When ‘Non-Lethal’ Is Lethal

"Stand back or you’ll get Tasered too!": That was the yell of an angry police officer when a concerned onlooker stepped forward to protest the shocking of a student with a Taser in the UCLA library. The incident took place nearly two weeks ago, when a student refused to produce his ID during a standard check of library premises by police.

Most accounts of the situation agree that the student refused to leave and, when he lay prone in protest, was shocked by a taser five times. A video of the event, taken by cell phone and circulated on YouTube, has sparked widespread disgust. The officer’s threat to Taser the intervening onlooker demonstrates what is perhaps most shocking about the incident: the wanton and unnecessary use of violence.

Unfortunately, this kind of abuse is not uncommon. This particular event has become infamous because it is on film and the student’s screams of pain are clearly audible. Seventy-four U.S. police departments now use "non-lethal" weapons (NLWs), which include such tools as pepper spray, beanbag bullets and tasers.Their introduction has been welcomed by many who see them as a safer way to diffuse potentially dangerous situations, particularly those that involve people on drugs and the mentally ill. But advocates of NLWs tend to ignore one resulting danger: their users are likely to become more trigger-happy.

Superficially at least, the Taser is the perfect weapon for dealing with dangerous scenarios such as riots. It purportedly does no permanent damage and yet completely immobilize its victims. This is how the public perceives them at least and, to our dismay, evidently many users of NLWs share the perception. In fact, however, no thorough medical review of their effects has been carried out, and since the weapon’s most extensive testing was conducted by the company that sells them, human rights groups have questioned the label "non-lethal." Yet even if Tasers pose no risk of death for their victims, at the very least they inflict severe pain. The weapon’s image as a soft replacement for the gun, however, means that their use is taken less seriously by the carrier: Instead of seeing a taser as a serious form of physical coercion, police are sometimes liable to view them as a convenient tool that uses invisible force to get the job done.

Undoubtedly, Tasering a miscreant student is better than shooting him, but the former can still be a horrific abuse of power. NLWs should be used with great caution for the purpose of avoiding further violence. They should not be an easy way for the police to avoid tiresome negotiation.