TASER plants 3,000 trees to represent lives saved by ECDs since first deployment 19 years ago
TASER International, Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR), is sponsoring the planting of 3,000 trees through Arbor Day Foundation in recognition of the estimated 100,000 lives saved from death or serious personal injury by TASER® brand electronic control devices (ECDs) on Dec. 13, 19 years after the company was founded.
By giving new life to its community, TASER seeks to represent how its life-saving ECDs have made a difference in both law enforcement officers’ and citizens’ lives since the first devices were deployed in 1994.
TASER partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation because of the organization’s ongoing dedication to fostering community health through planting and nurturing trees, while TASER is empowering people around the world to provide the best safety and security for their communities. TASER selected its donations to support domestic reforestation projects of greatest need in California and Florida (representing the U.S. from east to west), as well as an international reforestation project in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest (representing TASER’s international presence).
Brothers Rick and Tom Smith founded TASER in September 1993 to create safer personal protection alternatives, while using technologies to maximize public safety and minimize the potential for misuse. Their inspiration followed the tragic deaths of Rick’s two former high school football teammates who were murdered in a road rage incident. “Tom and I knew we wanted to create technology that could significantly change our culture and be a positive disruptive force that could revolutionize both personal safety and law enforcement by preventing situations like this personal tragedy in the future,” said CEO Rick Smith. “We wanted to commemorate the preservation of life by partnering with a foundation that gives new life to our world’s forests.”
“Undoubtedly our Saves Counter hitting the 100,000 milestone is a critical reminder to our employees and the brave men and women of law enforcement about the valuable work they do every day,” said Rick Smith. “The Saves Counter is linked not just to the math behind the estimate, but to videos and reports of the heroic efforts of law enforcement officers to save lives with ECDs. It is with sincere gratitude that we thank these brave men and women for the risks that take every day to keep our communities safe.”
Methodology and Background
TASER’s “Saves Counter” tracks estimates of the number of people whose lives have been saved from potential death or serious injury using TASER® devices and the number of times law enforcement uses TASER ECDs in the field. The Saves Counter is posted on the home page of TASER.com.
As of Sept. 30, 2012, TASER International has sold approximately 700,000 TASER ECDs in 107 countries to more than 16,800 law enforcement and military agencies. In addition, approximately 255,000 TASER ECDs have been sold to the general public. The milestone coincides with TASER’s recent announcement that it reached a four-year high with earnings, seeing revenues up 18 percent to 28.8 million at the end of the third quarter.
The Saves Counter was developed based on a statistical analysis of TASER usage patterns in the more than 16,800 agencies using TASER ECDs today. Some key statistics:
About Arbor Day Foundation
The Arbor Day Foundation is a nonprofit conservation and education organization of one million members, with the mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. More information on the Foundation and its programs can be found at www.arborday.org, or by visiting the Foundation on Facebook, Twitter or the Foundation’s blog.
Has law enforcement changed over time? Certainly. However, what’s truly remarkable is that it takes disruptive technology — a truly revolutionary breakthrough technology to do so. Take a look a what disruptive technologies have done for law enforcement, from firearms, to communications, to fingerprints in the timeline graphic below. Then take a gander at what TASER technology has done with its TASER ECDs — not just a law enforcement response to resistance tools but their built-in accountability features and camera accessories as well.
In the 1990s only special supervisors or a designated SWAT team member used TASER devices. When we rolled out our TASER ECDs in 1998 we told law enforcement we would eventually have them on the belts of ALL patrol officers. That mighty bold statement received countless collective chuckles, smiles, laughter, and even some snide remarks. For us, it continued to fuel our passion here at TASER International.
FAST-forward to 2012 and there are now over 16,000 law enforcement agencies out of 18,000 in the U.S. that now have TASER ECDs. They are used in over 107 countries.
Revolutionary? By all means. But remember, to be revolutionary there must be pain points, learning curves and paradigm shifts. It also means controversy will necessarily come up, otherwise it wouldn’t be revolutionary.
So here we are now with perhaps yet another breakthrough technology: Our AXON Flex on-officer video camera with seamless video upload to a secure cloud — EVIDENCE.com.
Already, former critics, which two year ago said, “No way our officers will wear these,” are now saying, “It’s coming and may be faster than you think. There is nothing you can do to stop it.” Others are saying, it’s the “wave of the future” while others are saying, they don’t want to be one of the last agencies without it.
Who knows, this might be yet another tipping point for another law enforcement technology revolution.
These are the most common statistics requested by press & our clients: