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I just love getting mail, any kind of mail. . .US Postal Service mail, e-mail and even outraged letters from readers. Last week, Auburn resident and Past Master of the Eureka Lodge #16 Free and Accepted Masons, Robert Spindler, slapped me upside the head in a letter to the editor for a column item I wrote about the $5,000 donation his fraternal organization made to the Auburn Police to purchase five Taser stun guns. Two weeks ago, I wrote that rather than fund the purchase of potentially lethal stun guns for our police department, the Mason’s largesse would be more humanely deployed through gifts to groups displaying a higher level of need, such as the Boys & Girls Club, shelters for the homeless or refuges for abused women. If the police need new weapons, I argued, they should be sourced and paid for with public dollars. At the same time, I opined, non-profit organizations should refrain from purchasing weapons for police organizations that minimally will hurt people, and worst case, have the capability of extinguishing life.
Though it is not clear if Mr. Spindler was formally representing his
lodge or speaking as a private individual, he fired back indignantly,
charging me with not properly researching my piece and for attempting
to foist my version of "the truth" on Sentinel readers. Other less
heinous charges were leveled, but I won’t address those here due to
lack of space. . .not interest or potential entertainment value. Mr. Spindler, it is precisely because I did do my homework that I was
critical of your lodge’s stun gun purchase. You position stun guns as
being "non-lethal." According to the research I conducted, upwards of 100 people have died
after being subdued by stun guns since they were first introduced in
2001. In the vast majority of these cases, however, police have
attributed deaths to other causes (in many cases, drug overdoses). The
fact that police identified other causes is plausible when you consider
they are the ones doing the investigating. Here are some notorious examples of stun gun use by police,
demonstrating how Tasers have killed and how they have been used
improperly: —Two recent Taser incidents in Canada resulted in deaths, bringing to
12 the total number in that country in the last four years. A prisoner
in a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia jail died on November 22, 30 hours after he
was subdued by a Taser. A very high-profile incident at the Vancouver
airport in Canada was caught on video on October 14, when a Polish
immigrant was hit twice with a Taser. The man spoke no English and he
died in the airport. Canadian authorities are now investigating how
Tasers are used across the country. —Go to www.officer.com/article/index.jsp?siteSection=11 for an
astounding accounting of police use of stun guns, including deaths in
Colorado, Ohio, Florida and Texas. There is a report of how one man was
hit in the chest with a Taser that struck a butane lighter in his
pocket and set him on fire. —Pregnant women have been the victims of stun-gun use by police in
Seattle, Tampa Bay and most recently in Trotwood, Ohio. In one case, a
pregnant woman declined to sign a speeding ticket and was hit with two
50,000-volt jolts for refusing to exit her vehicle. Without question, there are police jurisdictions that may benefit from
arming officers with stun guns. Cities like Los Angeles, Detroit and
New York come to mind, where officers frequently face lethal threats to
their personally safety. For Auburn, though, equipping officers with
stun guns is overkill, in my opinion. Now that our boys in blue are all strapped up, though, I’ll be
interested in reading about the first righteous use of this must-have
law-enforcement tool. I’m wondering if there is an underground pool in Police Headquarters
wagering which officer will be the first to unleash the first pair of
electrodes. What the heck, put me down for a couple of squares. Mr. Spindler admonished me with, "Perhaps a little more education and
research would be in order before a reporter prints what he or she
claims to be ‘the truth.’" Ahh, "the truth," what an elusive and
inexplicable concept to corral. A long time ago as a journalism student, I read a book by Phillip
Knightley titled, "The First Casualty," an accounting of how war
correspondents have dealt with the lies proffered and the pure
manipulation of information by governments during war. Throughout
time, the first casualty of war has been "the truth," something that
has continued to this day with reporting from Iraq. I’d extend that same concept, though softened a bit, to observing what
happens in a small town. You are naive if you accept as truth what you
read in newspapers, especially on the local level. All too often,
readers get homogenized information, sanitized for easy consumption.
And all too often, important stories with immense impact on the
community never see ink at all because someone might be embarrassed. So, Mr. Spindler, thank you for your letter. For the record, I am a
columnist, not a reporter, so what you read in this space is opinion
... not to be confused with fact—much less "the truth."
Francisco Evangelista Watch: The young man accused of weapons
possession on the Placer High School Campus has now been held in Placer
County Jail for more than 14 weeks. Gary Moffat is a journalist and he owns Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. He can be reached at
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