Massachusetts Police testing Tasers

Dude!! You post your tazer victims on Youtube!!

AWESOME!

--Ironbowl



Massachusetts Police testing Tasers
Written by WBZ
Friday, 23 November 2007
(WBZ) BOSTON Police departments in Massachusetts are testing a controversial new weapon in the battle against crime.

They are testing Tasers equipped with video cameras to capture life and death situations up close.

One such video captured a man refusing to drop a knife.

Police dropped him to the ground with a Taser, and the whole incident was captured by the camera built into the Taser's grip.

The stun gun carries with it 50,000 volts.

Foxboro police officers, like Sgt. John Chandler with the Foxboro Police Department, now carry a real gun on one hip and a video equipped Taser on the other.

Chandler was actually shot by a Taser during his training.

"It hurt," he said.

But, he said, they save lives.

Foxboro police used one recently while chasing a car thief through the woods at night.

"(They) deployed the Taser. As soon as the subject went down, the second officer came up immediately and placed him in handcuffs," Chandler said. "In five seconds it was over and no one was hurt. No one was injured."

The Taser records the time, the date and the number of times the trigger is pulled.

When the weapon is on, the video is on.

In other words, if police are going to use it there will be a video record.

But some say police are using Tasers too often, and people are dying.

In Canada last month, a Polish immigrant who became violent in the airport died after he was Tasered by Royal Canadian mounted police.

David Frank, of Mass Lawyers Weekly, says it's situations exactly like the one in Canada when the new video technology is good for police and the public.

"If you have a situation where you can walk into a court room and sit down with lawyers and you can watch what happened instead of relying on eyewitnesses and other physical evidence from a scene, it is always better," Frank said.

New Bedford, Lowell and Boston police officers do not use Tasers.

Worcester police officers do but officers need special training to use them.

http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_326193039.html