Did Tasers Kill Raoul Moat? UK Taser Supplier Found Dead
CAN the death of Peter Boatman – director of Pro-Tect Systems, the company that supplied Tasers to police – be linked to the death of Raoul Moat?
The X12 Taser was used against the wanted killer Moat, possibly illegally. The device did not have a licence. The Tasers and XRep ammunition had been imported by Prop-Tect and supplied directly to the police.
Pro-Tect Systems is the exclusive UK distributor for American company Taser International.
Mr Boatman is believed to have committed suicide in the same week the Home Secretary Theresa May revoked Pro-Tect’s licence to import and sell Tasers.
Boatman had been Tasered more than 220 times. The former Northants firearms officer once said:
“It’s a bit like lying in bed and feeling a cramp in your leg, but it covers your whole body. Certainly, it’s uncomfortable, but no more painful than a cramp.
“You don’t feel the probes going in. The first thing you notice is the muscles in between them spasming, and then the rest of your body seizes up.
“As soon as the electricity is switched off, you don’t feel anything anymore.
“You wouldn’t call it pleasant, but I’d rather be Tasered than hit with a truncheon or bitten by a police dog.”
Really? This website tracks those wgho have died not long after being Tasered:
ONE CANADIAN and FORTY-FIVE U.S. citizens and ONE Mexican (at the US border) have died so far this year after they were tasered by police.
That might exaggerate the dangers. But when you read the case of people like Baron “Scooter” Pikes, who was shot nine times with a Taser after being arrested on a cocaine charge, you wonder:
He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner’s report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead.
The last two shots were fired into a dead man.
So. Are Tasers dangerous. Yes. Should they be banned..?
October 4th, 2010 at 12:24 am
By the way, Dr. Bozeman’s ‘Wake Forest’ taser study included a population base that statitically should have included about five (5) taser associated deaths. As it turns out, the data base included two (2) taser associated deaths. But these two deaths, like so many before and since, were not attributed to the taser. These conclusions about the cause of death, as happens so often, were supported by the bad ‘science’ coming from Taser International and their minions. The “Fake Forest” study is statistically suspect, and circular at the highest level.
Furthermore, Bozeman’s name appeared on a list of those whose work had been funded by Taser International. That in itself us worthy of a further discounting of the results since Taser International never seems to find anything to indicate risk. And yet, those risks clearly exist. Which begs the question, what’s going on with these researchers?
October 2nd, 2010 at 3:04 pm
With all due respect to the recently-deceased, a report from 2005 noted that Mr. Boatman’s freshly-minted company Pro-Tect was awarded the exclusive taser distributorship for Britain, reportedly while he was still serving as a supposedly-unbiased expert and advisor to the Home Office on the subject of tasers.
LINK for fact checking:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article584499.ece
My point is not about Mr. Boatman. My point is that this unethical, corrupting, infiltrating, and deceptive marketing approach is perfectly typical if the people that run Taser International.
The Home Office should check the communications records between Mr. Boatman et al and Taser International during the Moat standoff. I wonder if there was a spike in telephones calls and e-mails. If so, then the management of Taser International could be brought in for questioning if they choose to attend Mr. Boatman’s funeral in the coming days.
These are just my suspicions, and are a suggestion only. Such communications in themselves are not necessarily illegal.
October 2nd, 2010 at 6:11 am
Oh Dear …. Mr. Tuttle is at it again. [Paraphrased] …”I make the world a “safer” place ….” Oh really, have off it already!
A “hero” does not leave his partner and family to bankruptcy but a coward does. That does not surprise me as I consider the human cattle prod a coward’s weapon anyway.
Mr. Tittle was “… [s]tunned to see Reality Chick below the belt hit concerning a tragic day here at TASER on her web page.” Well Mr. T., I am stunned that you have never admitted that your overpowered cattle prod may actually kill people and that you present Bozeman’s “study” as having any meaning in the real world. Oh, gee, sorry, I forgot that you take the position that all of the people hit with your cattle prod were already dying and would have died anyway if your weapon would not have been used on them … I keep forgetting that you have repeatedly taken that form of explanation for all of the dead who were first subjected to being jolted by your infernal machine … duh, they was dead already and we din’t do it!
Why not cite TM-03-90 – Evaluation of a Personal Protective Device: Power Stun Gun by the Canadian Police Research Centre instead of Bozeman? Very bottom of page @ http://www.css.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/cprc/arch/index-eng.asp
Oh, Mr. Tuttle … I’m the one who gave the “An Open Letter To The Law Enforcement Community” by some other ‘friends’ of yours to the California lawyers (with my research conclusions showing that your company understood why some people died when already suffering from severe metabolic acidosis – which your weapon then exasperated … in my view, of course) who won the first such case against your company.
I also made some 7 or 8 submissions to the Braidwood Inquiry in British Columbia, Canada that held that your weapon “kills” despite your background bellows of rage and expensive challenges to Braidwood’s conclusions in the superior courts of BC.
As to Mr.’s Moat and Boatman …. I have as much sympathy for them as I do for your feeling of outrage at Reality Chick’s attempts to inform the public about the foreseeable results of your cattle prod being used on humans.
October 2nd, 2010 at 12:52 am
Hello Anorak, I know that there are unmoderated comments on this article that really ought to see the light of day. Please make them “live” at your earliest possible convenience. Thank you!!
October 1st, 2010 at 11:52 pm
The loss of any life is tragic for those that lose a friend or a loved one. If only Taser International had not systematically abused ‘the system’, and consistently made false and misleading claims about the “safety” of tasers. Their utterly immoral and intentional campaign of deception has left police with the false impression that tasers could never cause or contribute to death. This led directly to the overuse, misuse and abuse of tasers worldwide. And that has resulted in electro-shock torture and unjustiable taser-contributed deaths in cases where lethal force was never an option. Tasers replace clever police work with dangerous stupidity.
My condolences to the family.
But allow to ask if Taser International communicated any unwitting encouragement to illegally supply unauthorized taser equipment. UK authorities should examine communications records in the time around the Moat standoff. It’s just a suspicion, but well worth checking.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Mr. Tuttle, I was unable to respond to your twitter message directly and so I’ll say it here. First of all, I am very sorry for the senseless loss of your friend Peter Boatman. And I extend my deepest sympathy to you and to everyone who knew him.
However, given this awful turn of events, I was more than a little shocked to read your “tweet” this afternoon about the xrep, of all things. Even you would have to agree that its timing was rather unfortunate and could reasonably lead to a “negative perception.”
I am not going to argue the studies and reports you’ve raised here. You and I are diametrically opposed on the issue of taser safety and I don’t believe that will ever change.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:43 pm
4 – Steve – I am sorry for the loss of your colleague. And i think we do have to have some faith in the system that says Tasers are an option. Are they safe? well, no. How can firing electricity into a human being be safe. But when confronted with violence do we want the police to be attacked or have a Taser to call upon?
October 1st, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I’m stunned to see Reality Chick below the belt hit concerning a tragic day here at TASER on her web page. As for her reply, she didn’t answer Anorak’s question. Were these deaths the direct cause of death? Russian Roulette? Absurd. Dr Bozeman’s study of 1201 incidents with 99.75% suffering no significant injury and the new US Dept of Justice’s report that in more than 24,000 use of force cases, the odds of a suspect’s injury decreased by almost 60 percent when a TASER ECD is used. Does that sound like Russian Roulette? Do we want to go back to fists, batons and impact munitions?
As for Peter Boatman, we lost a TASER UK family member and a personal dear friend. We are devastated today as the world lost a hero who has forever changed the profession of policing. Peter retired from law enforcement to focus his full time energies against what seemed insurmountable odds. When he started a decade ago, Electronic Control Devices were illegal in the United Kingdom. Few thought the political environment would allow that to ever change.
Today, because of Peter’s personal mission, every constabulary in the United Kingdom has ECDs, where they are safely ending the types of scenarios that had sent Peter home wounded during his own career. Peter has made the lives of thousands of officers safer. Indeed, he has saved countless lives in a personal journey that has left the world around him greatly changed – changes that will far outlive us all.
Peter leaves a tremendous hole in our hearts as we extend our condolences to his family, fellow law enforcement colleagues, and to the innumerable friends lucky enough to know him.
Rest in Peace,
Steve Tuttle
Vice President of Communications
TASER International, Inc.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Hi Anorak, thanks for your reply. Yes, my friend, every single one of the 512 victims listed on my site was tasered before they died. *IS* the taser less dangerous than a gun?? I would say no, because each time a taser is used it has the potential to be deadly – it’s russian roulette. There is no way of knowing whether it will or will not kill the person. And you must ask yourself this: “when did being shot with a taser or being shot with a gun become our only options??”
October 1st, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I said “might exaggerate” because i had no time to check every one of the names mentioned to see if they died as a direct result of being Tasered. Did they? And surely the taser is less dangerous than a gun, which are still not routing issue in the UK?
October 1st, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Thanks for the link to my website. I have to disagree, however, with your statement that it “might exaggerate the dangers.” I simply keep track of people who were alive one moment, tasered the next and ended up dead. There really is nothing to exaggerate – you couldn’t make this stuff up.