, UT) 6/9

Thanks to Truth-not-Tasers for the names of older taser death victims, who are no longer in the headlines.