![](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2016.03\/thumbnail\/56ef14cec36188b3208b45d6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Police officers in Maryland regularly used Tasers in \u201cnon-threatening situations\u201d and disregarded safety guidelines, according to an investigation examining three years of Taser incidents in the state.<\/p>\n
The Baltimore Sun<\/a>\u00a0created a database of every reported Taser use by police from 2012 to 2014 with information obtained through the Maryland Public Information Act, in the first-ever analysis of Taser use in Maryland.<\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0Family seeks justice after police in Georgia taser son to death, then ‘high five’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Out of nearly 3,000 Taser uses over three years almost 60 percent of the people that police hit with Taser guns were described as \u201cnon compliant and non-threatening\u201d<\/em>; 64 percent of those hit were black men.<\/p>\n Only 20 percent of suspects who were tased were armed with a weapon and only 2 percent were in possession of a gun.<\/p>\n The investigation also revealed that the recommended guidelines for Taser use were not followed in hundreds of incidents;<\/p>\n Police discharged the weapon for longer than 15 seconds in one out of every ten incidents. Three people died after being repeatedly hit by a Taser in “drive-stun”<\/em> mode, when it is pushed directly onto the body, and two died after being hit with multiple asers at the same time.<\/p>\n The case of Anthony Howard in 2013, who died after being tased by police in Montgomery County was one such incident where there was a huge violation of guidelines.<\/p>\n Howard, who was high on cocaine, came to police attention for dancing on an SUV roof.<\/p>\n Officers claimed he had thrown boulders and charged at them but a 17 minute long video taken by a local resident showed Howard standing still, holding a child\u2019s scooter as police approached him.<\/p>\n Police fired two Tasers at Howard nine times for a total of 37 seconds, after he fell to the ground.<\/p>\n Tasers or similar stun guns have resulted in more than 400 deaths nationwide since 2009.<\/p>\n California had the highest number of fatalities at 60, while Maryland ranks in the top 15 with 11 deaths \u2013 five of these were as a result of Tasers being used for longer than recommended.<\/p>\n In four Taser-related deaths in Maryland, the state medical examiner’s office found that “excited”<\/em> or “agitated<\/em>” delirium was a contributing factor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police officers in Maryland regularly used Tasers in \u201cnon-threatening situations\u201d and disregarded safety guidelines, according to an investigation examining three years of Taser incidents in the state. The Baltimore Sun\u00a0created a database of every reported Taser use by police from 2012 to 2014 with information obtained through the Maryland Public Information Act, in the first-ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-232980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Officers fired the weapons at the chest in 119 incidents in 2014 \u2013 even though Taser has warned since 2009 that this could cause cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n