Speaker 1: Previously on Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 2: I want to start by addressing a couple of questions
Speaker 2: we've been receiving over email. The first one is our
Speaker 2: chest hits with the Taser dangerous and the answer to
Speaker 2: that is definitively no.
Speaker 3: The company was formed in order to do something favorable
Speaker 3: for law enforcement. Right, We're going to give you a
Speaker 3: device that won't kill people, and it ends up killing people.
Speaker 3: So now what they do is they put the onus
Speaker 3: on the officers.
Speaker 4: My understanding that any shot is acceptable, it's preferred to
Speaker 4: try to aim for lower center mass.
Speaker 5: Show me where it says any shot is acceptable.
Speaker 4: In this bulletin, it says when possible and also says
Speaker 4: preferred to indicate any area.
Speaker 5: So it doesn't say it's acceptable, doesn't it. It was
Speaker 5: much easier to pen it all on Runnels and say
Speaker 5: he shouldn't have shot the kid and held the trigger
Speaker 5: down for twenty four seconds, which is all true.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like they got away with it a
Speaker 1: little bit? Oh? Yeah, by design?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he got what it really.
Speaker 1: I went to talk with the Masters family late last year.
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand how Matt's still a cop after
Speaker 1: everything he's been through during Bryce's trial, he told me
Speaker 1: that he was done, but it's been seven years and
Speaker 1: he hasn't quit.
Speaker 5: My perspective changed definitely, Like and I tell people at
Speaker 5: the time, you don't get a free pass anymore just
Speaker 5: because you're a cop. Obviously, when I first got on
Speaker 5: the department, I would consider it a good old boy club,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean, cops took care of each other,
Speaker 5: They took care of each other's families. And I really
Speaker 5: stopped doing that after this happened to Bryce.
Speaker 1: Now he works as a detective in the narcotics unit,
Speaker 1: and he says he thinks a lot more than he
Speaker 1: used to about the people he's investigating.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm very careful to keep the case, you know,
Speaker 5: going in the right direction, but I'm also scrutinizing the
Speaker 5: reason for the stop, whether there was good reason, suspicion,
Speaker 5: or probable cause.
Speaker 1: Matt will drop a case if he thinks the arresting
Speaker 1: officers did something wrong. Sometimes when he calls it out,
Speaker 1: he gets shipped from his fellow cops. But Matt just
Speaker 1: focuses on what's right.
Speaker 5: I mean, what happened when Bryce taught me to have empathy,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: This is the side of Matt that Stacey fell in
Speaker 1: love with. They spend a lot lot of time together
Speaker 1: during the summers. The whole family likes to float together
Speaker 1: in the above ground pool Bryce bought for them in
Speaker 1: the backyard. They call it the spa. The three of
Speaker 1: them like to put movies on an outdoor projector set
Speaker 1: up next to the pool and sip cocktails in the water.
Speaker 6: We watch a lot of movies.
Speaker 1: That's kind of our thing, swimming and movies. Bryce bought
Speaker 1: a house a few miles away with some of the
Speaker 1: money he got from the lawsuit against.
Speaker 5: Runnels, and I'd basically just pay mom and Dad's dead off,
Speaker 5: got my house in my car, and then put the
Speaker 5: rest in the bank.
Speaker 1: He spends a lot of time with us.
Speaker 5: He's always watching my snapchats and knowing what leftover dinners
Speaker 5: he needs to show up for.
Speaker 7: And so we're lucky.
Speaker 5: Heard from him tonight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm surprised that he hasn't interrupted us. As I left,
Speaker 1: Matt handed me the brown Accordion folder stuffed with all
Speaker 1: his taser research, these studies articles, years of obsession. Matt
Speaker 1: doesn't stay up late reading taser studies anymore, but there
Speaker 1: are certain details of what happened that he can't let
Speaker 1: go of, like the fact that Rick Smith never acknowledged
Speaker 1: what happened to his family.
Speaker 5: I would love the opportunity to sit across from Rick
Speaker 5: Smith and you know, let him, let him have a
Speaker 5: piece of my mind.
Speaker 1: I'd like to sit across from Rick Smith too, but
Speaker 1: he's declined to talk to me. What would you say
Speaker 1: to him?
Speaker 5: My thing would be the question, why didn't you tell
Speaker 5: the truth from the beginning? Why did you Why did
Speaker 5: you continue to develop and make that weapon when you
Speaker 5: knew that it had the possibility to kill somebody? My
Speaker 5: biggest question is with me, why was it all about money?
Speaker 1: This is absolute Season one Taser incorporated a story about
Speaker 1: unchecked power. I'm Nick Beredini. Episode six, Live, Long and Prosper.
Speaker 1: It's been a full thirty years since Rick Smith first
Speaker 1: launched the Airtaser thirty four thousand. That's the model he
Speaker 1: built in a garage with the inventor Jack Cover. He
Speaker 1: was twenty five years old. Back then, it was winter
Speaker 1: and his weapon was about to go on sale in
Speaker 1: the Sharper Image catalog. At the time, he planned to
Speaker 1: sell the Airtaser to regular civilians to protect themselves. This
Speaker 1: was going to be his moment, the first step in
Speaker 1: his dream to make the bullet obsolete. But there are
Speaker 1: some pieces of this history that I haven't told you
Speaker 1: about yet. The plan for launch day was to shock
Speaker 1: a famous local reporter during the news the part.
Speaker 7: Station don't miss Steve Filmer's task on air tasers. That
Speaker 7: story and more on Bob News tonight, After Er.
Speaker 1: And after Er, the taser segment begins. A woman in
Speaker 1: jeans and a pink sweater points the air taser straight
Speaker 1: ahead the reporter, Steve has khakis in a leather jacket.
Speaker 1: He straps on one of those face shields that cops
Speaker 1: attached to riot helmets. The camera cuts wide as he
Speaker 1: gets ready to charge at the woman. Barbara's got the
Speaker 1: air taser. I'll rush her from twenty yards. Steve drops
Speaker 1: to the ground about five feet from Barbara. He flops
Speaker 1: around like a fish out of water in the grass
Speaker 1: as the electric current runs through his body.
Speaker 6: That was not pleasant.
Speaker 1: Those nine seconds were devastating, but I'm okay. A phone
Speaker 1: number flashes on screen. Rick says he was waiting in
Speaker 1: a call center with his employees. Everyone was ready at
Speaker 1: the phones. He expected a flood of orders to come
Speaker 1: rushing in.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 7: These air tasers are being made by a company here
Speaker 7: in Scottsdale. The price is two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 7: Until now only police could carry this weapon, but starting
Speaker 7: tomorrow you can carry it for self defense twelve months
Speaker 7: to no reporter see filmer tells you what you need
Speaker 7: to know before you buy one.
Speaker 1: The segment aired and the phones remained silent. Finally a
Speaker 1: call Rick picked up. He wanted to be the one
Speaker 1: to greet the first customer for his brand new taser,
Speaker 1: but Rick says when he picked up, he heard his
Speaker 1: mom's voice ask how's it going, Ricky. He says she
Speaker 1: was the only call they got all night. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just that the first taser was a bust. You might
Speaker 1: remember that things were so bad. Rick wanted to quit
Speaker 1: his company. But then, he says, he learned that the
Speaker 1: bank was going to take everything from his father if
Speaker 1: his company failed.
Speaker 8: Millions of dollars went into this, basically wiping.
Speaker 2: Out my dad.
Speaker 1: Imagine the pressure. Rick was a kid in his mid
Speaker 1: twenties running a business. If his family went broke, it
Speaker 1: would be Rick's fault. Rick says he only had one
Speaker 1: million dollars to save the company. Five hundred thousand from
Speaker 1: his dad and a matching five hundred thousand from their
Speaker 1: only other investor. He had one play left. He used
Speaker 1: that money to go all in to make a new,
Speaker 1: more powerful taser, one that would work for cops, which
Speaker 1: meant that had to be able to stop anyone, even
Speaker 1: the ripped marine Hans Morrero. It was called the M
Speaker 1: twenty six, and that's because it was powered by twenty
Speaker 1: six watts of electricity, almost four times stronger than the
Speaker 1: air taser. Nobody was fighting through this thing.
Speaker 8: The M twenty six was a big success for one reason.
Speaker 8: That M twenty six worked.
Speaker 1: So well that he was able to market it to
Speaker 1: police departments all over the country, and it saved the
Speaker 1: Smith family from financial ruin. But Rick wasn't actually the
Speaker 1: first person to build a taser that worked, or the
Speaker 1: first person to amp up the power. Before Rick and
Speaker 1: Jack Kover first developed their taser in Cover's garage, Cover
Speaker 1: had worked on his first model with another company called Tasertron.
Speaker 1: Tasertron's technical advisor was a guy named Jim McNulty. Jim
Speaker 1: told me that cops had asked for a taser that
Speaker 1: was powerful enough to stop anyone.
Speaker 9: Officers want someone down on the ground, they considered them
Speaker 9: not to be a threat once they're.
Speaker 1: Down on the ground. So Jim told me, Jack Kover
Speaker 1: and Tasertron tried to give cops what they wanted. They
Speaker 1: wanted them to fall down, so they doubled the power.
Speaker 1: Tasertron increased the power of its weapons from about five
Speaker 1: watts to about ten. But when cops started to actually
Speaker 1: use that taser out on the streets, that's when you
Speaker 1: started having your first deaths. They were about eleven of them.
Speaker 1: Coroners in southern California cited these tasers as a cause
Speaker 1: or contributing factor in at least five deaths between nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six and nineteen eighty nine. Jim McNaulty said, as
Speaker 1: that's why Taser Tron stopped selling them. But about a
Speaker 1: decade after those reported deaths, Rick Smith made an even
Speaker 1: more powerful taser, the M twenty six, And the M
Speaker 1: twenty six wasn't just ten watts. It was twenty six
Speaker 1: years later. After the M twenty six came out, Jim
Speaker 1: McNulty sued Taser International to try and stop Rick from
Speaker 1: irresponsibly dominating the market. Jim testified that Rick had given
Speaker 1: cops what they wanted, more power. Rick was there when
Speaker 1: Jim told the judge that kind of power can be lethal,
Speaker 1: but Jim lost the case and Rick didn't change his design.
Speaker 1: When Taser International first released the new M twenty six
Speaker 1: taser in late nineteen ninety nine, Rick went all out
Speaker 1: to assure cops in the public that the taser was safe.
Speaker 1: To accompany the release, he published a document he called
Speaker 1: Medical Safety Information. This would be one of the first
Speaker 1: documents to go in the company's research compendium. This was
Speaker 1: essentially his proof. In this document, Rick Smith compared the
Speaker 1: process of developing the more powerful taser to the research
Speaker 1: a pharmaceutical company does to get FDA approval for a
Speaker 1: new drug. He wrote, it was the same approach as
Speaker 1: is used in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. But
Speaker 1: Rick Smith didn't get anything like FDA approval for the
Speaker 1: M twenty six taser. He hardly had to prove anything
Speaker 1: to anyone. A new drug takes on average about ten
Speaker 1: years to go from concept to FDA approval. There's peer
Speaker 1: reviewed animal studies, clinical human research supervised by doctors in
Speaker 1: control groups. FDA approval is extremely cautious. But a taser
Speaker 1: is not regulated by the FDA. It's not considered a
Speaker 1: medical device, even though it sends an electric current through
Speaker 1: the human body. It's also not regulated by the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms because it doesn't use gunpowder
Speaker 1: like the original tasers did. The very first taser was
Speaker 1: technically a consumer product regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission,
Speaker 1: but even they never did any sort of testing. No
Speaker 1: independent regulatory agency ever did a study on the twenty six.
Speaker 1: So at the start, everything Rick promised was based on
Speaker 1: a few studies that Taser conducted by itself. The first
Speaker 1: one was on a pig, the second one was on
Speaker 1: five dogs, and finally there was Taser's version of a
Speaker 1: human study, which was just those first nine hundred or
Speaker 1: so tough guy cops who volunteered to get a quick
Speaker 1: shock and didn't drop dead. That's nothing like how tasers
Speaker 1: were really used in the real world. Cops taste some
Speaker 1: people for over a minute. I felt like my own
Speaker 1: heart stopped when I finally realized this was it FDA
Speaker 1: level testing. There were no clinical trials and there were
Speaker 1: no peer reviewed studies. When Attorney John Burton, who spent
Speaker 1: years of his life battling Taser International in court saw
Speaker 1: that Rick compared his testing to an FDA review. He
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it either.
Speaker 10: There are just certain things I think you just don't
Speaker 10: lie about. I mean to me, so when I say
Speaker 10: they've done FDA level testing and the current is not
Speaker 10: sufficient to affect cardiac rhythms, and they're selling this to
Speaker 10: tens of thousands of people with these representations, I just
Speaker 10: assume they're true, and I wouldn't think somebody would lie
Speaker 10: about that.
Speaker 1: About ten years after Rick Smith built the M twenty six,
Speaker 1: John was representing the family of Darryl Turner, the seventeen
Speaker 1: year old who had died from a taser shot at
Speaker 1: the grocery store where he worked, and he questioned Rick
Speaker 1: about his decision to increase the taser's power.
Speaker 10: Okay, basically, you cranked out the power of the air
Speaker 10: taser thirty four thousand, four times.
Speaker 8: We increase the energy and the power by roughly four times,
Speaker 8: and the output charge by roughly three times.
Speaker 10: And then looking at this one pig.
Speaker 1: That you did this experiment, John spends at least an
Speaker 1: hour asking Rick if he thinks the testing they did
Speaker 1: was enough, it's.
Speaker 8: Exactly the same mechanism of product development that I learned
Speaker 8: developing a project management system for a pharmaceutical company exploratory research,
Speaker 8: computer modeling, animal safety studies.
Speaker 1: Human In the video, Rick looks defeated. There are dark
Speaker 1: circles around his sunken eyes, his normally coofft black hair
Speaker 1: is falling down over his face. Burton continues pressing Rick,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 10: Why did you think that this new device that had
Speaker 10: four times of power was going to be safe to
Speaker 10: use on human beings?
Speaker 1: Because Rick explains to Burton for the umpteenth time that
Speaker 1: everything he did was above board. He had the taser
Speaker 1: tested on animals and compared the weapon's power to existing
Speaker 1: research on electricity.
Speaker 8: Output of this device. It showed significant safety margins, so
Speaker 8: all of the review of the literature in the candidate.
Speaker 1: At this point, Rick seems to snap to attention. He
Speaker 1: stares straight into the camera that's recording his testimony and
Speaker 1: launches into a kind of monologue.
Speaker 8: And as we sit here today, the result of this
Speaker 8: work is we've developed a technology that, if you include
Speaker 8: the Mputy six in the next twenty six, is deployed
Speaker 8: by five hundred thousand police officers and over sixteen thousand agencies.
Speaker 8: We've had over a million volunteers and over a million
Speaker 8: field uses. We've prevented conservatively forty to fifty thousand lethal
Speaker 8: force incidents from recurry.
Speaker 1: It's almost like Rick doesn't understand why he's under attack.
Speaker 8: I'm very proud. I think you would be hard pressed
Speaker 8: to find any other scientific development in the field of
Speaker 8: modern policing that went through a similarly rigorous approach and
Speaker 8: has had the success rate where we have rede from
Speaker 8: being usually.
Speaker 1: It's been years since this step position. I'm on the
Speaker 1: company's website and there's a page that says, as of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, the taser has saved more than three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people from death or serious bodily injury. It's
Speaker 1: a staggering number. Maybe it's enough to convince you that
Speaker 1: tasers are worth risking a Bryce Masters or a Darryl
Speaker 1: Turner for the greater good until you see how the
Speaker 1: math just doesn't add up. I need to get into
Speaker 1: the stats for a second. Rick Smith claims tasers have
Speaker 1: saved more than three hundred thousand lives from death or
Speaker 1: serious bodily injury since cops began using his company's weapon
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. That means an average of roughly
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand people every year that used to keep a
Speaker 1: ticker on the website's homepage that counted down to the
Speaker 1: next life saved one every twenty nine and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: Sounds amazing, but dig just a little deeper and it
Speaker 1: falls apart. The company calculates the three hundred thousand lives
Speaker 1: saved using one study. That study looked at four hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty six taser uses by Dallas cops between two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. In two thousand and six, officers reported
Speaker 1: that five point four percent of the time using the
Speaker 1: taser prevented them from using lethal force. Rick took that
Speaker 1: one study and he applied the results to an estimated
Speaker 1: five and a half million total taser uses worldwide. If
Speaker 1: you multiply five point four percent times five point five million,
Speaker 1: you get about three hundred thousand people people supposedly spared
Speaker 1: a cops bullet. Its creative math, there's no comprehensive evidence
Speaker 1: that tasers reduced shootings at all. Six years after Dallas
Speaker 1: PD got the taser, the department was still shooting about
Speaker 1: the same amount of people as they did before they
Speaker 1: got the taser. One University of Chicago study looked at
Speaker 1: thirty six thousand use of force incidents by Chicago PD
Speaker 1: cops and found tasers did not reduce shootings. Stanford researchers
Speaker 1: reviewed around one hundred and fifty different taser studies and
Speaker 1: found the same. The Washington Post host which was doing
Speaker 1: arguably the best job of tracking fatal police shootings, showed
Speaker 1: that over the last ten years, police shootings are actually
Speaker 1: going up, even though more departments than ever have tasers.
Speaker 1: By using numbers like three hundred thousand lives saved, they're
Speaker 1: implying that the taser has reduced gun violence. This number
Speaker 1: helps Rick Smith tell a powerful story, the kind of
Speaker 1: story he's told since the beginning, to help him sell
Speaker 1: tasers and make money. And they made a lot of money.
Speaker 1: After Taser went public in two thousand and one, it
Speaker 1: transformed from an eight million dollar company to a one
Speaker 1: point nine billion dollar unicorn in less than three years,
Speaker 1: and all that money got them media attention.
Speaker 6: The stock was skyrocketing.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, an investigative reporter named Robert
Speaker 1: Anglin walked into Taser International's headquarters. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first people I turned to is I was trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of the company and what I'd gotten
Speaker 1: myself into fifteen years ago. He went to Taser to
Speaker 1: write a puff piece about this successful local company.
Speaker 6: It was this local company makes good and I'm not
Speaker 6: a business reporter by any means. That wasn't why I
Speaker 6: was asked to go. They wanted, the editor at the time,
Speaker 6: wanted a profile of this company would tell us what
Speaker 6: makes a tick. I didn't realize at the time that
Speaker 6: that would be the first step in a two year
Speaker 6: long investigation of the company.
Speaker 1: At the time, Taser International was the talk of Wall Street.
Speaker 1: Traders were going crazy for the stock. Shares that sold
Speaker 1: for less than four dollars in February two thousand and
Speaker 1: three fetched one hundred and thirty five dollars a year later.
Speaker 6: Throughout the day, the Smiths and Steve Tuttle kept insisting
Speaker 6: that no corner, no medical examiner, had ever cited the
Speaker 6: stunt gun in an autopsy report. And this was like
Speaker 6: a drumbeat. It wasn't just a throw away, you know, factoid.
Speaker 6: Every ten or fifteen minutes they were raising the issue.
Speaker 6: No corner had ever sighted this gun. The gun can't kill,
Speaker 6: the guns never killed, the gun won't kill. And you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's kind of a case, at least in my
Speaker 6: thinking of the Lady Duck protest too much. So towards
Speaker 6: the tail end of the day, I asked them for
Speaker 6: the autopsy reports, and I got a lot of blank
Speaker 6: stares in return.
Speaker 1: Englyn kept following up, and he remembers eventually they sent
Speaker 1: him like five reports.
Speaker 6: So I took it upon myself at that point to
Speaker 6: wait on doing the company profile and began looking into
Speaker 6: these deaths and track everybody who died and then get
Speaker 6: the autopsy reports from those jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: Taser employees weren't telling him the full story.
Speaker 6: During my investigation, I found there were deaths that Taser
Speaker 6: hadn't bothered put on their report. And then, of course,
Speaker 6: once I started getting the autopsy reports that corners were
Speaker 6: infect citing Tasers as causes of deaths, contributing factors to deaths,
Speaker 6: are saying they couldn't rule it out.
Speaker 1: When he took his findings back to Taser, he couldn't
Speaker 1: believe the response.
Speaker 6: When a medical examiner had blamed death on the gun,
Speaker 6: they would say that medical examiner doesn't have the experience
Speaker 6: or the or the qualified training to blame a death
Speaker 6: on a gun.
Speaker 1: Englen wrote articles questioning the company's claims. By the fall
Speaker 1: of two thousand and four, the stock price was down
Speaker 1: about fifty percent. That's when Taser International issued a press
Speaker 1: release October eighteenth, two thousand and four, an independent study
Speaker 1: by the Department of Defense found Tasers were safe.
Speaker 6: As a consequence of that release, They're stock skyrocketed.
Speaker 1: Over the next month. The stock shot up over sixty percent.
Speaker 6: Executive members of Taser's staff sold stock, made it millions
Speaker 6: upon millions of dollars in stock sales.
Speaker 1: Rick and his family sold over one million shares. That
Speaker 1: made them almost sixty million dollars combined.
Speaker 6: And later, when I obtained copies of the actual safety
Speaker 6: study and began interviewing people surrounded with that safety study,
Speaker 6: what became obvious and apparent was that there had not
Speaker 6: been a safety study. It wasn't true. A, the study
Speaker 6: wasn't independent. B. The government scientist involved in the study
Speaker 6: didn't even look at stunt gun safety. They were looking
Speaker 6: at whether it was applicable for use in the military.
Speaker 6: Government scientists acknowledged they had never studied the safety of
Speaker 6: the sun gun, so to suggest that the government affirmed
Speaker 6: safety the stunt gun. Safety was false. As it turned out,
Speaker 6: Taser was involved in every step of this study.
Speaker 1: It was a literature review, not a medical study, and
Speaker 1: almost all of the literature the DoD reviewed came directly
Speaker 1: from Taser International, and it was organized by Taser's own employees.
Speaker 6: Every level of this study involved some members of Hayser's staff.
Speaker 1: As Anglin uncovered the truth, the stock collapsed again.
Speaker 6: At one point, Rick Smith accused me of costing them
Speaker 6: more than five hundred million dollars in shareholder value. I
Speaker 6: was besieged with calls from people's shareholders, especially shareholders who
Speaker 6: saw the value of the stun gun dropping off like
Speaker 6: a stone. The Attorney General of Arizona began an investigation
Speaker 6: while I was investigating the company. The SEC began an
Speaker 6: investigation of Taser while I was investigating the company.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 6: In those two investigations, our documentation was cited as part
Speaker 6: of the reason. So the stock really took a tremendous fall.
Speaker 1: Taser International lawyers sued the Arizona Republic for libel, but
Speaker 1: the case was dismissed.
Speaker 6: Obviously, the relationship between me and the company deteriorated. I
Speaker 6: am not on their Christmas list to this day.
Speaker 1: I don't think I am either. And when Taser doesn't
Speaker 1: like you, they don't just stop sending Christmas cards. They
Speaker 1: go after anyone who challenges their claims. Journalists, critics, medical examiners,
Speaker 1: and cops too. Even Oakland PD's Mike Lenicio became an enemy.
Speaker 1: Mike eventually found a way around the non disclosure agreement
Speaker 1: he signed to attend Taser International's tests. He started telling
Speaker 1: other cops, especially his officers in Oakland, about the cardiac
Speaker 1: risks he'd seen firsthand. He even started sharing information with
Speaker 1: the lawyer suing Taser International, John Burton. Soon after Mike
Speaker 1: took over Oakland's Taser program, he began independently testing tasers
Speaker 1: to make sure they were within the electrical specs set
Speaker 1: by the company. That's when he noticed something strange.
Speaker 9: Next thing, I know, I'm getting these anonymous written complaints.
Speaker 9: And again it's a little unusual if they're from out
Speaker 9: of state. You know, why would someone out of state
Speaker 9: who has no contact with me as an Oakland police officer,
Speaker 9: why would they care what we're doing in Oakland?
Speaker 1: Right The implication of the complaint was that he was
Speaker 1: using police resources to run an unregulated company and make
Speaker 1: money behind the department's back. Each time Internal Affairs would investigate,
Speaker 1: Mike would answer the same questions and provide the same evidence,
Speaker 1: and he would be cleared.
Speaker 9: And so I think the third one I was still working.
Speaker 9: The fourth one, I was retired. So I called my
Speaker 9: attorney and he says, you're not. He says, you're retired.
Speaker 9: I said, I know, just humor me, please, here's okay.
Speaker 1: Mike explained he still wanted to go through the process
Speaker 1: again to clear his record.
Speaker 9: So we go down there, we go through the whole
Speaker 9: thing again. I don't know about a month later, I
Speaker 9: guess I get another letter from my AA and a mail.
Speaker 1: So this is the result of the investigation.
Speaker 9: And on this one, you know, it says I'm exonerated
Speaker 9: from the charges. I scan over the header and the
Speaker 9: box that says complainant, it says Steve Tuttle.
Speaker 1: Steve Tuttle, the same Taser VP of Communications who told
Speaker 1: Robert Anglin no coroner had ever cited the taser as
Speaker 1: a cause of death. The same man I spoke with
Speaker 1: when I went to Taser.
Speaker 9: They went to Great Links to ruin my reputation, you know,
Speaker 9: to get me fired, to you know, get rid of me,
Speaker 9: dispose of me.
Speaker 1: Mike sometimes testified as an expert in lawsuits against Taser International,
Speaker 1: and he told me he started bringing that piece of
Speaker 1: paper with Steve Tuttle's name on it to every single
Speaker 1: court appearance and deposition. That way, if Taser's lawyers tried
Speaker 1: to discredit him, they would be in for a surprise.
Speaker 1: One day, he says, he was answering questions from Taser's
Speaker 1: lawyers in a deposition when they asked, have you ever
Speaker 1: had any any I A complaints filed against you?
Speaker 9: If you ever had any discipline? I said, I A complained?
Speaker 8: And what like?
Speaker 11: What sense?
Speaker 1: He says, have you ever had any discipline.
Speaker 9: Filed against you? And this was my opportunity. I've been
Speaker 9: carrying around this piece of paper for months, and I said,
Speaker 9: would this include the ones that you guys filed against me?
Speaker 9: Steve Title filed against me? Do I include those? No
Speaker 9: further questions. He completely dropped that subject and moved on.
Speaker 9: So I finally did get vindicated.
Speaker 1: I guess you'd say, despite everything, Mike still thinks the
Speaker 1: taser can be a good tool. For police.
Speaker 9: I have nothing against the product. I have nothing against it.
Speaker 9: You know, it's a I think the product is a
Speaker 9: useful product when deployed properly. But I also think that
Speaker 9: a lot of the information that I had to discover
Speaker 9: on my own should have been disclosed.
Speaker 1: I think Rick Smith didn't disclose the taser's risks because
Speaker 1: they weren't a part of the story he wanted to tell.
Speaker 1: Rick Cherry picks and embellishes the parts of his story
Speaker 1: that help him promote tasers. Even the story he's always
Speaker 1: told about his introduction to gun violence isn't quite true.
Speaker 1: It's the one about how he came up with the
Speaker 1: idea for tasers after learning two kids from his high school,
Speaker 1: Todd and Corey, had been shot and killed. Over the years,
Speaker 1: he's repeatedly referred to Todd and Corey as his friends
Speaker 1: and used their photos and presentations, like during speeches at
Speaker 1: the company's annual conference.
Speaker 8: In December nineteen ninety Two of my high school friends
Speaker 8: were shot and killed only a few miles from here
Speaker 8: in what started as an altercation.
Speaker 1: And Corey weren't really his friends. He knew of them,
Speaker 1: but didn't know them. In twenty twenty, three, Todd's father
Speaker 1: told a reporter from Reuter's that Rick's company quote ran
Speaker 1: a whole advertising campaign based on the murder of my son.
Speaker 1: They profited off that, and they didn't ask for permission.
Speaker 1: It's been over twenty five years since Rick Smith began
Speaker 1: selling tasers, and he's still talking about the taser as
Speaker 1: if it can solve all gun violence. He still maintains
Speaker 1: it's safe, like when he talked about the taser safety
Speaker 1: record on his podcast.
Speaker 8: Taser has a lower injury rate than playing collegiate volleyball.
Speaker 8: You are more likely to get injured in volleyball practice
Speaker 8: than being hit by the taser by police in the street.
Speaker 8: And that's so incredulous. I have to stop saying it
Speaker 8: because people paint me as being cavalier and insensitive.
Speaker 1: I think the comparison is insensitive. College volleyball isn't inherently violent,
Speaker 1: and playing it is a decision you make for yourself.
Speaker 1: The taser is a weapon, it's funded by taxpayers and
Speaker 1: the hopes it will help protect them. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: tasers haven't saved anyone. It's hard to verify Rick's story.
Speaker 1: He told in the first episode about the thirteen year
Speaker 1: old girl who was suicidal holding a knife. Cops taste
Speaker 1: her instead of shooting her. I am sure that there
Speaker 1: are true stories like that. I've seen video footage of
Speaker 1: people who were tasered by cops instead of shot. But
Speaker 1: it also seems to fit this pattern of Rick only
Speaker 1: telling the parts of the stories he wants to sell.
Speaker 1: I think Rick Smith wants this thirteen year old girl
Speaker 1: to be part of his legacy. But if Rick wants
Speaker 1: to take credit for saving her life, shouldn't he have
Speaker 1: to take responsibility for what happened to someone like Bryce Masters.
Speaker 1: I've never heard him acknowledged that taser has caused even
Speaker 1: one cardiac arrest. Instead, it's the families of two cops,
Speaker 1: Timothy Runnelds and Matt Masters, who have to live with
Speaker 1: the consequences. By the time a Kansas City jury watched
Speaker 1: a video of Bryce getting tasered and going into cardiac arrest,
Speaker 1: Rick was focused on a new opportunity. The company had
Speaker 1: a new name and a new prize product on the market,
Speaker 1: the Axon body camera. Rick Smith says he actually got
Speaker 1: the idea for body cameras from, of all people, his
Speaker 1: legal adversaries, John Burton and Peter Williamson Rick told this
Speaker 1: story on his new podcast. He said he thought of
Speaker 1: body cameras after one of their lawsuits against Taser.
Speaker 8: This was to defend our customers and ourselves from all
Speaker 8: the horrible allegations and like, look, let's just record what's happening.
Speaker 1: The idea was to protect cops.
Speaker 8: Look, I believe in the goodness of police. I work
Speaker 8: with them every day. It's an honorable profession. So look,
Speaker 8: yeah I'm biased. If I hear a story, I naturally
Speaker 8: buy a stories. I bet some dirt bag is lying
Speaker 8: about the police because the police were honorable.
Speaker 1: Bodycams were not an overnight success. Police departments were hesitant
Speaker 1: to buy them. Cops didn't like the idea of being
Speaker 1: filmed at their job all day, but within a few
Speaker 1: years cops wouldn't have much choice.
Speaker 3: Protests have broken out near Saint Louis, Missouri, over a
Speaker 3: police shooting that killed an unarmed African American teenager, eighteen
Speaker 3: year old Michael Brown.
Speaker 1: Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Speaker 8: Rochesters of different ages and races demanding answers in the
Speaker 8: shooting death of eighteen year old Michael Brown at the
Speaker 8: hands of a policeman.
Speaker 1: A couple months after Michael Brown was killed, Rick one
Speaker 1: on a morning talk show in Mesa, Arizona. He explained
Speaker 1: why body cameras were good for the public, not just police, and.
Speaker 8: The idea is, you know, there's a big problem with
Speaker 8: mistrust between police and their communities. For example, in Ferguson,
Speaker 8: I think would be a very different story. We would
Speaker 8: know what happened if there was a video of that incident,
Speaker 8: and there was not, so we burning.
Speaker 1: The Obama administration poured millions of dollars into police agencies
Speaker 1: so they could buy body cameras, and most police departments
Speaker 1: bought them from the company they already had a relationship
Speaker 1: with Taser International. Other companies had developed bodycams, but Taser
Speaker 1: International used them to innovate how police footage was stored.
Speaker 1: The Axon cameras didn't record data to tapes or discs.
Speaker 1: They could connect to the company's cloud, So now the
Speaker 1: company was offering a tech ecosystem to make storing the
Speaker 1: footage easy. Rick said it was like going from a
Speaker 1: walkman to an iPod. So the Axon body cameras weren't
Speaker 1: just new hardware they represented a whole new direction for
Speaker 1: the company, a network of software and hardware. To signal
Speaker 1: the shift, Rick renamed Taser International Axon Enterprise. Just like
Speaker 1: the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, Axon Enterprise would explore
Speaker 1: a new frontier. A couple months after the name change,
Speaker 1: Rick gets on stage at the company's huge annual user
Speaker 1: conference wearing a T shirt that says, write code, Save lives.
Speaker 8: For those who are wondering where the name Axon came from,
Speaker 8: Axon is actually the technical name for the fibers that
Speaker 8: extend from your nerve cells to connect them to each other.
Speaker 8: So when we got into the camera business a few
Speaker 8: years ago, we selected this name because we saw the
Speaker 8: value of body cameras wasn't in the hardware of the
Speaker 8: camera itself. It was if we could make that device connected,
Speaker 8: did it become a sensor that we create a network
Speaker 8: of really interesting information.
Speaker 1: Rick walks across the stage and explains his vision for Axon,
Speaker 1: a digital evidence storage platform, and they wouldn't stop there.
Speaker 1: They were going to develop world class artificial intelligence that
Speaker 1: would analyze all the footage the Axon cameras recorded.
Speaker 8: Now, when we first announced that we're doing artificial intelligence.
Speaker 8: We had some pretty interesting reactions in the media. This
Speaker 8: was one of them.
Speaker 1: The slide behind him shows the headline the new tech
Speaker 1: that could turn police bodycams into nightmare surveillance.
Speaker 8: Tools, where they were talking about how we're going to
Speaker 8: use facial recognition to go out and create the Orwellian state,
Speaker 8: big brother observing us everywhere. There are some creepy things
Speaker 8: that you could do with some of these technologies. Before
Speaker 8: we touch anything like facial recognition or any other technology
Speaker 8: where AI could be abused, we're creating an AI privacy
Speaker 8: and Ethics Advisory Panel with experts from legal privacy experts,
Speaker 8: civil rights experts.
Speaker 1: And Rick promises that he will convene an ethics boord
Speaker 1: to help him weigh the risks of the new technology
Speaker 1: he wants to explore.
Speaker 8: Right, I think we all agree we want to be
Speaker 8: building technology for the society we all want to live in,
Speaker 8: and we don't want this stuff to get misused because
Speaker 8: number one, if he gets misused, this could blow up
Speaker 8: and the technology gets taken away. Wan to avoid that,
Speaker 8: so you're not going to see.
Speaker 1: Us rushing on so on stage at that Axon conference
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, Rick assured everyone he would rely on
Speaker 1: his independent ethics boort to help him responsibly deploy any
Speaker 1: new technology. Since then, he's repeatedly clashed with the board
Speaker 1: over the company's plans. Axon came up with facial recognition
Speaker 1: on body cameras, then paused it when the board objected.
Speaker 1: The company wanted to sell police departments drones armed with tasers,
Speaker 1: and the board objected again. Then you've all did.
Speaker 12: Texas America is real from the painful reality of another
Speaker 12: mass shooting.
Speaker 10: This latest massacre at an elementary school in a small
Speaker 10: Texas town.
Speaker 11: Here is the latest.
Speaker 10: At ten Texas officials report nineteen children and at least
Speaker 10: two adults killed.
Speaker 1: School children gunned down by one man, murdering kids in
Speaker 1: grades two, three, and four at school, this time in Uvalde, Texas,
Speaker 1: a small city. Days later, Axon announced it was pursuing
Speaker 1: a plan to sell drones armed with tasers to schools shooting.
Speaker 12: Axon says that it's working on a non lethal taser
Speaker 12: drone that could be deployed in an emergency.
Speaker 8: Figure it like a smoke detector, a piece of safety
Speaker 8: equipment with its on site that's hidden away.
Speaker 2: Nobody needs to know.
Speaker 8: It's there, and if there's a person who shows up
Speaker 8: to school with a gun, a teacher or any administrator
Speaker 8: could hit a panic button.
Speaker 11: Smith says that would then allow for law enforcement to
Speaker 11: get a live look at the room with the devices
Speaker 11: built in camera and activate the drone with the goal
Speaker 11: of incapacit sitating the suspect using the taser attached to it.
Speaker 1: Rick paused the project after intense public backlash, but the
Speaker 1: damage was done. Nine of the twelve Ethics board members
Speaker 1: resigned in protest. In a statement explaining their resignation, the
Speaker 1: resigning members wrote that after several years of work, the
Speaker 1: company has fundamentally failed to embrace the values that we
Speaker 1: have tried to instill, and that they'd lost faith in
Speaker 1: Axon's ability to be a responsible partner. Today, Axon is
Speaker 1: a forty five billion dollar force. Tasers are still a
Speaker 1: part of that business, but Rick's concept of selling a
Speaker 1: dropbox for cops a network of body cameras and software
Speaker 1: to support them has morphed into an Amazon like everything
Speaker 1: store for law enforcement. Plus, they're expanding their customer base,
Speaker 1: selling their camera and software systems to civilian spaces like healthcare,
Speaker 1: retail stores, and schools. The company is the market leader
Speaker 1: and just about every piece of technology a cop might use.
Speaker 1: They sell drones, drone counter surveillance. They've combined their cameras
Speaker 1: with AI. Rick is building crime tracking centers to try
Speaker 1: and stop crimes before they happen. His inspiration the Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise movie Minority Report. In the movie, Tom Cruise is
Speaker 1: a policeman who relies on three clairvoyant women who are
Speaker 1: basically held captive in order to predict the crimes of
Speaker 1: citizens before they happen. But when Cruz gets falsely accused
Speaker 1: of a pre murder, he goes on the run until
Speaker 1: he can successfully prove his innocence. In the end, everyone
Speaker 1: realizes the whole idea of crime prediction was fucking insane,
Speaker 1: so they shut the program down. But I guess for Rick,
Speaker 1: the moral of the story was, wouldn't that be neat?
Speaker 3: Please welcome CEO and founder of Exxon Rick Smith.
Speaker 1: At the company's twenty twenty five annual conference, Rick Smith
Speaker 1: came jogging out on stage to give the keynote address.
Speaker 1: He had on a dark gray pollover with a small
Speaker 1: gold triangle on his chest.
Speaker 8: Thank you everybody, and certainly we've taken a ton of
Speaker 8: inspiration from science fiction. It's kind of fun to wear
Speaker 8: my Captain Kirk inspired a lot of today, Because life
Speaker 8: truly does imitate art. That's where we first imagine the
Speaker 8: technologies that we will ultimately create.
Speaker 1: That triangle design on rick shirt is inspired by the
Speaker 1: insignia for the star Trek, Starfleet Command, the explorers and
Speaker 1: protectors of the galaxy.
Speaker 8: Now, each technology on its own is neither good nor evil.
Speaker 8: It's an extraordinary tool, powerful and neutral. How we choose
Speaker 8: to wield it will define the future that we build.
Speaker 1: So I'm watching this speech and thinking about Captain Kirk's
Speaker 1: origin story again. Kirk's legend was born when he reprogrammed
Speaker 1: that simulated test so that he could save both his
Speaker 1: own starfleet and the civilians stranded on the other ship.
Speaker 1: And Rick's legend was born when he reprogrammed the Taser
Speaker 1: and quadrupled its power. He likes to say that doing
Speaker 1: this saved his family, his company, and hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of lives.
Speaker 8: So together, I mean, we can harness these tools to
Speaker 8: create safer, more cohesive communities and build a society that
Speaker 8: would make Captain kirkrowd.
Speaker 1: Now to meet our goals, Kirk lives in a fictional
Speaker 1: intergalactic utopia, and Rick Smith lives on Earth. He may
Speaker 1: be trying to write his own story it is, but
Speaker 1: his choices have real world consequences.
Speaker 8: Our task is clear to construct the right safeguards to
Speaker 8: ensure this tech is used ethically, maximizing its power for
Speaker 8: good while minimizing the risk of misuse. So we take
Speaker 8: this responsibility very seriously. It is a privilege and our
Speaker 8: greatest challenge to thoughtfully deploy technology in ways to protect
Speaker 8: life and uplift humanity, ensuring that we always choose the
Speaker 8: path of good.
Speaker 1: It's a good story, do you believe them?
Speaker 12: Shares of Axon Enterprise hitting an all time high today.
Speaker 12: It's the fifth best s and P five hundred performer
Speaker 12: this year.
Speaker 1: Best Ridge company forming known as Taser International now is
Speaker 1: a big police bodycam evidence management software business.
Speaker 6: Phenomenal growth rests term. This has been one of the
Speaker 6: best performing sacks over the past decade. Probably announces that
Speaker 6: RINGS will be integrating with Axon's community requests.
Speaker 8: It is now I think, the largest video repository.
Speaker 1: In the first time, a Colorado police department is using
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence to police reports.
Speaker 6: Port CON's police say they are in a testing phase
Speaker 6: with their bodycam provider and had your owns.
Speaker 12: As first responders Axon and nine for drones and public
Speaker 12: safety to that powering the revenue growth that we are.
Speaker 1: Seeing and make law enforcement's job easier.
Speaker 6: That would, like Crazy today up over fifty pm, provide
Speaker 6: a new revenue source for accents.
Speaker 8: The AI services are selling five times faster than any
Speaker 8: product in our history, and that's ten dollars not in height.
Speaker 1: Absolute. Taser Incorporated is a production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and threads at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. Follow me at Nick Beadini on in in Twitter.
Speaker 1: Taser Incorporated is written and produced by me Nick Beredini.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Worris.
Speaker 1: Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Paul is our producer.
Speaker 1: Hannah Biel is our writer and producer. Joe Plored is
Speaker 1: our sound designer. Music composed and produced by Alexis Quadrado
Speaker 1: at the Plaza Rojas Studio. Mariann mckune is our editor.
Speaker 1: Fact Checking by Donya Suleman. Jeff Cliburn is our head
Speaker 1: of marketing and Operations. Our Social Media director is ist
Speaker 1: Marie guard Rama, our social Media manager is Sarah Gibbons,
Speaker 1: and our art director is Andrew Nelson. Additional reporting by
Speaker 1: Matt Straut.
Speaker 8: So, like you, Gottaut a little bit of a tent
Speaker 8: to humor. Back around two thousand and five or six,
Speaker 8: I was on the front page of every newspaper in
Speaker 8: America saying that we were evil, we were killing people,
Speaker 8: we had lied about the safety of our products. And
Speaker 8: it was right that time I was building this house
Speaker 8: and for the man Cave. Decided, well, if everybody's going
Speaker 8: to say I'm running an evil empire, well then clearly
Speaker 8: I need a volcano layer. So I took some inspiration
Speaker 8: from the Great Doctor Evil and if you remember, you
Speaker 8: know he had a volcano layer too.
Speaker 1: It was pretty cool, actually,