This is a long, interesting investigative report from Reuters:
Taser maker Axon has a moving backstory. It's mostly a myth
Mostly more of "corporations behaving badly," but with a dastardly twist on why the company was formed.
Axon CEO Rick Smith claims his highly successful Taser company was inspired by the death of two school friends gunned down years ago. But much of the tale is false, Reuters found, part of a pattern of misrepresentations and self-serving behavior among top Axon executives.
...
He started the company, he said, after "two of my high school friends were shot and killed." Projected behind him were photographs of the slain youths, marked with the dates of their short lives.
...
Smith was not friends with the deceased, Todd Bogers and Cory Holmes, according to three immediate family members and a close friend of the young men. They were gunned down after a road rage incident in 1991, not 1990, as indicated on Smith's slide in Las Vegas. Smith played on the same football team as the boys at Chaparral in Scottsdale, Arizona – but not at the same time, according to school yearbooks seen by Reuters. The boys who were killed graduated in 1986. Smith does not appear in the yearbooks until the school year that ended in 1987.
Axon "ran a whole advertising campaign based on the murder of my son," Todd's father John Bogers said in an interview, recalling feelings of bereavement that the ads triggered. "They profited off that, and they didn't ask for permission."
...
Shelby Bogers and Christopher Holmes, siblings of the football players Todd and Cory, said the story came as news to them: They did not learn about Smith's narrative until more than 15 years after their brothers' deaths, they said. Smith wasn't close with Todd or Cory, didn't attend their joint funeral and never offered a hand during the four-year search for the killer, Shelby Bogers said. Now Axon is "calling them his childhood friends," she said. "That word pisses me off."
...
Smith's wife ...was employed by the company in the role of "CEO Support" and "Personal Assistant,"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday December 29, @11:22AM (2 children)
For example Abercrombie and Fitch invented the entire history of their Hollister brand from scratch, but made sure that none of it was tied to real people. The same has been done by a few other brands, and also individuals, e.g. claiming you're a self-made gazillionaire when they just took the money from their father when he got dementia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Friday December 29, @01:03PM (1 child)
It's really hard to know if they were friends tho, my parents didn't know all my friends. Still even if he didn't know them, or played on the team at the same time perhaps their deaths affected him. It might have been a lingering thing at the school and on the team that lasted well beyond their deaths.
That said with the investigation it does make it sound like a fake origin story for the company. In some regard it doesn't even make a lot of sense in regards to the incident. Are the two boys supposed to have the taser to defend themselves with or was the road rage gunman supposed to taser them? I guess being tasered is better then getting shot. But one isn't more "right" or better from a legal standpoint.
I wonder how it took 15 years for the family to find out the company had been running this little sympathy narrative for fun and profit. But it's not unheard of for companies to invent figures or events to frame their company history around. Lots of figures that never existed, events that didn't take place or people being completely different in reality compared to the story. Still somewhat tasteless to use dead teenagers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29, @10:35PM
>how it took 15 years for the family to find out
Because they aren't targeted by the Taser marketing efforts... I do agree that the story can probably be stretched to a point that it's not outright probably false, but it seems to have been stretched quite a bit already just to elicit tear jerker reactions when told quickly as a presentation opener.
The real question: did they pay the "don't taze me bro" guy for the rights to his 15 days of fame soundbite and video clip?
As for cops killing people who aren't a deadly threat using tasers, I feel that should be handled exactly the same as any other case of excessive force, with similar training and liability. Of course the blue line means that they get department funded legal defense even when they taze and kill unruly school children.
https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-06-01/court-upholds-6-5m-verdict-against-ex-independence-cop-who-tased-a-high-school-student [kcur.org]
https://www.wlwt.com/article/coroner-releases-details-in-teen-s-taser-death-1/3519945 [wlwt.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/08/florida-teenager-taser-death-investigation [theguardian.com]
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/12/02/police-taser-girl-having-seizure/8793515002/ [usatoday.com]
I'm looking for the 12 year old girl who was standing on a desk in a room with no other people who the school cop tazed and I believe killed, but her story is buried under all these others with older kids, teachers, etc.
I will say: we have been pleasantly surprised over the years with our police interactions with our children with Autism. Most had been trained and all (maybe a dozen by now) reacted with calm and understanding. It's a tough job and a lot of cops do it very well. On the other hand, a rare few do it poorly and too many of their colleagues stand up for them when they shouldn't.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday December 29, @04:34PM
<no-sarcasm>
See the 2015 film Killing Them Safely. [youtube.com] That link is the trailer for the documentary which is available on Amazon Prime video.
I watched it years ago. It tells the story of cops needing more powerful tasers to stop bigger bullies and those fueled by drugs. Combine this with improper training to aim directly for the center of the chest. Obvious result, people die of cardiac arrest. Even teens who didn't do anything wrong, or did something minor, like chewing gum in the hallway.
</no-sarcasm>
There is a way to avoid tasers completely. When the cop pulls you over and says "Papers", you just say "Scissors" and drive off.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.