Problem is the low integrity of Taser,Inc.(Smith)
The bad effect of today's CBS interview was that it showed the CEO Smith, and hence the Taser company, to be taking the "low road" and doing everything to bias and distort the scientific record. That's the problem: basic character, not specifics. When Smith said he excluded the negative Medical Examiner's report because he had found some "expert" who disagreed, it was clear that this guy will do anything self-serving. This company could have been forthright about risks and benefits and done OK, --- but it's obviously not such a principled operation.
Police departments have depended on the company's own "scientific" claims about tasers not killing people, trusting the company. In the future it looks as though they could be exposed to horrendous lawsuits if they rely just on Taser's slanted version. Imagine the wrongful death claims that are possible now. I think the "projected earnings" of this company assumed that the worldwide orders would still come in just as they did before these exposes of the company's duplicity. Now things may change and a realistic earnings projection might be vastly lower.
If you read Taser's defensive press releases carefully, they just dig themselves into a deeper hole. They haven't "strongly refuted" (to use their childish expression) the actual scientific points of the critics. The New York Times article noted the LACK of any controlled scientific studies. Taser Inc. on its web-page just gives its uniformly-biased wordy interpretation of each anecdotal case it chooses to discuss. Then in the next press release they majestically unveil the learned conclusion of ... Sheriff Carter. Some scientific body. (I'm afraid I thought of "Sargeant Carter" from Gomer Pyle USMC -- which is only half-unfair.) Now from the CBS interview it's clear that Taser selects and reveals only favorable reports. I don't know how many, if any, were paid for by Smith or his company.
Something people neglect is the use of tasers for torture, punishment and "incentivizing" prisoners rather than just controlling berserk attackers. They've been used in Guantanamo on Muslim "detainees" as a pure threat tool, as opposed to defense. I see on the web that in Colorado police tasered a 9-year old little girl who was already handcuffed and in the back of a police car, possibly just to shut her up. She was "agitated" they said.
The fact is that certain police officers, miltary interrogators and contractors look forward with enjoyment to using the taser. If not for sadism, just for the control feeling. (It's as about close as you can get now to the feeling of the Emperor Palpatine at the end of Return of the Jedi where he's zapping Luke Skywalker with lighting from his fingers.) Not every officer of course, but there is that element.
If law enforcement departments get worried about paying millions for death lawsuits, they might reduce their orders for tasers and issue them only very selectively to a few responsible officers in genuine special-need situations. This cuts the market to a tiny portion of what it would be if everyone were to be issued tasers routinely, the way they were planning.
