Getting tased, Part 2: Beware of the ‘excited’
Tasers were originally created as a firearm alternative—a weapon that didn’t kill, supposedly. But Tasers have become a popular police tool to use on suspects suffering from what Taser International calls “excited delirium,” a term coined in the 1980s after cocaine use become more widespread. According to the Minneapolis Police Department, all officers on the Crisis Intervention Team, which mostly deals with unarmed persons who are on drugs or mentally ill, carry a Taser.
Note: This story is the second feature in a two-part in a series. For more information, check out
Getting tased: How Taser International expects to make millions from fear mongering, slick marketing and the Republican National Convention)
Experts say “excited delirium” is a mythical condition used to boast Taser sales, and that its increasing rationale in Taser use is leading to more deaths.
Since the firm Taser International went public in 2001, deaths from stun guns, or Tasers, have grown steadily. In fact, the increase has been so profound that the National Institute of Justice is conducting its own study on the weapons, to be released in 2009. There is no way to get accurate reporting before 2003 on deaths occurring during arrest, since, oddly enough, there was central documentation of such deaths until a law passed in 2000 created the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program.
Even after its passage, the reporting program acknowledges huge gaps in departments reporting deaths from Tasers and/or stun-guns. What we do know is that at least 34 people have died in the United States this year after being Tased, two of them in the Twin Cities.
Here’s how one of those cases unfolded:
On Jan. 15, 29-year-old Mark Backlund is driving to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport from New Brighton to pick up his parents during rush hour. Backlund crashes into a minivan on Interstate 694. Five Minnesota State Patrol officers, two of them in training, immediately arrive on the scene. About eight minutes later, Backlund is unresponsive after being Tased three times. He is pronounced dead at the hospital.
According to video released by the State Patrol, Backlund appears to slow