JUSTICE DEPARTMENT STILL DEFENDING TASERS DESPITE TORTURE AND 277 U.S. DEATHS SINCE 2001

REUTERS - Researchers tracked police Taser use on 962 people in six jurisdictions around the country from July 2005 to June of this year. The study was funded by the U.S. Justice Department. Three of these people sustained moderate or severe nonfatal injuries requiring hospital admission, the study found. Two of them had head injuries suffered when they fell to the ground after being stunned. One had a type of muscle breakdown condition also seen in people whose body temperature gets too high, the researchers said. Of the rest, 216 people sustained mild injuries like abrasions, contusions and minor cuts requiring outpatient medical treatment, and 743 suffered no injury, the study found. Two who were shocked with the weapon died, but the researchers said investigations and autopsies determined the deaths to have been unrelated to the Taser. . .

Jared Feuer, who heads the U.S. southern regional office of Amnesty International, said the group has documented that 277 people in the United States have died after being shocked by a Taser since June 2001. "We do believe that there is a risk to the public safety, and we still call for there to be a moratorium on the use of Tasers" by police, Feuer said in an telephone interview.

"Our concern is that Tasers interfere with a basic equation, which is that force must always be proportional to the threat," Feuer said, noting that about 80 percent of the people on whom a Taser is used by U.S. police are unarmed.