The video clearly demonstrates that the victim aimed a pistol at the officers responding to a 911 call for domestic abuse and terroristic threats. It captures the officer’s conversation with the man’s wife who made the 911 call and let officers into the house. Officer Davis then ordered the victim to drop the gun at least nine times, commands which were ignored, before shooting him.

The use of TASER technology in this tragic incident provided investigators with irrefutable evidence of what actually transpired at the scene. Prosecutor Shue credits TASER AXON and EVIDENCE.com for quickly and definitively resolving any doubts regarding the officer’s actions. He says “Clearly this technology is not just a step forward it is a quantum leap as far as an investigative tool.”

The official unveiling date is July 27 when we will publicly present the X3 at our annual TASER Conference in Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Since the announcement last week, we have been providing daily features and technological advancements of the TASER X3, which will continue until our unveiling on July 27. The TASER X3 has also taken on a persona on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/TASERX3) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/TASERX3) where the device is “sharing” more about its exciting new features. The X3 just may be the first law enforcement weapon to “launch itself” through interactive social media sites. The use of social media is a first for our company and we are giving away some pretty great swag such as TASER® hats, shirts, and tactical bags to those that follow its progress and announcements during July. The TASER X3 is definitely a more hip, media savvy ECD!

For those that need a re-cap of the X3 features revealed in just the first seven days, here they are:

• Rotational Pulse Drive:  Rotate NMI pulses across firing bays to engage multiple targets simultaneously.
• Warning ARC:  Display warning arcs and gain compliance — even while the X3 remains loaded.
• Dual Laser System:  Enhance accuracy with dual lasers indicating top and bottom probe trajectories.
• Environmentally hardened:  X3 survives harsh environments such as dust, water, salt, fog and freezing temperatures.
• Color Display:  Central Information Display provides enhanced icons and data.
• Pulse Calibration System:  Monitors, calibrates, records voltage, and charge for every NMI pulse delivered.
• Cam-Lock Safety:  Reengineered safety interlocking design engages positively to armed or safe position.
• Independent fire control system:  Independent fire control circuitry directs firing sequence preventing static discharge.

I hope you’re saying “Wow!” at this point. The TASER X3 has so many great new features… and there are still 19 days to go until the official unveiling.

By the way… last week I had the opportunity to personally try out the X3. It is one innovative, capable and hi-tech law enforcement tool that promises to revolutionize the future of ECDs. I’m really excited about the launch and the way TASER will once again change the way law enforcement does its job. So excited that I almost want to take another voluntary ECD exposure, just to try out the new rotational pulse drive!

I did say “almost”…

The inner workings of a TASER XREP shell

Yesterday, TASER announced the new handheld multi-shot electronic control device (ECD) called TASER X3™, which will be officially released at the annual TASER Conference on July 27 in Fountain Hills, Ariz. This is the first new handheld ECD since the introduction of the TASER X26 in 2003.

We will be providing 27 features/technological advancements of the TASER X3 over the next 27 days. To follow the X3’s daily technology releases, go to:  www.TASERX3.com or follow on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/TASERX3 and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TASERX3.

Tuesday, TASER International announced that the TASER® eXtended Range Electronic Projectile (XREP™) shotgun rounds and TASER® X12™ less-lethal shotgun by Mossberg® are now available.

The TASER X12 less-lethal shotgun by Mossberg

The X3 is the culmination of over four years of intense research and development and offers exponentially increased capabilities, including vastly enhanced data, networking, and communication functionality as well as enhanced safety features. TASER has made major investments over the past 24 months to bring a host of new products to market — including the AXON™ Tactical Computer, EVIDENCE.COM™, and the long awaited wireless TASER® XREP™. Our R&D Team has secretly worked on a parallel path to bring the X3 to reality. These innovative developments create an ecosystem of technologies that interface together to provide law enforcement never-before-possible, breakthrough capabilities.

The TASER® product family will provide our customers smarter, safer capabilities to better protect our officers and our communities.

This two day workshop will bring together key thought-leadership from the law enforcement community to explore how rapidly evolving Web 3.0 technologies can be applied to the challenges of secure digital evidence management, analytics, and inter-agency collaboration.

EVIDENCE.com, along with the previously announced TASER® AXON™ on-officer tactical computer, form a major platform computing initiative utilizing advanced Web 3.0 technology to create an integrated end-to-end solution that seamlessly captures, stores securely, and analyzes digital evidence and information in ways never before possible, preserving a pristine evidentiary chain of custody from the time the evidence was captured all the way through the judicial process. In effect, EVIDENCE.com is bringing Software as a Service (SaaS) for the first time to main street, public safety and law enforcement.

In March, during an historic webcast, TASER® International CEO Rick Smith introduced the world to EVIDENCE.com and the idea of using advanced Web 3.0 technology and concepts to solve some of law enforcements most challenging problems. The 2009 EVIDENCE.com Technology Summit will expand that well-received webcast to a true two-way exchange of information and insight — designed not only to showcase the latest technology, but also to improve that technology — based on real-world knowledge and experience. It will be nothing short of law enforcement leadership and technology professionals creating the future for secure interactive digital evidence collection and management solutions.

For those not able to attend the two day EVIDENCE.com Technology Summit, you will be able to follow all the action on Twitter. Peter Holran, Vice President Public Relations and Government Affairs (@TASERPeter), Steve Tuttle, Vice President Communications (@SteveTASER), and I (@TASERHilary) will be live-tweeting the presentations and various speakers as well as instant feedback from the participants. We might even throw in some interesting anecdotal comments just to keep things interesting. Be sure to follow any or all three of us on Twitter. 

Also, be sure to check back here later this week for updates on what occurred at this landmark technology summit.

Yesterday, TASER International reported earnings for first quarter 2009. While I’m proud of many accomplishments this past quarter, the announcement of EVIDENCE.com stands out as a significant milestone in the evolution of the company. TASER International is now primed to provide a complete solution set to law enforcement’s most challenging problems.   

Out in the streets, when lives are at stake, our family of TASER® ECDs provides the safest, most effective option for officers to respond to resistance. The TASER® AXON™ Tactical Computer, which was announced last summer, will streamline the collection and analysis of evidence, preserving an audio/video record from the officer’s perspective of what really happened during all incidents — from traffic stops to the most contentious and dangerous confrontations.

EVIDENCE.com will provide secure storage and groundbreaking analytic capability for digital information and evidence while preserving a pristine evidentiary chain of custody from time the evidence was captured all the way through the judicial process, until the last gavel drops. We are building this capability, through EVIDENCE.com, in a way that lays the foundation for a global, secure network for the law enforcement community.

This integrated set of hardware and software tools has the potential to revolutionize law enforcement in the same way that real-time tactical situational awareness technologies have revolutionized military capabilities. If we think about how GPS, and autonomous systems like the cruise missiles or GPS guided munitions that revolutionized our military capabilities in recent conflicts, we see a similar prospect for bringing advanced information technology to law enforcement to modernize their capabilities and allow them to more effectively and safely execute their mission.

Our TASER ECDs are reducing violence, reducing injuries, and protecting lives every day. AXON and EVIDENCE.com will protect truth through an end-to-end integrated solution to capture, store securely, and analyze digital evidence and information in ways that enable tactical and strategic decision making by law enforcement, as well as for legal evidentiary use.  

Through EVIDENCE.com, we will create a network that can tie together the eyes and ears of hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers into a global, secure law enforcement collaboration network of digital information. This capability runs to the core of how to keep our communities safe and how to address the modern threats facing society. In fact, the mission of uniting the 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States was one of the core reasons that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was formed. However, it has proven extremely difficult to unite these 18,000 autonomous agencies with directives from the top down. We believe our bottom up approach will be successful. We believe that the revolutionary capabilities of AXON and EVIDENCE.com will create a unified collaborative network among our current 14,000 law enforcement agency customers.  

The future is digital information. Our breakthrough hardware — AXON — accelerates the need for massive digital data storage and management. EVIDENCE.com creates both the method and the network through which to handle this data. Using a Software as a Service (“SaaS”) approach removes the burden, capital investment, and implementation risk from local agencies who are all struggling with how to handle the complexities and volume of digital evidence and video. We are also designing the EVIDENCE.com infrastructure to enable next generation video analytics and to handle future law enforcement collaborative needs.

EVIDENCE.com will bring Software as a Service to main street, public safety and law enforcement for the first time.

In effect, we are taking elements from a variety of fast moving technology trends and combining them together to empower our law enforcement customers. The AXON Tactical Computer grew from the miniaturization of video recording devices and wearable computers, such as the iPhone™ or Blackberry® many of us now use every day. EVIDENCE.com is a world class, Web 3.0 Cloud Computing solution perfectly fit to address a highly complex, capital intensive technology need of the law enforcement community. We’ve also combined existing Web 2.0 social networking technology to enable secure grassroots collaboration across the law enforcement community.

It is a bold vision that is becoming reality. We are set to create the technology tool set of hardware and software products and solutions that will help us realize the vision of safer communities and a secure homeland, while making law enforcement significantly more effective and more accountable. Our technology will transform law enforcement. It will also transform TASER International — from a world-class product manufacturer, to a cross-technology platform solutions provider.  

Over the past two months, the senior leadership of TASER International has met with more than 60 senior command staff from the top 150 law enforcement agencies to share our vision of the TASER-AXON-EVIDENCE.com solutions. The results have been extremely promising. The significant majority of the agencies we met with have validated the pain points that we are solving, and interest in our solution set is very high. We have even received very favorable feedback from agencies who were not significant customers for our core TASER products.

Next week, TASER International is hosting a technology summit, with more than 130 participants from leading law enforcement agencies across the country who are joining us to learn more about EVIDENCE.com, and to provide further vital customer input into our final product development phase. In fact, more than 400 officers have already participated in prior focus groups and surveys that have helped us to develop this breakthrough solution set.

At TASER International, we are keenly aware of the challenges which exist as a result of a troubled global economy. But, as I’ve said before, now is the time to invest from a position of strength to extend our lead, enter into new markets, and provide solutions to the most complex problems.  

Challenging times favor the strong and bold. Our company’s financial condition is, indeed, strong. Our ideas and our people are innovative, and our thinking is bold.

The TASER Shockwave

The Shockwave is the first generation of TASER Remote Area Denial™ (TRAD) technology. At the push of a button, the Shockwave deploys multiple TASER cartridges across an area arc. The idea is to be able to control multiple targets from one source.

Initially, we see this product as being ideal for law enforcement crowd control, military checkpoints and correctional institutions. We hope to equip these segments with a new tool to deal with response to resistance situations.

The actual unit is not very big (about 3 feet high when fully stacked) and is not very heavy, making the Shockwave easy to transport. Each cartridge is deployed in a 20 degree arc with a distance of 25 feet. It’s capable of being operated  at a distance of up to 330 feet from the device via a Control Box. The NMI lasts for the standard five-seconds and can be reinitiated using the Re-Energize Button if need be.

While it may not be getting as much attention as some of the other TASER products that are coming to market later this year, the Shockwave is an effective new use of  TASER technology that is ready for action.

TASER XREP

Over the years the Discovery Channel has been a great partner in helping demonstrate and explain TASER technology to its viewers. They’ve done some very well received features on popular shows like Future Weapons and Time Warp.

Most recently, they’ve featured the TASER XREP, or eXtended Range Electronic Projectile, on the popular website howstuffworks.com. It’s the first time that TASER technology has been packaged in a small projectile (12 gauge shotgun shell) with long range capabilities (about 75 feet). 

Check out the story at How Stuff Work’s site. They’ve done a remarkably thorough job.