TASER® Blog

Today I came across an article regarding a man in Alice Springs, Australia, who was waving a machete and screaming, “I want to chop people up,” and to the police, “I’ll make you shoot me.”  Sadly, while this story may be horrifying to most citizens, it is all too familiar to law enforcement officers. This is known as “suicide by cop.”

According to Wikipedia, “suicide by cop is a suicide method in which a suicidal deliberately acts in a threatening way, with the goal of provoking a lethal response from a law enforcement officer, such as being shot to death.” Tragically, those officers that are placed in those situations not only face media and public scrutiny, internal investigations, self-doubt, but they have to live the rest of their lives with the fact that they were involved in an incident where a life was taken to no fault of their own.

The main mission that co-founders Rick and Tom Smith had when starting TASER International in 1993 was to find a safer response to resistance. This mission is accomplished each time we read of similar lives saved by the use of a TASER ECD. To shed a little light on “who” we are, our staff at “Team TASER” is highly motivated and driven by these stories. Although we aren’t walking the beat or putting on a badge to protect and serve, it still makes us feel like we are, albeit a small, but important contributing cog in the law enforcement world. It’s a story like this that helps feel like we’re doing our part to make the world a little bit safer and doing our part to protect life.

We are human at TASER International. We read the controversial stories and sometimes you can feel overwhelmed that so many of the life-saving events are simply not covered or reported in any large extent despite thousands of lives that have been positively affected by the use of a TASER ECD. However, we as a company continue to produce products that help deter incidents that end in any death or serious injury, which allows us to continue to fulfill our number one mission: Protect life.

Although our technology is not a replacement for deadly force, we do know our TASER technology has been invaluable in more than 800,000 field use in situations — including the prevention of suicide by cop. It’s a good reminder today to see the positive impacts this technology makes each day at nearly 14,500 law enforcement agencies  in more than 40 countries.

Law enforcement officers often encounter individuals attempting to harm themselves with deadly weapons at all hours of the day. Situations like these require officers to think and react quickly while utilizing their specialized communications skills. Just recently, a woman in Providence, RI, tried to take her life only to be saved by police officers using a TASER X26 electronic control device. Incidents like this illustrate how TASER devices can be used by law enforcement to safely and effectively end potentially deadly situations.

Check out the full story here: Providence Police use TASER to Save Woman

TASER International is the market leader in advanced electronic control devices (aka ECDs).  In the United States and Canada alone there are approximately 19,000 state/provincial, local and federal law enforcement agencies. And as of December 31, 2008, TASER International has sold approximately 390,000 TASER brand ECDs to more than 13,900 of those law enforcement agencies.  

Perhaps the most telling statistic: more than 5,200 agencies of the 13,900 deploying TASER devices have made the decision to fully deploy these ECDs.  This full deployment means that 5,200 agencies have provided TASER ECDs to all of their patrol officers.

This sea change in law enforcement is not unique to North America, as TASER devices are sold in more than 40 countries.

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