Now in Vancouver, a man was killed by two taser blasts at the airport.  Here is a video of the entire incident taken from a witness.

What's interesting about this case, is that the airport security guards had him isolated, and continually were calling for a translator and police.  The man had just arrived from Poland, and was having difficulty moving through customs.  He spoke no English, and was obviously very agitated, but was unarmed.  The security there was doing the right thing.  They kept him isolated, tried to talk him down (unsuccessfully due to the obvious language barrier), and requested a translator so they could hopefully make more successful attempts.  When the police arrived, they immediately confronted him, tased him twice, and killed him, in a dramatically short period of time.  It was pretty horrific to watch.

The truly frightening statistic is that the majority of times that tasers are used, they are used on unarmed individuals.  The implication here, is that tasers are not being used as an alternative to lethal force, but instead are being used as an alternative to non-lethal (but more time consuming) methods of controlling an individual.  RAG puts it best on his blog:

Frankly, we got along in law enforcement 30 years ago without them by use of other alternatives: mace (pepper spray), clubs, flashlights and -- don't forget this -- talking.

Yes, talking.

In the old days the use of significant force in law enforcement -- except in cases where required -- was often seen as failure to control the situation by less violent means. Any cop will tell you that someone who is excited, inebriated, stoned or deranged may not always be controllable by mace or pepper spray (mace is tear gas) or even a taser. However, we often dealt with these people by using our heads, not weapons. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But the generally accepted practice was to exhaust nonviolent (and certainly nonlethal) means first before escalating.

If you look in the FAQ area of Taser International, you'll see that they advertise this as a way to subdue a person, with no repercussions:

The advantage is that TASER technology can truly immobilize a suspect who can overcome pain, might be on dangerous drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine or even emotionally disturbed, whereas other use of force tools relay upon pain compliance.  The TASER system doesn't use pain compliance but immediately stops any coordinated action by the subject only while the TASER system's current is flowing.  Recovery is instantaneous so the TASER system only provides a window of opportunity to temporarily stop someone's dangerous actions.

Immediate recovery... if they're not dead.  In other words, if I don't want to deal with having to talk with someone, and I just want to quickly get them into cuffs, why not just tase them now and ask questions later?  But tasers are not Star Trek phasers.  As Taser International says, they are a "safer use-of-force option".  They used to call that "less than lethal"... meaning it's primary purpose isn't to kill, but it still can.  Sort of like how Kevlar Vests are never advertised as being "bullet proof", but rather "bullet resistant".

If Tasers continue to be treated as non-lethal, compliance generating weapons, then any incident where the police decide you're not cooperating could turn into an incident where you could be tased, and potentially killed.  That is a scary proposition.