Commentary on: Kremer C, Racette S, Dionne CA, Sauvageau A. Discrimination of falls and blows in blunt head trauma: systematic study of the hat brim rule in relation to skull fractures. J Forensic Sci 2008 May; 53(3):716-9.

摘要

My response to Dr. Dawes et al.'s letter (1) follows (owing to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's approval process required of authors, the response could not be submitted to the Journal of Forensic Sciences in a timely manner).It is encouraging, from a safety standpoint, that Dawes et al. (1) found no significant increase in hematocrit (Hct) after short-term electronic control device (ECD) applications (less than three repeated exposures or a total time of exposure of no more than 15 sec) to healthy subjects. Dawes et al. also published results of a study in which they found no change in Hct after 30-sec exposures of human subjects to the TASER C2 device (2). As Moscati et al. (3) noted, an ECD could be applied "for a longer continuous discharge. However, this issue is operator dependent and completely independent of the weapon itself (p. 586). If law-enforcement officers use the minimal amount of force reasonably necessary to safely approach and handcuff a subject in question, any risk from such devices will be minimized.