What Police Weren’t Told About Tasers
Tasers were billed as a weapon that could subdue but not kill. The company’s own research told another story.
Reveal · The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (dts.podtrac.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
Kansas City police Officer Matt Masters first used a Taser in the early 2000s. He said it worked well for taking people down; it was safe and effective.
“At the end of the day, if you have to put your hands on somebody, you got to scuffle with somebody, why risk that?” he said. “You can just shoot them with a Taser.”
Masters believed in that until his son Bryce was pulled over by an officer and shocked for more than 20 seconds. The 17-year-old went into cardiac arrest, which doctors later attributed to the Taser. Masters’ training had led him to believe something like that could never happen.
This week on Reveal, we partner with Lava for Good’s podcast Absolute: Taser Incorporated and its host, Nick Berardini, to learn what the company that makes the Taser knew about the dangers of its weapon and didn’t say.
- Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow
- Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly
Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices