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Misleading headline?

By Robert Basler
September 6, 2011
correction | crime | feedback | headlines

Family sues police over California Taser death

LOS ANGELES, Sept 1 (Reuters) – The parents of a Southern California man who accuse police of killing their son with a Taser after he honked at a patrol car have sued the sheriff’s department and county.

This headline is misleading. A cause of death hasn’t been determined and to simply infer that the use of one police tool is to blame for this man’s death is irresponsible as there are no facts to support that causal relationship.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, hundreds of people unfortunately die during or following arrests each year with only a small fraction of these events involving the use of a TASER® device and most of these cases involved some other cause of death.

Please immediately correct the headline to reflect that the cause of death is as yet unknown.

Stacey Todd
TASER International

We have amended the headline to call it a Taser-related death: GBU Editor

A municipal policeman in Nice poses with the Taser X26 model during a presentation in Nice, south eastern France May 27, 2010. REUTERS/Sebastien Nogier

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