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Speaker 1: How are you doing today, Nick Good?

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Speaker 2: How are you?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic? I gotta start off with this right here.

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I'm a I'm a broadcast instructor, and I and I

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faused people all the time about podcasting, and all I

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ever hear over and over again is oh, don't know

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what to podcast about? And then I get to talk

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with you, Nick, and You've got a podcast about tasers.

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My god, how did this even come into your life?

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Speaker 2: Well? It was. It's, you know, a winding road. It

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began when I was myself a broadcast student at the

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University of Missouri and I was working a live TV

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news shift, the morning show. I was working a shift

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in the morning show and a young man from a

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town nearby was killed during a traffic stop after police

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tasered him. And so I went to go cover that story.

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And I didn't really necessarily want to do broadcast news.

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I figured that out. By that point, I considered myself

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more interested in sort of long form storytelling. And that's

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that That story of that man's death ended up inspiring

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a film that I made, A documentary that I made

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ten years ago that did quite well about this company

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that makes tasers and why I came back to this

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story for this podcast with the incredible producers of you Know,

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Bone Valley and Wrongful Conviction. I mean, Lava is an

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incredible you know podcast production company was that as the

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film had come out, I really had a lot of

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great conversations with police officers themselves, who I think, you know,

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are living in a world where systemically we have a

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lot of issues in policing, but these are just people

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trying to do their best, often times in a job

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that can be really difficult, and they were wrestling with

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the question not just of you know, how do I

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do my job, but what do we want as a system,

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as a law enforcement system? How do how do we

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want to improve? And one of the officers that I

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had a conversation with was Matt Masters, whose own son

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had been tasered and nearly killed in an incident in

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Kansas City. And so finding Matt kind of led me

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to a place where I felt the story was unfinished

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because part of the not to give too much away,

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not too many spoiler alerts, but part of the podcast

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is not just about the way in which this taser

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became the most popular weapon in policing, but the way

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the company that invented it used that weapons success to

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now become what I believe is the most powerful company

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most people have really never heard of because of the

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surveillance technology, the data storage, the evidence storage, the camera systems.

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The things they are capable of doing now are Minority

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Report esque, you know, for folks who are familiar with

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you know that that that you can do these real

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time crime centers where they're feeding all these cameras through

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AI and trying to predict when crimes will happen. What

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kind of surveillance state is created out of the success

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of this single weapon. And so the story really asks

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a very important question, which is this one man who

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really founded this company and drove its success through the taser,

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can he be trusted now with the future of policing.

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That was a question that a lot of cops were

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asking me after my film, which was ended with a

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similar warning about this is where things are headed. Well,

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now we're in that future I warned about, and we

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should be asking can we trust this company with this

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history of how they made the taser successful, which is

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to put it coyly, a little suspicious.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but nick I was there when this thing first

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came out, and I remember the police department doing promotions

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with radio station people that they wanted somebody that they could,

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you know, so that we could experience what it was

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like to be tasered, and that when I hear stories

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like this and I see what I've seen these things

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happen over the years, it's a dangerous sport. And they

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had to get that word out there, didn't they by

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using radio people and other volunteers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the beauty of the marketing, you know, the company,

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even in its Grasshroost days, was brilliant in the way

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they marketed this device because they leaned into the sort

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of you know, tough guy machismo of policing a lot

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of times. Right, give us your toughest guy, bring us

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the guy who can fight through anything. We'll hit him

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with this taser. Watch your buddy fall to the ground,

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crying and screaming, and he pops right back up after

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a second or two, he'll pop back up and he'll

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be fine. And what that sort of did was it

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kind of like convinced officers that this weapon was sort

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of a miracle, that it was strong enough to take

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anybody down and nobody could fight through it, and that

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there would be no consequences. That's really key, I think

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for people to understand the use of force element of this,

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right when someone that the idea of the taser initially

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was it would reduce gun violence because officers could tase

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people instead of sh them, and that's never really been true.

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Tasers don't replace deadly force, but what they do is

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they make it more like compliance tools. So if you

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don't want to sign the back of a speeding ticket,

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we used to see this all the time twenty years ago.

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Cop wouldn't just put their hands on somebody and try

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to argue with them. They just taser them, put them

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in the back of Odd's cards. They figure it out.

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And that marketing, that promotion of this as sort of

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like a magic bullet that could take all the complexity

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out of use of force in policing and just say,

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you got a problem, taser, somebody figure it out later.

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That's ultimately what I think led to sort of the

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dehumanization of policing in the way that you could distance yourselves,

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you know, from striking them with a baton or having

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to put your hands on them and get in that

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kind of tussle, and that made it so that these

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weapons became ubiquitous, and with them becoming ubiquitous, it kind of,

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I hate to say, cheapened policing in that way, but

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it made it so that officer really didn't have to

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wrestle as much with the thought of using force.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't that wrestling begin with personal training only because right away,

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of course, I can't be the only one who's thinking

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of that female police officer that grabbed the wrong gun

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in that situation that was on the streets. I mean,

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she was trying to taser the guy and she ended

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up shooting the dude.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well, that's certainly. One of the things that

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I have a beef with is the way that the

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training works that, especially in the early days, it was

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really all controlled. You know, the great failure of protecting

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people from the collateral damage of this is that the

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company really controlled everything from the top down. They controlled

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the training of how the weapon was implemented, and then

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that meant there was nobody to really fact check a

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lot of the claims that were being made right, and

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so when officers were trained, they got, you know, a

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PowerPoint presentation about how great this thing was. Like I said,

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they would often the trainer would shoot everybody and they

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would all volunteer and you know, laugh in a big

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circle as they all got tasered. But there wasn't a

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lot of practical understanding about how to effectively deploy these weapons, right.

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It was kind of like a taste first and ask later.

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And because they became you know, so relied upon, you

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would see situations like that where people were officers were

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thinking I'm reaching for my taser and they end up

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they end up pulling a gun and shooting someone. But

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to me, you know that really it speaks to the

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nature in which the weapon itself was sort of treated

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without the conce without the seriousness and the consequence of

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what it really was, which is a weapon. And I

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think that can be true of a lot of law

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enforcement training that we actually don't spend enough time with officers,

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you know, in the classroom for a lot of different

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you know things, and we really just kind of toss

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them out there and say, you know, go go deal

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with that person who's having a mental health care isis

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after you've really had very very little mental health training. Right.

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That's a burden that we put on a lot of

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officers that I don't think we adequately prepare them for

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One of.

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Speaker 1: The things that I love about this podcast, which is

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called Absolute Taser Incorporated, is the fact that you give

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us the history. History to me is so valuable because

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it leads us to where we are now and to

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learn more about the Smith brothers and then find out

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that they betrayed the police and the public. My god,

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who knew that story?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I think it's one of the things that's

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most insiduous about this story is that the entire success

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of the company was built on the backs of this

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relationship with police, and when it became a liability issue, right,

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you know, fifteen years ago, when it really became the

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it's if you don't warn correctly these lawyers who are

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who are taking you to task, you're going to go

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bankrupt from these lawsuits. And so when they basically made

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a decision to start adding warnings for the first time

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in the training material, they did it kind of speaking

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out of both sides of their mouth, where the warnings

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weren't really treated as warnings. They were treated sort of

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as this fine print, right, And what had happened, what

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that allow What happened was officers didn't really get the

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message that there really was some risk to these weapons.

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But when something would go wrong in the street, and

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there was there was there was a bad incident, they

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would be the ones left, you know, trying to explain

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what happened. And in this story in particular, one of

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the things that we really illustrate is that happening exactly

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in Matt Masters, the main officer we speak to in

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this story, when his son is tasered, all the blame

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eventually falls on the officer who tasted him, despite the

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obvious you know, holes were able to poke in all

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of the training in which we do believe this officer

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when he says he didn't really understand what the weapon

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was capable of when he shot it at Matt's son.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Nick Bardini coming

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up next. The name of the podcast is Absolute Taser Incorporated.

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Let's get back into that talk with Nick Baradini. If

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tasers are supposed to be like the ultimate weapon, and

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why is it the average person doesn't have one. They're

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choosing instead guns, but they won't do a taser. I don't.

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I don't know anybody who owns a taser.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a bit There's there's certainly a cultural

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element to that. There's you know, a line that I

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really like to say, which is that Rick Smith, you know,

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assumed a lot of people would want to buy tasers.

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Their initial target was civilians, and he tells this really

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funny story about, you know, the launch of the initial

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civilian taser, and he had rented this big call center

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expecting a flood of orders and the only person who

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called that night after they launched the product was his

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own mom, asking how it was going. Right. Well, the

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problem a is that people buy guns a lot of

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times because they like guns right self defense and gun

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ownership is ingrained in you know, the American culture. But two,

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it's it's it's because they this was a weapon that

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nobody really understood, and in order to get the civilian trust,

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the company thought that if cops used it first, that

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would help grow the civilian market because people would become

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familiar with them. But the reality was that they're not

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great self defense weapons. The civilian model tasers kind of

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a weaker version of the police taser. It's kind of

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a one shot deal. A lot of people are not

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that familiar you know, when someone's if someone's bursting into

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your home in the middle of the night, you know,

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talk to somebody about would they rather have their you know,

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their their their handgun that they've trained on by them,

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or would they rather have a taser that they don't

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know anything about. They they'd rather have their handgun, right,

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And so I hate to put it so cynically, but

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a lot of it was just good marketing, just kind

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of like, the idea sounds good. We're going to convince

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people that the point of this weapon is to reduce

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gun violence, and the mission to make the bullet obsolete,

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as Rick said, sounds like a grand mission we can

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all get behind. But that was never really the practical goal.

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The practical goal was to succeed in business, and they've

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done that phenomenally.

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Speaker 1: I would love to do the research on the psychology

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of the taser in the way that do police officers

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do they feel terrified when using the taser, therefore they

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choose not to go that route.

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Speaker 2: I think that most police officers the whole idea. What

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scared me about the way this weapon was implemented and

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how it became so popular was that most police officers

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used them long before the situation escalated to the general

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You know, fear for my life, right, language that we've

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all grown accustomed to, you know, with the way that

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law enforcement has become so contra These weapons were used

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at low levels of force, most often at low levels

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of force. That was because they were trained by the

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company who had a vested interest in selling tasers to

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use them early and often so that it wouldn't escalate.

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But that means you can take any hypothetical police contact,

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any traffic stop, and you can spiral it in your

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own mind to say, well, if XYZ happens, then I'm

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going to be in a fight, or then maybe I

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will be pointing my guns. So this guy who's mad

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at me for pulling him over, right, and who's giving

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me some attitude about the ticket I want to give him, right,

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I'll just tasee this guy rather than risk the hypothetical

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of the situation escalating further. They were trained on this

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excited delirium stuff, which I think was very, very dangerous

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that people who were in mental health crisis or people

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who were on drugs could spiral out of control and

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collapse and die without intervention. Well, the way they were

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trained was the best thing to do for someone in

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a mental health crisis or on you know, amulant drugs.

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Was taser them as long as you might need to

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to get them under control and put them, you know,

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in an ambulance. Of course, the effects, so the taser

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can exacerbate, you know, somebody who's in crisis, right, and

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so that the psychology that is I would say that

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it doesn't matter that much because they were never really

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used in situations that would rise to you know, the

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true fight or flight, you know, psychology.

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Speaker 1: Do you see Greg Meyer from the LAPD as being

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an activator or just somebody who needed to ask the

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right questions?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I really like

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Greg and I think that Greg, you know, came from

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an era right where these were foundational questions because we

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should theoretically have technology that helps make policing safer. But

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it goes back to the attitude of what when we

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use force. If you're a cop and you use force,

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what do you think and feel about the person you're

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using force on? Do you believe that person right is

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worthy of dignity and respect? And I hate to say

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that a lot of times officers use force in this

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US versus them mentality and they think okay, Well, my

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choices were I was going to beat them with the

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baton or I was going to taser them. And the

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choice the third choice, which is could I buy some time,

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get back up here and help the person calm down

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using my verbal skills right, doesn't enter the equation. And

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for Greg, I think that he saw the potential of

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the weapon, But also I think potentially was cops in

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those early days were easily dismissive of someone who might

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be on PCP. Like there was a lot back in

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LA in the eighties, and there wasn't a lot of

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thought process about how do we help these people? The

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thought process was how do I keep them from you know,

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threatening me or the public? And so they they didn't

295
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ask the right questions. I'm afraid a lot of times

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cops didn't ask the right questions. And where I find

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them complicit is because they didn't really want to know

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the answer, right, And if you don't really want to

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know the answer, you're not going to find the answer,

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you know.

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Speaker 1: So modern day technology, are we going to get a

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stun gun eventually without something that's connected to wires?

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think they've played with rounds

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where they tried to they try to develop a shotgun

305
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model that fired rounds basically like pellets, that would do

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somebody like a Captain Kirk Phaser would have done in

307
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the TV show. But it's just a pretty impractical technology

308
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and there's not a lot of Again, this all comes

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back to where's the money. What's the money right now?

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The money is in camera technology and evidence storage, data storage.

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And what people need to be aware of is why

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did we go back in time to tell the story

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of the taser, Because hopefully as we go, you know,

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think about a season two, we're telling the story of

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this success of the taser has birthed this technology and

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you are not opting into this technology. Right. A lot

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of people try to argue with me about the taser

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when I would do screenings in my film, or I

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would give talks or things about well, if you just

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listen to the cop, you know, if you if you

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just respect the officers and listen to their commands, you

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won't be in any trouble. And Okay, I don't buy

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that argument, but now what we're even if you accept it, Now,

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what we're facing is every time you leave your apartment,

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you know, to go down to the corner store to

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buy a coke. You're opting into a system without even

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knowing it, where your face is being recorded and stored

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on somebody's and then being fed through an AI machine

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that's proprietary to a company that is going to help

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figure out whether or not you're likely to commit an assault. Right,

331
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this is the kind of minority report stuff that's happening

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that is only possible because that's where the money is.

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That's not what you know. We can talk about public

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safety all we want, but these are this company in

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particular and the others that are in these spaces now,

336
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these surveillance tech spaces. This is about, you know, driving

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growth and revenue. And the money is not really in

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tasers anymore. They've got a new ten shop model that

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seems to be pretty high tech that I you know,

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don't think will solve a lot of policing issues in

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terms of use of force, but it's got some improvements

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to it. That's not even really where the money is. Though.

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The money is and the cameras and the storage and

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the artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 1: Man, there are a lot of businesses that could use

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those cameras because I mean, even at a grocery store

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if they can predict that someone is stealing something or

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they and then all of a sudden we're alerted on it.

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I mean, it blows me away that AI technology has

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that kind of power to it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But the the central question then is how much

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power should you trust in the hands of ceo. It's

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sort of like when we began talking about this and

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developing the show and where it would ultimately go, this

355
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was sort of like the Axon is the Skynet of policing.

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You know, it starts with this niche you know, Taser

357
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product in the late nineties, you know, with five employees,

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and it has now grown into a fifty billion dollar

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company that has its fingers all over these different technologies.

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And theoretically things like predictive policing sound ideal. Why shouldn't

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we want to live in a world where we can

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prevent crime? But it is the actual end of privacy

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in any way we know it. And the people designing

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the algorithms and figuring out whether you're guilty or not

365
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of a pre crime are the kind of people are

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our CEOs, right, our businesses are these kind of people.

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And if Rick Smith, for example, was willing to choose

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his own self interest over even the police. When he

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said that the taser could not kill and told officers

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that in promise them that, and then when it did,

371
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sort of left them holding the bag for those deaths, Right,

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what is he willing to do when the technology begins

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to falsely accuse people of things they they didn't do,

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and and and and and that's to me the scariest

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part is because now we're all living in a society

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where we no longer even own our own face. We

377
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don't own our own images, right, we don't own our

378
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own identity. It's going to belong to this this, this

379
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this big mass surveillance state. Wow.

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Speaker 1: Now, what is the reason why the US military does

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not carry a taser? Is it because of the cost.

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Speaker 2: It's not so much the cost as much as the mission.

383
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You know again that the taser some some MPs, you know,

384
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some some military police might carry them, but they're truly

385
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you know, the military is truly in a situation. A

386
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lot of times where you're training soldiers to fight in

387
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a war, you're training them, you know, to put it

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bluntly to kill. And tasers are mostly limited and most

389
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effective in situations frankly, that aren't very threatening, that aren't

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very violent, that's when they are most effective. And because

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of that, it doesn't make a lot of sense to

392
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have a marine carrying, you know, a taser. At the

393
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:24,799
end of they're M fourteen, right, They're they're often being

394
00:21:24,839 --> 00:21:29,240
deployed into situations where it's it's you know, shoot or

395
00:21:29,279 --> 00:21:34,039
don't shoot, right, whereas officers do find, you know, reason

396
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to have a lot of different contact with civilians. And

397
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sometimes it's true that a taser can be an effective

398
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weapon depending on the contact. It's just it's most effective

399
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when there isn't really much of a threat to the

400
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person carrying one.

401
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Speaker 1: Are criminals afraid of the taser? Or is it like, yeah,

402
00:21:50,759 --> 00:21:51,839
what are you gona do you get a taser?

403
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Speaker 2: Me?

404
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Speaker 1: Okay, get it over with them.

405
00:21:54,519 --> 00:21:58,079
Speaker 2: I don't think criminals. Yeah, I don't think. Again, I

406
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:00,240
hate to put it so bluntly, but I don't think

407
00:22:00,279 --> 00:22:02,559
that there are that many criminals who found themselves on

408
00:22:02,599 --> 00:22:05,079
the wrong side of a taser. I think that people

409
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:07,240
who find themselves on the wrong side of the taser

410
00:22:07,319 --> 00:22:11,079
are people dealing with mental health problem, people who might

411
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:14,960
be on drugs. That certainly happens, but Again, the vast

412
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,599
majority of uses of the taser are on people for

413
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,079
compliance issues, right, if you don't listen to an officer's

414
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:26,079
commands like Matt Masters our officer in the story his

415
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son Bryce, who had an issue with this officer going

416
00:22:30,039 --> 00:22:32,079
back the whole summer. He was a seventeen year old

417
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kid going into a senior year of high school. This

418
00:22:34,839 --> 00:22:37,720
officer and him had had you know, he'd been messed

419
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:42,480
with a little bit that summer, and he didn't want

420
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to at this traffic stop get out of his car

421
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until he was told what he was being put under

422
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arrest for. And the officer that tasered him tried to

423
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pull him out of the car first. When he was unsuccessful,

424
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he said, all right, fine, fit right, and tasers this

425
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seventeen year old boy in the chest. And So I

426
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don't necessarily buy the premise of the question if criminals

427
00:23:03,319 --> 00:23:06,279
are afraid of it, because I don't think the taser

428
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,839
became a weapon that actually was used in a lot

429
00:23:09,839 --> 00:23:14,279
of situations where there was a true risk to the

430
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officer of somebody who truly was violent. Now that certainly

431
00:23:18,039 --> 00:23:20,079
has happened. I'm not saying that never happens. It certainly

432
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:23,160
has happened. Just the vast majority of the time it's used,

433
00:23:23,519 --> 00:23:26,880
it's used for, you know, to gain compliance of somebody

434
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who might be uncooperative.

435
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Speaker 1: Man, I wish you would have been in my class

436
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,640
in broadcasting because I would have used you as a

437
00:23:32,759 --> 00:23:36,079
as a powerful tool because you totally get getting the story,

438
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,599
sharing the story, and growing the story.

439
00:23:39,599 --> 00:23:42,039
Speaker 2: Well. I appreciate that, you know, It's I've had plenty

440
00:23:42,079 --> 00:23:45,160
of practice with this issue. I've been, you know, kind

441
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,400
of joke and deride myself for saying, I'm, you know,

442
00:23:48,519 --> 00:23:52,880
the world's foremost expert on this company, and it's a

443
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,119
pretty niche honor to give myself.

444
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Speaker 1: Wow, where can people go to find out more about you, Nick,

445
00:23:57,839 --> 00:23:59,839
because I want them to get into what you're doing.

446
00:24:01,279 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, you know, certainly you can check out the

447
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,680
podcast Absolute Season one is the story of the Taser,

448
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,480
the rise of the Taser, and you know Matt Masters

449
00:24:11,519 --> 00:24:14,480
as the Kansas City police officer whose son is Taser.

450
00:24:14,839 --> 00:24:18,519
It's a fascinating, you know dynamic there. My film Killing

451
00:24:18,559 --> 00:24:21,680
Them Safely came out in twenty sixteen. You could find that.

452
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,559
I'm not sure exactly where it's streaming now, but it's

453
00:24:25,559 --> 00:24:28,160
been around forever. You can easily find that, and then

454
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,519
you can follow me on Twitter at Nick Beredini, follow

455
00:24:30,559 --> 00:24:34,680
me on Instagram at Nick Beredini. I am always talking

456
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,960
about law enforcement and tech.

457
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Speaker 1: You gotta come back to this show anytime in the future. Nick.

458
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:40,799
The door is always going to be open for you.

459
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 2: I really appreciate that.

460
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,599
Speaker 1: Thanks, Sarah, will you be brilliant today?

461
00:24:44,599 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks you too,