Speaker 1: Hi, It's Jason and I'm excited to tell you about
Speaker 1: a new show from Lava for Good. It's called Absolute
Speaker 1: Taser Incorporated with filmmaker Nick Baradini. Now, Taser Incorporated comes
Speaker 1: from the same team that worked with Gilbert King on
Speaker 1: Bone Valley, and just like Bone Valley, this podcast is
Speaker 1: a riveting listen that will open your eyes and tugg
Speaker 1: it your heart. We've all seen that taser carried by cops,
Speaker 1: seen it in the news, even in movies, but have
Speaker 1: you ever wondered how they became so ubiquitous? Nick Baradini
Speaker 1: and Laba for Good are taking a deep dive into
Speaker 1: Taser inc. Now known as Axon, the eight hundred pound
Speaker 1: gorilla in the paramilitary police equipment industry. Their story is
Speaker 1: one of ambition, hubris, and technology overtaking the very people
Speaker 1: it was meant to serve. Look for Absolute Taser Incorporated
Speaker 1: wherever you hear this and check out this clip from
Speaker 1: episode one way ride. Where you are, We'll throw you
Speaker 1: a gun.
Speaker 2: Gun violence is surging across the US so far.
Speaker 3: There is a sod share with a gun.
Speaker 2: What would it be like to live in a world
Speaker 2: where none of this is possible? One man had a vision,
Speaker 2: a vision of a new reality.
Speaker 3: The whole reason we started this company is we don't
Speaker 3: get people stop killing each other.
Speaker 2: And in order to do that, he was going to
Speaker 2: make it happen with an invention.
Speaker 3: Technology has the power to elevate us. It can bring
Speaker 3: out the best in humanity. It makes the impossible possible.
Speaker 3: It can make dreams real. It can make tomorrow different
Speaker 3: than yesterday.
Speaker 2: Rick Smith is building this new reality in a real place.
Speaker 2: I visited the space Age headquarters, rising up from the
Speaker 2: Arizona Desert. My tour guide put his eye up to
Speaker 2: a retinal scanner to get me into the building. The
Speaker 2: steel doors retracted slowly, like we were entering a vault.
Speaker 2: I walked through a wide hallway and saw catwalks criss
Speaker 2: crossing above me. Employees in glass conference rooms drew equations
Speaker 2: on the windows. I watched as an assembly line of
Speaker 2: workers built this future weapon called a Taser. Electricity buzzed
Speaker 2: through the air. It felt like science fiction, but they
Speaker 2: were really doing it. I was inside this world. I
Speaker 2: could see what this means technology could be capable of,
Speaker 2: and I wanted Rick's dream to be real. This is
Speaker 2: absolute Season one Taser Incorporated a story about unchecked power.
Speaker 2: I'm Nick Bendini, Episode one, Whips, Poles and Chains. I
Speaker 2: know a lot of cops and they get asked all
Speaker 2: the time, have you ever fired your gun? Rick Smith
Speaker 2: in his space Age Outpost was trying to build a
Speaker 2: world where the answer would always be no. But if
Speaker 2: you were a cop before that, like my friend Matt Masters,
Speaker 2: you were skeptical. Matt had been trained. If you think
Speaker 2: your life is in danger, shoot.
Speaker 4: Door comes flying open and dude's running out. He's got
Speaker 4: the cash register in one hand and a gun in
Speaker 4: the other, and I'm like, robbery, robberie robbery. So we
Speaker 4: bail out of our car in the middle of street.
Speaker 4: I think the kid just didn't even like realize that
Speaker 4: the cops were there. So as he's running, he kind
Speaker 4: of like turned like oh shit kind of thing. The
Speaker 4: gun was pointed at me, and at that point I
Speaker 4: just reacted. I mean, he was isn't stopping, and I
Speaker 4: opened fire on him. I shot shot him like five times,
Speaker 4: and so he went down right there and dropped the
Speaker 4: cash register, dropped the gun. I'm standing in the street
Speaker 4: put out on the radio. Shots fired, you know, also
Speaker 4: involved shooting whatever.
Speaker 2: Whatever. I said, it wasn't until you rolled him over
Speaker 2: that you realized how young he was, right, Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 2: what did he look like?
Speaker 4: He looked like he looked like he was a fourteen
Speaker 4: fifteen year old kid.
Speaker 2: You know what did that feel like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It bothered me.
Speaker 4: You know, I remember the kid looking up at me
Speaker 4: and he's like, you shot me.
Speaker 2: Matt says he did what he was trained to do,
Speaker 2: aim for the chest, but he also did what a
Speaker 2: lot of cops do under pressure. He missed. Cops call
Speaker 2: it dipping. He told me he didn't mean to, but
Speaker 2: he lowered his arm hit the kid's legs.
Speaker 4: I was just glad that I didn't killing because I
Speaker 4: think that would have been a different I think that
Speaker 4: would have been different emotions that I would have had
Speaker 4: to process. Ended up being a BB gun, there's a
Speaker 4: replica that look like a real gun. There's no way
Speaker 4: I would have been able to know that that was
Speaker 4: a BB gun. But I don't know that I needed
Speaker 4: to shooting. So I think that part kind of bothers
Speaker 4: me a little bit, like knowing that I didn't have
Speaker 4: to shoot him.
Speaker 3: Why does an officer ever need to use lethal force?
Speaker 3: Police don't use lethal force? Because it's lethal. They use
Speaker 3: it because it's reliable. It's the most effective way to
Speaker 3: stop a threat.
Speaker 2: In a marketing video from twenty twenty three, Rick Smith
Speaker 2: tells us not anymore. He shows us the newest Taser,
Speaker 2: a black and yellow gun shaped device. Instead of one barrel,
Speaker 2: it has ten holes to shoot out ten little darts.
Speaker 2: The darts are attack to electrified copper wires, so when
Speaker 2: they shoot out and puncture your skin, the current makes
Speaker 2: your muscles lock up. You can't move, but when it's over,
Speaker 2: you can get right back up.
Speaker 3: I feel a sense of true hope watching this technology
Speaker 3: be adopted, and I can't wait to see where the
Speaker 3: coming years will take us.
Speaker 2: Walking through the Taser headquarters blew me away. While I
Speaker 2: was there, I sat down with a VP and he
Speaker 2: told me how proud he was to work for the company.
Speaker 3: Taser's saving lives. That's the business that we're in. We're
Speaker 3: protecting the truth and we're protecting lives.
Speaker 2: I was impressed. As I walked back through the steel
Speaker 2: double doors and into the desert that day, I also wondered,
Speaker 2: was what he said too good to be true? I
Speaker 2: threw myself in a half decade into that question. I
Speaker 2: even made a movie about what I found. That's how
Speaker 2: I met office. They're Matt Masters. I was answering questions
Speaker 2: on Reddit about the movie. He left me a comment, Hello, Nick,
Speaker 2: I was thrust into the reality of tasers just over
Speaker 2: a year ago. I didn't see it at first. I
Speaker 2: only caught it because a friend asked later if i'd
Speaker 2: talked to this guy Matt yet. When I finally met him,
Speaker 2: he'd been a cop for nineteen years. Crew cut, blue eyes,
Speaker 2: tattoo of an archangel slicing a demon's neck. He opened
Speaker 2: up right away. He laughed a lot, especially when he
Speaker 2: was talking about something that might make him cry. We
Speaker 2: had dinner at a restaurant and we talked for hours.
Speaker 2: Matt's wife, Stacy was there too, dark straight hair, dark
Speaker 2: brown eyes, feather tattoo. She's part Shawnee and sometimes wears
Speaker 2: a t shirt that says no more Stolen Sisters. We
Speaker 2: started talking because Matt and Stacy were trying to make
Speaker 2: sense of something that happened to them.
Speaker 3: A fucking just get out out right now, out of
Speaker 3: the car, out of the car.
Speaker 4: Taylor appointment on the ground, out of the car, on
Speaker 4: the ground, on the ground.
Speaker 5: The Taser changed everything for cops, changed everything for math too.
Speaker 1: Listen to the rest of Absolute Taser Incorporated, Season one
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.