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Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

70 Died From Taser's in 2006

According to the Colorado ACLU, six suspects in Colorado have died after being tasered since 2002. Today’s death would be the seventh.

In June 2006, the U.S. Justice Department said a two-year study of taser deaths would be undertaken by the National Institute of Justice.

Raul Gallegos-Reyes dies in the Arapahoe County Jail in August 2006 after being repeatedly tasered and strapped into a restraint chair for screaming and banging on his cell door. The coroner concluded he had died from "positional asphyxia" due to restraint. No deputies were charged in the case.

September 2006: The Boulder County coroner rules that a 22-year-old Louisville man shot with a police taser died because of a combination of the weapon’s electronic pulse, "extreme physical exertion" and complications from an abnormal heart and narrow artery.

During the Aug. 4, 2006, incident, police said a confrontation occurred after officers chased Ryan Michael Wilson as he ran from from a field planted with marijuana

At the time, a Taser International spokesman said the company was "disappointed" with the coroner’s determination. "No other nonlethal law enforcement tool has undergone as extensive international scientific testing and scrutiny as Taser technology," spokesman Steve Tuttle said.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would hope that to be taken seriously, you would pay more attention to your grammar, starting with the headline. Secondly, you make the all-too-common (and lazy) mistake of assuming causation with respect to TASER devices. There are literally piles of medical evidence suggesting TASER devices do not cause death. Most frequently, death occurs after a struggle, with the victim containing near-lethal amounts of drugs. Prior heart conditions (as named in this case) are also common. So please, save the lazy reporting and sweeping generalizations.