Disclaimer: The following statements are based on unsubstantiated rumors and may not have any basis at all in fact.There is a rumor going around that at one of the other prisons in this state an inmate has died after a use of the stun shield. Apparently of a massive coronary arrest.
By policy we are allowed to..... I can't think of any other word other than 'zap', so that's what I'm going to use. By policy we are allowed to zap them up to three times for a period of no more than five to eight (or three to five, I forget) seconds each time if they continue to resist. If, after three applications of the stun effect, they continue to resist, you can no longer use the electricity as a tool. It just becomes a shield after that.
Of course at any time they stop resisting you are required to stop zapping them.
It's the rule.
Anyway, the rumor mill has it that this offender was zapped twice with the shield, given some injections ordered by medical staff, and placed in one of the rubber rooms.
And the next time somebody checked on him he was....... no longer spiritually incarcerated.
But you know how these places work. They won't possibly blame it on natural causes. How could they? And they can't blame the medical staff of the doctor who ordered the injections. Don't be ludicrous.
They will blame it on us and our use of the stun shield. And possibly the movement team.
If there is any truth to this, they will be sending out a stiff memo and all of the stun shields will be pulled from armories all over the state. And there's a good chance that all movement team activities will be suspended pending a review. And some of their reviews take years.
So there go a few more tools out of our box.
The day they finally take away my pepper spray and my personal cuffs I'm going home.
Ya just gotta wonder about this business sometimes. Sheesh!
Well, I screwed up again and I forgot to get any Raisinettes, so I didn't get to celebrate Chocolate Covered Raisin Day. And I was so looking forward to that.
And tomorrow (well, today, actually. It's after midnight) is Pecan Day and Waffle Day. I'm not a big pecan fan but I do love waffles. But the way things have been going I'm not going to get any of those either. Pfui!
This business with the tazers (if that's what they are) keeps coming up again and again. It's one of those things where people have a fear that's bordering on superstition. It's like people thinking cell phones will give you brain tumors. It's something that just feels right to people, regardless of any lack of evidence. Remember when everyone thought microwaves were nuclear and emitted atomic radiation? People still talk about "nuking" a burrito.
ReplyDeleteAll the being said, I'm sure I wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of one of these "stun shields", but I understand that you're dealing with extremely dangerous people, putting your life on the line, and entitled to some kinds of means of protection. Honestly, if some inmate had to be zapped twice to get the point and this led to heart failure, well part of me wants to say, "Oh well." Prisons aren't nursery schools. You have to weigh the potential of something like that happening versus a guard getting hurt or worse because they didn't have the stun shield.
But I'm sure you know the drill: The media latches on to a juicy story. The public gets outraged even though they don't have the first clue about the situation. The prison system caves in to the public relations pressure. That about how it goes?
The only way I can see two short jolts with a zapper thingy resulting in heart failure is if the inmate had a pacemaker.
ReplyDeleteSince there is no mention of a pacemaker, I highly doubt that was the cause. Maybe he just had a bad heart and it was natural causes. Isn't that was the autopsy is for?
And I agree with Bryan. If two zaps isn't enough to make someone stop trying to resist then they deserve the third one. And taking zappers away is stupid. Your lives (the lives of the honest, hardworking guards) are just as important (if not more so, and I'm leaning towards more so even that makes me sound like a witch) as the inmates. You deserve to be safe when handling dangerous people.
Bryan- The shock shield is nowhere as strong as a tazer. It's more like getting zapped by a car battery. It's painful and extremely annoying, but it won't make you fall down and pee yourself like a tazer would. During shield training they dared anybody to hang on for a full twenty seconds. I did it, but I wouldn't care to do it again. And it will get blown out of proportion and we will get blamed. In the eyes of the public and the media we are all thugs anyway. Otherwise we would have 'real' jobs.
ReplyDeleteChanel- Unfortunately there's only a public outcry when an inmate is killed or injured.. Never when one of us is killed or injured. "Well, they knew the job was dangerous when they hired on." If a store owner kills a criminal during a robbery, he's a hero. If we kill one trying to protect ourselves or others, we're a menace. Pfui.