At John Kerry's Florida rally, Andrew Meyer wasn't "shot" by a Taser, but merely shocked by one used in "drive-stun" mode

Michelle Malkin, James Joyner, and lots of other bloggers are posting about University of Florida student Andrew Meyer being "Tasered" (to take a fairly elegant product name and make an inelegant verb out of it) at a John Kerry political rally. Michelle has at least two different videos linked [warning: frequent profanity makes the audios NSFW], and Neocon News has an excellent and very detailed text description (with associated screencaps) of what looks to me to be the longer of the three videos I've seen, hosted from an NBC affiliate in south Florida. Each of the three videos I've seen are from different angles, and one of the shorter, from YouTube (another's also on YouTube, but apparently from CNN; h/t Bill Quick) has clearer sound and a slightly better angle at the key moment — when Meyer was "Tased." Indeed, you can hear Meyer screaming "Don't Tase me, bro! Don't Tase me! I didn't do anything!" And then, with the sizzling sound of the Taser, you can hear him rhythmically screaming "Owwww! Owwww!" while various female bystanders begin to scream too.

Do not fail, however, to pay attention to what was going on just before and during Meyer's "Don't tase me!" screams. Several police officers were doing their utmost to roll Meyer onto his stomach so they could get his hands behind his back to finish handcuffing him. (The version of the video marked "CNN" clearly shows that he resumed struggling as soon as they had the cuff on his right wrist, and didn't get the cuff on his left wrist until after the Tasering; see screencaps in Update below.) He had previously been on his stomach (when taken to the ground by the large black officer who'd propelled him up the aisle away from the microphone area), but he'd squirmed around onto his side and his back. At least some of the time, he can be seen flailing wildly with at least one, and perhaps both arms; other times, he's clearly trying to wrestle his arms out of the grips of the police officers. The officers had not only ordered him to stop resisting and to roll back onto his stomach, they had clearly warned him that if he did not, they would Tase him. He didn't, so they did — and I'll come back to that in a moment.

The important point to take away is that just before he was Tased, Meyer was continuing to disobey the officers and continuing to struggle against them with what appears to have been all of his strength. There was no real danger that he might escape. But there was a danger that he would hurt himself. There was a danger that he would hurt one of the officers. And there was a danger that in trying to physically restrain him, one or more of the officers would hurt him. With him struggling so violently, it's not completely improbable that someone could have been dealt a life-threatening injury — for example, a crushed wind-pipe. Far more likely is that someone — Meyer or the officers — would have suffered a serious, potentially lifetime-disabling injury. If they were lucky, it would have been only a broken rib or broken arm or dislocated shoulder. But it might have been a torn ligament or ripped cartilage somewhere that would have meant no more running for a 21-year-old college brat or a twenty-something police officer. Deliberately or not, Meyer was still out of control, even though he had no chance of escape, no right to resist, and no more time to continue putting himself and others at risk of serious injury.

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Tasers are controversial, and they've been much in the news lately. Originally described, at least in the press, as "non-lethal," they're now typically described as "less lethal," and many state and local police forces have reviewed, or are in the process of reviewing, their training and policies regarding Taser use.

Before any of us can even begin to form opinions as to whether these particular campus police officers used a reasonably proportionate amount of force (including the Taser) under the circumstances, though, we need to know what the professional-model Tasers do, at least when they're working the way they're claimed to and they're supposed to. And the quickest place for a primer on that is, reasonably enough, the Taser operator's manual.

In it, we find (at pages 5-6 of the .pdf file) a description of what most of us in the public think of as "Tasering" someone: Shooting them from a distance of several feet with two barbed probes that remain connected to the Taser pistol housing by insulated wires, through which an electrical current is passed. Those probes are intended to cause what the Taser manufacturer refers to as "Neuromuscular Incapacitation" ("NMI"):

The human nervous system communicates with simple electrical impulses. The command center (brain and spinal cord) processes information and makes decisions. The peripheral nervous system includes the sensory and motor nerves. The sensory nerves carry information from the body to the brain (temperature, touch, etc.). The motor nerves carry commands from the brain to the muscles to control movement and can be involuntary in response to the sensory information. An example would be the involuntary muscle reaction to pull a hand away from a hot object.

TASER technology uses similar electrical impulses to cause stimulation that affects the sensory and motor nerves. Neuromuscular Incapacitation (NMI) occurs when a device is able to cause involuntary stimulation of both the sensory nerves and the motor nerves. It is not dependent on pain and is effective on subjects with a high level of pain tolerance. Previous generations of stun guns could primarily affect the sensory nerves only, resulting in pain compliance. A person with a very high tolerance to pain (e.g., a drug user or a trained, focused fighter) might be able to fight through the pain of a traditional stun gun.

The use of TASER technology is designed to cause incapacitation and involuntary muscle contractions, making secondary injuries a possibility. These potential injuries include but are not limited to: cuts, bruises, impact injuries, and abrasions caused by falling, and strain-related injuries from muscle contractions such as muscle or tendon tears, or stress fractures. These injuries are secondary in nature and not directly attributable to the electric stimulation of the TASER device, but are possible consequences of the involuntary muscle contractions the TASER device induces to produce incapacitation. Some of the effects may include:

• Subject may fall immediately to the ground and be unable to catch him/herself.
• Subjects located in the water may drown if their ability to move is restricted.
• Subject may yell or scream.
• Involuntary muscle contractions of varying degrees.
• Subject may freeze in place with legs locked.
• Subject may feel dazed for several seconds/minutes.
• Potential vertigo.
• Temporary tingling sensation.
• May experience critical stress amnesia (may not remember any pain).

There is no doubt that these "secondary effects" can be dangerous. I've read reports of one police officer who had pre-existing bone degeneration in his back and who cracked a vertebrae as a result of the muscle contractions when he agreed, in training, to be shot with a Taser. And although the manufacturer claims that there are other explanations and other causes, there indisputably have been some suspects who've died after being shot with a Taser.

But being shot with a Taser is almost certainly not what happened to Meyer. The longer video clearly shows him in command of his arms and legs, balanced and coordinated, within seconds after the officers finished cuffing him and hauled him back to his feet. He never shuts up, of course, but his "Owww!" screams are replaced again with his "I didn't do anything!" etc. screams within moments, too.

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Instead, Meyer was almost certainly  simply shocked by a Taser using something the manufacturer calls (at page 19 of the .pdf file) the "drive-stun mode":

The drive-stun mode will not cause NMI and generally becomes primarily a pain compliance option. Probe deployment is usually considered more desirable, even at close range. Some of the advantages include:

• Drive-stun is only effective while the device is in contact with the subject or the subject’s clothing. As soon as the device is moved away, the energy effect stops.
• Deploying the probes allows the user to create distance between the user and the subject while maintaining control.
• Due to automatic reflex actions, most subjects will struggle to separate from the TASER device. When the TASER device is used in the drive-stun mode and the subject struggles to get away it may be difficult to maintain contact between the device and the subject.

Why do they call it "drive-stun"? When I first saw the term, I first thought "cattle drive!" because I was flashing back to a high-school hazing ritual I underwent in about 1973, in a part of rural Texas where there are still cattle ranches and, accordingly, kids had access to electric cattle prods that operate much like modern Tasers in "drive-stun" mode. Neither my mind nor body was permanently scarred, and neither did I suffer from "NMI," but I can attest that one of those devices applied to a male nipple hurts like the very devil. But the term doesn't come from "cattle drives" at all:

When using the drive-stun, push (drive) the front of the TASER X26C firmly against the body of the subject. Simply “touching” the X26C against the subject is not sufficient. The subject is likely to recoil and try to get away from the stun electrodes. It is necessary to aggressively drive the front of the X26C into the subject for maximum effect.

The drive-stun works more effectively when aggressively applied to pressure points on nerve bundles. This includes the brachial area, common peronial, mastoid, and pelvic triangle. The TASER X26C must be actively depressed or aggressively driven into the nerve bundles in a “drive-stun” manner to be effective in the drive-stun mode.

I can't tell from either video where on his body Meyer was Tasered, nor which officer applied it, nor how hard he or she "drove" the front of the Taser to keep it in contact. But the point of "drive-stun mode" is not incapacitation of a suspect, but rather the infliction of a very intense, localized pain intended to coerce him into dropping his continuing physical resistance and instead cooperating, in order to protect not only the police officers trying to subdue and manipulate him, but the suspect himself. And that's what exactly happened here. The Taseing marked the abrupt end of Meyer's thrashing around and fighting (but not, unfortunately, his yelping, obscenities, self-pity, self-aggrandizement, and slurs upon the police officers).

I don't know enough about any of this to be able to independently evaluate the manufacturer's claims regarding the Taser's general safety, and the operator's manual warns, unsurprisingly, that when vigorously applied to some parts of the body (e.g., the neck or groin), even the "drive-stun" technique may cause crushing injuries that could be permanent or even life-threatening. But it seems fairly obvious to me that the sudden, localized, intense pain Meyer was subjected to might well be justifiable when compared to the risks to him and the police officers from several more minutes of his resisting arrest. At least such a case could be made; and whether it should prevail or not, as a matter of wise long-term police department policy would depend, I suppose, on the marginal risks and benefits from injuries with and without their use. My understanding is that several police departments have policies that permit carefully limited use of "drive-stun" Tasering in precisely the sort of situation in which these University of Florida campus policemen found themselves.

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I'm hoping I'll draw some comments from law enforcement types who have training and/or experience with Tasers. I've already read enough just Googling around to confirm that there's an on-going battle of expert witnesses about the manufacturers' safety claims, with at least one prominent critic whom the manufacturer accuses of being a "junk scientist" who does indeed seem to lack certain basic credentials like a bachelor's degree from any college.

In any event, I think it's important that people recognize that, to embrace the Star Trek metaphor, these police officers' phasers weren't even "set to stun." I'm sure it still hurt like hell. But we can all be glad that, apparently, neither Meyer nor any of the police officers were permanently injured. In many other countries today, and in a day and time not too far removed from today in our own, Meyer would have gotten a nightstick to the ribs or the back of his noggin and been carried out on a stretcher; I'm not advocating a return to that, but I hope those who now claim that he was a "victim" in any sense will at least acknowledge that his violent struggle could certainly have resulted in one of today's officer's leaving the scene on a stretcher too.

I'm not inclined to second-guess whoever it was who gave the instructions that Meyer was to be removed from the rally — from what I've read, and from just what I've seen on the longer video, he was clearly abusing the privilege of questioning even a great gasbag like Sen. Kerry, even if Sen. Kerry was encouraging him (and now condemns his arrest). If you don't think this guy went over the line into impermissible public behavior, you are blind to the possibility of there being lines.

And I hope Meyer spends at least several weeks in jail —€” not for anything he said, but for the indisputable crime he committed in vigorously, insistently, and dangerously resisting arrest. He'll probably still sue the officers and the University of Florida. And maybe something will come out that changes my mind. But right now, I think that if he sues, he ought to lose. And personally, I'd sure rather be representing those officers than him.

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UPDATE (Tue Sep 18 @ 3:25pm): Okay, I've now seen several blogs and MSM resources falsely (but I presume innocently and in good faith) report that Meyer had already been cuffed when he was Tasered. That's only half-true: His right cuff was on, but the officers' attempt to attach the left cuff is what prompted him to begin squirming and resisting again, directly leading to the Tasering. Here are my sequential screencaps from this video, which has the best angle to show the handcuffing attempts, and also very good audio in which you can hear the right cuff click, the left cuff never click, and hear the Tasering. Look at these, note the times, and then watch the sequence on the video again if you have any doubt, because these screencaps are useful mostly as the markers of the key events:

Below (at 2:45) you can clearly see the officer's right hand holding his handcuffs. Neither is attached. Meyer is half-way squirmed around onto his back after having been taken down from his feet onto his stomach originally:

Below (at 2:53) the officers have Meyer rolled back onto his stomach, and although you can't see the officer attaching his right handcuff, you can distinctly hear the metallic click on the audio track, and then see the right cuff in place very briefly in some of the following frames:

Below (at 3:11) you can see that Meyer has half-rolled back onto his right side, having succeeded for the last quarter-minute in keeping his left wrist too far from his right wrist for the two wrists to be cuffed together behind his back. Before this shot, his left arm has been flailing around, flexing and extending. And indeed, in this screencap, you can see the fingers of his left hand fluttering and extended behind another officer's arm, just above the officer's wristwatch — and then those fingers suddenly jerk back in on the video about a half second later just before you hear the Taser begin to fire. Within seconds after that (by 3:29), the officers have finished with the left cuff too, and Meyer's back up and on his feet, headed out of the room with his elbows behind him, no longer a resistance threat.

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UPDATE (Tue Sep 18 @ 8:45pm): From a blog called "Cop The Truth," a post entitled Been Tased and Confused has the law enforcement perspective I've been looking for — with delicious wit (emphasis and link in original):

Anybody who watches the video with an open mind can clearly see that he violently resisted arrest and the cops there had every right to use the taser on him. I would have handled the entire event differently, especially in front of any mostly anti-police crowd on a university campus, but they covered all the bases: they asked him verbally, then warned him, then went hands on, but, because of poor tactics, were unable to control or handcuff him. When he continued to resist, despite numerous verbal commands, he got zapped. Boofreakinghoo.

He'll probably be kicked off of a Southwest Airlines plane tomorrow for wearing a short skirt....

Sadly, it doesn't look like the university is going to back the cops on this one.

That would be sad, and fiscally very short-sighted. Convicting Meyer of resisting arrest is the key to all future civil claims and proceedings.

Here's another cop's take, from Curt at Flopping Aces:

Now take it from one who has used tasers to subdue combative suspects, this guy could very well have had some long term damage done to him if the police HAD NOT used the taser.  That's what the tool is for.  They receive some zaps and ta da!  They comply.  If they didn't have that tool then they have their fists, their batons, their flashlights.  It's called pain compliance.

If they guy didn't think he should of been arrested the time to fight it is NOT during the arrest.  It's after the arrest in a court of law.  Once we have come to the conclusion that a person needs to be arrested you must comply.  No if's, and's or but's about it.   There is plenty of legal recourse to fight it later but physically fighting the police is not the way to go about it.

Ayup.