Dan's Papers - January 18, 2008

In February of 2005, a 35-year-old Southampton man named David Glowczenski died on North Main Street in that town. A month later, a 39-year-old man named John Cox died on the street in Ronkonkoma. Both men died of heart failure after being hit multiple times by tasers fired by policemen. Both men were mentally ill and were going through schizophrenic episodes, shouting and screaming and banging on doors and doing other wild things that called for them to be subdued. In both cases, the police were called in.

I'm not sure of the details of the John Cox death, but in the case of Mr. Glowczenski, the police were called by his mother. She had called the police numerous times in the past when David, a big man, needed to be subdued, restrained and hospitalized. And the police had responded, taken stock of the situation and subdued him.

In this last instance, however, David did not seem to notice that he was being tasered, and so they tasered him a second time. Pressing the button on a taser results in the firing of a dart attached to an electrical wire that sends out 450,000 volts of electricity for four seconds into whoever it hits. People fall down when that happens. This man didn't.

Although the police say they fired the taser weapon no more than four times - the maximum time allowed, according to the manual from the Taser company - an autopsy later revealed nine taser marks on his body.

After these two men were killed that winter, I did some research on tasers. They can be bought privately by consumers in seven of the fifty states. The organization Amnesty International reports that about 100 people a year are killed around the country from taser shocks. I also learned that research on the injuries caused by a taser shock have always been done on pigs, because pigs have hearts very much like human hearts. But then I learned that pigs have muscle around the heart to soften the blow of a taser shock that is six times thicker than human heart muscle. If you remove some of the muscle around a pig heart, the danger of death from a taser increases. When you remove 5/6ths of the muscle, you get serious danger. Pigs die from taser shocks at that level.

In the old days, people who were behaving wildly and were in need of being captured and restrained got caught in big grappling nets. The police would throw these nets. Very often they were quite successful.

The invention of the taser for the police forces around the country - about half the forces have them now - made the job faster, easier and more accurate. A police officer could shoot the device from seven feet away. A police officer didn't even have to touch such a person.

Given all this information, I have waited this past year to see what might be done about the problem involving tasers as it relates to eastern Long Island.

Finally, there is news. This week, out in Las Vegas at the International CES Convention, Laser International is unveiling the Taser C2 and the Taser MPH, available at a WalMart in a store near you, in a state where it is legal.

The Taser C2 comes in Leopard trim, and is being marketed with the slogan "for those who want fashion with a bite." You can also get it in pink and in red-hot red. The cost is about $300 and you can keep the taser in your bag.

For another hundred dollars, however, you can get the Taser MPH. This model, still available in the three fashion colors described above, comes with a leather gun holster that you strap on. But for a hundred extra bucks, it's not just a regular gun holster. It's a one gig MP3 player. Plug in your ear buds, press play and you're practically invincible. Think X-Men, Spiderman or the Hulk. And if anybody bothers you as you strut along, just let them have it.

Of course, always issue a warning first. It's right there in the manual. And then no more than four.