Be Smart. Be Aware. Be Ready to Act.
Posted by Natalie
What a great way to end the week — today I am able to share an account of an incident where one woman’s savvy self-defense skills saved her from what could have been a very dangerous situation. In this woman’s story, her awareness of personal safety and willingness to act resulted in a positive outcome and not another tragedy being reported on the evening news.
The following story was sent to us this week by a Sergeant at a California law enforcement agency. The wife of one of his colleagues used her TASER® C2™ to ward off a potential attacker. The woman had obviously thought about her own personal safety beforehand, which is why she was carrying a C2 and was prepared to act in her own defense.
We often find, as in this case, that just taking out your C2 is enough to scare off an attacker. However, if you do choose to carry some form of weapon to defend yourself, you also need to be prepared to use it. Check out the story after the jump, as it reinforces the fact that we constantly need to maintain an awareness of our surroundings:
The wife of one of our officers was shopping at Wal-Mart in California about a week ago. As she was selecting a bag of dog food she noticed a man looking at dog food. She continued get some material for a sewing project and the same man was showing an interest in fabric. She then went to the ladies section and guess who was there? The same man! You get the picture. As she was checking out, the same guy was behind her buying a single item like gum or something.
As she exited the store, she removed her Pink C2 from her purse and put it in her pocket. She stopped just outside the main doors, off to the side a bit, not wanting to chance an encounter in the middle of the parking lot. Sure enough, the man comes out looking for her. It was clear to her that he was going to address her in some manner. She adamantly stated to him that he was making her uncomfortable and he needed to leave her alone.
The man responded that he does not speak English (“No habla ingles”). The woman then displayed her TASER C2, and said, “I have a Taser and you need to leave me alone!”
The man took off running in the opposite direction, got into a car and fled.
This story illustrates the importance of being aware of your surroundings and the way in which a TASER C2 can alleviate a situation. No one knows for sure if or how this situation may have ended differently had the woman not been so aware of her surroundings and not been carrying a TASER C2. What we do know is that, because of her actions, the situation had a positive outcome and she is safe.
Be smart, notice the people around you, and when necessary, be prepared to act decisively to defuse a perceived and potential threat before it becomes dangerous.
# ndresident wrote on 7/3/2009 10:07 am:
Alan, I’m so glad there are people like you around as it means many attorneys will not starve. :-)
# Jason wrote on 6/25/2009 8:43 am:
“Tasers are not marketed as non-lethal so stop pretending that they are non-lethal. You have only shown that you have no idea what you are talking about. In fact, Taser International as tacitly admitted they are deadly in their training bulletin of June 28, 2005.
Therefore, its use in any form is considered to be intended to cause serious bodily injury or even death.
Just because someone THINKS they are being attacked doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to assure that they are being attacked before using force.”
As to your claim that I don’t know what I’m talking about, it doesn’t deserve a response beyond saying that it’s silly and based on a semantic quibble. The company says 99.75% or those tased by police in the study quoted below sustain no or mild injuries. The company clearly markets the taser as a non-lethal device, even if they admit it may occasionally be deadly. They also market it as a mode of halting violent attacks without having to shoot people, which is what the police consider a deadly-force option. But fine, if you prefer, replace those words with “less than lethal.” It doesn’t change my argument.
You’ve used this as a smokescreen to ignore the real thrust of my point, which is that there is no way this is a double felony. The law allows for the “reasonable and honest belief” that you are in grave physical danger to constitute self-defense. You might think ethically that she needs to wait until he actually attacks her before acting, but the law doesn’t, and I tend to agree with it in this case.
# Hilary Gibeaut wrote on 6/22/2009 5:31 pm:
Although, no use of force device is completely risk free including TASER technology, medical experts and independent comprehensive reports from the governments of Canada, United Kingdom and the U.S. have concluded that TASER systems are among the safer use-of-force alternatives to subdue violent individuals who could harm law enforcement officers, innocent citizens or themselves.
A recent study sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department and conducted by Dr. William Bozeman of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a team of researchers examined the safety of TASER electronic control devices (ECDs) used by law enforcement agencies which suggested the devices are safe, causing a low occurrence of serious injuries.
According to the research that was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine http://www.annemergmed.com/webfiles/images/journals/ymem/wpbozeman.pdf, a review of the 1201 incidents in where a TASER device was used in the arrest procedure, 99.75 percent of the suspects sustained no or mild injuries.
“This study is the first large, independent study of injuries associated with TASERs. It is the first injury epidemiology study to review every TASER deployment and to reliably assess the overall risk and severity of injuries in real world conditions,” said William Bozeman, M.D., the lead investigator and an emergency medicine specialist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “The injury rate is low and most injuries appear to be minor. These results support the safety of the devices,” concluded Bozeman.
When used properly, medical and law enforcement experts have concluded that TASER technology is among the most effective use-of-force interventions available to law enforcement officers to halt violent situations that pose a safety risk to an officer, suspect or innocent citizens. TASER technology isn’t a magic bullet, but its 94% actual field rates are impressive and unmatched by any other law enforcement non-lethal weapon.
Hilary Gibeaut
Public Relations Manager
TASER International
# Alan wrote on 6/22/2009 3:49 am:
Tasers are not marketed as non-lethal so stop pretending that they are non-lethal. You have only shown that you have no idea what you are talking about. In fact, Taser International as tacitly admitted they are deadly in their training bulletin of June 28, 2005.
Therefore, its use in any form is considered to be intended to cause serious bodily injury or even death.
Just because someone THINKS they are being attacked doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to assure that they are being attacked before using force.
# Jason wrote on 6/20/2009 12:30 am:
Aggravated Assault: an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe
or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by
means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.
Would Alan care to explain how this incident fits this definition? First of all, it has to be unlawful and for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.
Aside from which, one of the main points of law is self-defense: If you had a reasonable and honest belief that you or another person were about to be seriously hurt by another, you are allowed to “reasonably” fight back.
Producing a non-lethal weapon in a defensive manner seems to fall under this category. Aside from which, this story was submitted by a California law enforcement agency…I’m guessing that they would know the definition of aggravated assault and apply it if anything she had done was actually illegal in their eyes….Any woman who feels threatened by a man in this manner has a reasonable amount of evidence to believe that she is in danger of being seriously hurt, which I’;m sure is the way they looked at it.
Or would you guys prefer she’d taken her chances?
Of course, she’d have been smarter, and safer, to go to the store manager or an employee and explain the problem, then have them call the police….but she may not have thought that far ahead. Nonetheless, the idea that this kind of action constitutes a double felony is patently ludicrous.
# BRENT wrote on 6/16/2009 7:01 am:
Good For you! I am glad that you were able to protect yourself with your Taser. You were well within your rights to display your Taser. I have been told that in most situations the Taser is not even deployed because the word is out on the street that this device works!
# Leo wrote on 6/13/2009 10:00 am:
“Why are you idiots glorifying the commission of two felonies?”
Just a stab in the dark here, but maybe because he/she/they balatantly work for Taser?
# Alan wrote on 6/12/2009 12:23 pm:
This was clearly a case of aggravated assault by the woman using the C2 taser. Why are you idiots glorifying the commission of two felonies? the first was her carrying of a concealed weapon in California and the second was her aggravated assault of the guy.
# Lissy wrote on 6/1/2009 2:50 pm:
This just hits so close to home. This woman was not putting herself in that dangerous situation – she was simply out shopping at Walmart. It show that we must be prepared no matter where we go.
# Jenny wrote on 6/1/2009 2:34 pm:
This story made me wonder what I would have done if I had been in the situation of this woman without a TASER. It really speaks to how possessing and being ready to use a personal defense device can mitigate the vulnerability that I feel as a woman every day and give me a tool to fall back on should i find myself similarly threatened. Thanks for making me think.