A curious fact.

[flamin lib]

I started to write a “law of unintended consequences” piece about the advent of “non lethal” weapons. I got the inspiration from headlines about taser fatalities. My first thought was that if police weren’t given the “non lethal” taser option they would have used other means to subdue people in their charge, means that would not have killed anyone. The point being that there has always been a range of options available to police and not the either/or of lethal gunfire or newest toy.

I set out to find statistics on unjustified deaths by taser vs gunfire.

Guess what? There are no statistics kept on police shootings of innocent people.

None. Not at the city level, state level or federal level. However, even the smallest municipality openly publishes statistics on injuries, not just deaths mind you, to police officers in the line of duty.

I found that interesting.

[LakeSamish706]

1. Canadian Authorities (RCMP) have just recently revised there manuals...

on the use of Taser guns, and this is a direct result of the incident that took place at the Vancouver, BC airport. We will see how this plays out in the next while...

[Mythsaje]

2. I know some of the anti drug war people

collect such statistics, with regards to innocent people injured in drug raids and such.

That's the only place I know that such information exists.

[flamin lib]

3. All I could find was that any reporting of police homicide in the line of duty is done

on a voluntary basis. Voluntary at all levels and even if it is reported there is no central clearing house to compile statistics ala FBI crime stats.