Police Stun Guns and Patrol Car Video Surveillance

Police stun guns have not earned the seal of approval as one would think in regard to the safety and justice elements they have depicted in the past as possibilities. Police stun guns are dangerous. They have contributed to deaths and injuries regarding police and their victims who have received the stun gun in reference to police control in situations of violence. There are pending law suits too numerous to count in regard to suits involving the stun guns use in police departments all over the country. Stun guns are used unnecessarily and have proved to be affective in ultimate death of a subject unnecessarily.

“Stun guns have triggered lawsuits nationwide by police officers who allege that the weapons are too dangerous to use, and by individuals who claim that many people have been injured or killed after being shocked with the gun”( Hamblett,).

“Currently, more than a dozen individual lawsuits – both wrongful death and products liability claims – are pending against Arizona-based Taser International Inc., the stun gun’s manufacturer, in Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Nevada and Oklahoma”( Hamblett,).

“Police departments throughout the country bought Tasers under the belief that these were nonlethal weapons that could be used fairly freely to help the police do their job. It turns out that these products are very, very dangerous,” said the plaintiff’s attorney, Paul Geller of the Boca Raton, Fla., office of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins’ (Hamblett).

“Thomas Wilmer, a Phoenix solo practitioner, is handling seven stun gun lawsuits filed on behalf of police officers in Maricopa County Superior Court. Wilmer said his clients suffered a variety of injuries while in training with the gun, including a separated shoulder, fractured teeth that led to infection and spinal injuries. He claims that there were no warnings about the risk of injury” (Hamblett).

“Some of these guys have had their lives ruined. They lost their careers,” said Wilmer, who is handling the cases along with Phoenix lawyer John Dillingham of Dillingham & Reynolds” (Hamblett).

“According to Amnesty International, more than 70 people in the U.S. and Canada have died after being shot with a stun gun since 2001. While medical examiners have ruled that most of those deaths resulted from health problems, the issue for plaintiffs’ lawyers is proving that the stun gun contributed to, or caused, death’(Hamblett).

“Stun guns have triggered lawsuits nationwide by police officers who allege that the weapons are too dangerous to use, and by individuals who claim that many people have been injured or killed after being shocked with the gun”(Baldas).