Sunday June 1, 2008
Circular reasoning gives flawed results
In their 24-week training program, RCMP constables receive training in Canadian criminal law, aboriginal issues, driving, firearms, defensive skills, commercial and corporate crime, forensics, management and administration, and technical skills.
They do not, apparently, receive much training in logic.
Logic – that\’s “the principles of reasoning,” as defined by Nelson\’s Canadian Dictionary.
The B.C. government\’s inquiry, headed by former Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood, heard several high-ranking police officers support Tasers as a means of subduing potentially dangerous opponents.
“The information we receive is that it\’s safe to use on subjects,” testified Staff Sergeant Joe Spindor of the New Westminster Police Department.
But Spindor admitted that his training program is based on what he was taught by Taser International of Scottsdale, Arizona.
That\’s circular reasoning. Traditional logic teaches that it is flawed and faulty.
Basically, you cannot prove something by referring to itself as a source. My computer spreadsheet understands this principle. It will not let me calculate a value for “x” if I use that same “x” as part of the calculation.
Or, to use another example, you cannot prove that the Bible is true simply by quoting a biblical verse that says so.
But that is exactly what North American police forces have been doing. The research they use to justify their use of Tasers comes from – surprise! surprise! – the manufacturer of Tasers.
Corporate brainwashing
Police psychologist Mike Webster pulled no punches in his testimony. He told the Braidwood inquiry that police have been "brainwashed" by Taser International to justify "ridiculously inappropriate" use of the electronic weapon.
Now, it would be easy to criticize Taser International for supplying information favourable to its own product. That\’s hardly fair to Taser. They have a product; their livelihood depends on it; they want to market it as widely as possible.
They are no more at fault for supplying biased information than, say, a cosmetic company\’s advertising that its cream will remove wrinkles, or a drug company\’s claim that its little blue pill will make me as frisky as a 20-year-old again.
Besides, Taser International employs a small army of lawyers who vigorously defend Taser\’s reputation.
In May this year, a judge ordered Ohio medical examiner Dr. Lisa Kohler to change her autopsy reports on three men who died after being tasered by police. She had to call the deaths "accidental."
Applying their own standards
I\’m disappointed, though, that police forces in general failed to treat Taser International\’s documentation with the same critical analysis they are supposed to apply to other evidence. How reliable is it? Where did it come from? Who stands to benefit from it?
Perhaps Tasers are simply too technologically sophisticated for regular cops to question their value.
Or perhaps boys just love toys. Police forces are still overwhelmingly male; Tasers are rather exclusive toys.
I wonder how they\’ll feel about Taser International\’s latest marketing ploy – to sell Tasers to the general public, in fancy colors, suitable for storing in a purse or pocket.
When everyone has a Taser, how much respect will a Taser-wielding cop get?
Taser has a lot at stake. Company chair Tom Smith told the Braidwood inquiry that his firm supplies Tasers to 350,000 police officers worldwide, in 12,800 agencies, in 44 countries.
Here in B.C., according to RCMP Assistant Commissioner Al Macintyre, police forces currently have 1154 Tasers, with 3153 Taser-trained officers in 53 detachments.
Last year, they used Tasers 496 times.
Two of those times killed Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, at Vancouver International Airport. His death, observed by millions on television, prompted the present inquiry.
Reckless use
Significantly, nothing has hurt the company\’s image as much as reckless use by police officers. Since Dziekanski, the news media reported the tasering of 82-year-old Frank Lasser in a hospital bed in Kamloops.
Lasser had pneumonia, was recovering from heart bypass surgery, and had to breathe oxygen. He got about as belligerent as a bedridden 82-year-old can get. He brandished a pocket knife at the officers.
They zapped him twice.
Lasser\’s behaviour apparently qualified as “excited delirium” – the diagnosis commonly used to justify Taser use. Officers repeatedly cited it at the Braidwood inquiry.
Unfortunately, “excited delirium” does not appear among the 297 categories listed in the 886-page Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Bible of the psychoanalytic profession. Taser International invented it.
So once again, the rationale for using Tasers comes from Taser itself.
Police psychologist Mike Webster called "excited delirium" a "dubious disorder" used by Taser International in training police. As a result of that training, Webster said, when officers encounter someone experiencing this “mythical” condition, “they have few options other than jolting the person with the controversial electrical weapon, which delivers a five-second shock that incapacitates a person.”
Cardiac arrest To receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. E-mail subscribers also get excerpts from correspondence about these columns. Please forward a copy of this column to anyone who might be interested in subscribing.
If you want to order my books, you can call 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-328-0200 in the U.S., or order them on-line at the Wood Lake Books website.
For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
It\’s also worth pursuing Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
Independent medical experts testifying at the Braidwood inquiry agreed that a 50,000 volt jolt, applied to the chest, could cause cardiac complications.
Dr. Charles Kerr and Dr. Michael Janusz, both of them heart surgeons and professors at the University of British Columbia, stated that Tasers “can induce ventricular fibrillation… Tasers can almost certainly cause cardiac arrest…”
After all, the whole point of the shock is to cause involuntary muscle spasms. Why would the heart muscle be immune?
Yet Taser International claims that there have been no cases – repeat, NO cases – where their product has been directly implicated in a death.
Taser argues that if a death has occurred, it has happened later, or from other causes. Sometimes seconds later, like Dziekanski. Sometimes, like Howard Hyde in Halifax, a day or two later.
Using that reasoning, insurance companies could claim that a death did not directly result from a car accident, but from later complications. China could argue that very few people died from its earthquake; the rest died of thirst, starvation, asphyxiation, or blood loss.
The rules of logic, evidence, and common sense all suggest that Taser International\’s claims should not have been accepted at face value.
=====================================
Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
=====================================
PROMOTION PLUGS
