To Tase, or not to Tase?

Tasers are all the rage in law enforcement and, frankly, I have some concerns. The electric-shock device is seen as an alternative to deadly force, i.e. guns, but it seems that in some cases Tasers are being employed as the weapon of first resort. We had a case here recently in which a cab driver wanted officers to remove a drunk from the back of his vehicle. When police told the man to get out, he "shushed" them. So they Tased him. Seemed a bit much to me. Couldn't a couple of officers have just dragged the guy out and cuffed him? Then there was the incident the other day on Interstate 70, where a woman was raising hell on a bus. When the police responded, she was outside the bus and causing a commotion. They Tased her. Unless she was 6-4, 250, my guess is that they could have taken her down with minimal physical force. These are some of the more minor cases. On Wednesday, Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams weighed in on the case of Andre Thomas, a Pittsburgh-area man who died after being hit with a Taser by police in the Pittsburgh suburb of Swissvale. Williams ruled that Thomas died "of a direct consequence of the consumption of cocaine," even though Williams admitted that the cocaine in Thomas' system was not considered a lethal dose. The coroner was asked if Thomas would have died from the cocaine ingestion had he not had a run-in with police. Said Williams, "I don't think there's any way of predicting that." So, did the Taser jolt also play a role in Thomas' death? That is the question being asked over and over all across the country. After some basic research, it seems that hundreds of people have died in Taser-related incidents since that sort of thing has been tracked. Were there other factors in some of those deaths? Quite possibly. But there's also the possibility that Tasers, in and of themselves, are potentially - and unacceptably - lethal. One can certainly sympathize with police officers who are regularly threatened with physical injury. If they shoot a criminal, they come in for all kinds of criticism and investigation. What if they gang up on a perpetrator and take him down? In my mind, if the police tell you to get on the ground, and you do not immediately comply, you're asking for an ass-whippin', and I would never criticize the police for administering just that. But in most of those cases, the lowlife who was forcibly restrained will sue, with the help of the always-ready ACLU and the ambulance-chasing wing of the local Bar Association. Many times, they'll win. Rodney King, a sad excuse for a human being, became a millionaire in just that fashion. All things considered, however, there seems to be a clear need for a review of the standards for use of Tasers and their potential for causing unintended deaths.