- 4 hours ago
Four Corners (1961) Season 2026 Episode 12
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00:04emergency video all i could see were lights so i pulled up and then got out and that's when i
00:11realized it was a police car if i didn't have the video no one would have believed me the video
00:19footage is what got them tasers were sold as a way to stop dangerous police encounters without
00:32taking a life it's like getting hit with a lightning bolt up your bum
00:39today they're carried by police officers in every state and territory in australia but they're being
00:46used in situations they were never intended for do you think your mum was a threat that night
00:54she couldn't have been a threat to anyone if she wanted to 95 years old 43 kilos
01:02on a walking road why would they taser a girl with a disability at a disability school
01:09only one company makes and sells these weapons what if we could make the bullet obsolete a 32
01:18billion dollar tech giant that's made itself indispensable to police around the world i would
01:24say axon is a scary company how embedded would you say that axon is now with police they're captured i
01:32cannot see a way in which police can separate their reliance axon says its devices save lives but when
01:41something goes wrong after someone is tasered who really decides what happened i think i was lobbied
01:48i felt like i was being bullied they answer to the church of taser
01:55so
02:22steven used to visit this property every day
02:29all right so this is the entrance to the farm he still can't believe what police did to him here
02:37late one night in 2024 when he was checking the sprinklers normally i reach forward like this when
02:43i'm looking around because it's dark and as i went back then i noticed the police car in the mirror
02:48it was a set of lights i noticed and that's when i got out
02:57so this is where it happened right here then yeah yeah majority of it happened here
03:19the taser was fired within 30 seconds of stephen getting out of his car
03:37he was shocked multiple times and capsicum sprayed
03:49when you hit with the taser what did it feel like oh your chest is the heart is just like
03:56equivalent muscle it's just doing this it's basically like having a heart attack
04:03stephen's lawyer jeremy king says the use of a taser that night was both excessive and in clear breach of
04:10policies in the victoria police manual
04:16the big point here for you mate is ceds or tasers must not be used against people offering passive
04:23resistance you are clearly offering passive resistance so on their own rules on their own
04:27manual they should never have used the taser on you
04:32victoria police told us steven was known to them and officers stopped him because he had his
04:38headlights off and sped away when approached local police reviewed the incident finding the actions
04:45of its officers was appropriate steven sued victoria police for unlawful arrest and battery the case
04:54recently settled with police paying him 250 000 in compensation plus his legal costs
05:03the fact that no charges were laid against him is extremely telling is it not arguable that this is
05:09just a case of one officer maybe making a poor decision in that moment rather than something more
05:16systemic i've heard that one before and unfortunately my firm has seen many different examples where tasers
05:24have been used inappropriately police manuals in every state and territory set out guidelines on taser use
05:35in queensland officers are warned multiple taserings have been linked to deaths
05:40new south wales police are told not to taser certain people including the elderly and children except in exceptional circumstances
05:55new south wales is the only state that transparently reports its taser use the data shows
06:02incidents involving taserings have almost doubled in the last five years
06:09how do you respond to criticisms that tasers are just being overused by police and not in circumstances
06:16that are warranted look i think for any criticism to be leveled it needs to be done on the basis
06:23of the
06:24circumstances that exist in an individual situation that can be very difficult to do when you look at bulk
06:30statistical data to be clear why do you think tasers are being drawn more often then
06:37there are more tasers being used across the state by police more generally it is a tactical option
06:44often you know it is a situation that police are confronted by angry argumentative people may be
06:49violent and they do it to protect life essentially should it ever be used just purely for compliance it's not
06:57a compliance tool
07:08in the past two decades 18 people in australia have died following a police incident involving tasers
07:17there were six deaths in the past five years alone one of those was 95 year old claire nowland
07:26she was agitated she couldn't comprehend what was the situation i mean she wouldn't know what a taser was
07:36new south wales police officer christian white and his colleague had arrived at a nursing home to
07:42search for the great grandmother who was holding a steak knife and hiding out of sight
07:50after finding her inside a room white drew his taser it took less than a minute for him to mutter
07:57three words nah bugger it before he discharged the weapon while he's been sacked and convicted of
08:06manslaughter claire nowland's family still has questions they want new south wales police to address
08:13what has the last few years been like for your family oh it's hard to explain yeah um
08:24yeah that's all right yeah
08:28it's been very horrific i mean to to go through what we've gone you know and we still toss and
08:34turn
08:34um to this very day asking us you know why did this happen you know there were so many solutions
08:43for
08:44it to be de-escalated you know how can i help you sort this out what's happening here
08:51new south wales police officers undergo mandatory taser training every year
08:56i don't want you to come here let's go this is a warning that the taser will be deployed i
09:01need you
09:01to comply with my directions christian white was up to date with his training having only completed
09:09it a few months before he killed claire the senior officer beside him that night an acting sergeant
09:16also gave evidence at the trial that she agreed the tasering was justified
09:22i still can't understand why either of them would think that their actions were appropriate you
09:29know it was a a gutless action and an inhumane action turn around do that now after claire's death
09:37new south wales police reviewed its taser policy but found it wasn't necessary to make any changes
09:44a matter which will likely be considered at an upcoming inquest
09:49obviously because mrs nolan's matter will be before the coroner very shortly and it's therefore
09:54not appropriate that we comment on that do you feel confident that there are no gaps in the training
10:00that you're offering officers look i believe the training is first class uh the training certainly
10:05reflects what the policy and legislation is and i'm quite confident in the training that we deliver
10:15police use of tasers is under scrutiny in other states too
10:24it was here in north queensland that a particularly disturbing taser incident took place involving a school girl with a
10:32disability who police were trying to interview as a potential victim of sexual assault
10:47this is t joanna mclennan she lives with an intellectual disability cerebral palsy epilepsy visual impairment and paralysis of her
10:58right hand
11:00she likes to spend time at her local library let me let me talk you through what we're gonna do
11:06um but no yeah at the time t joanna was tasered she was 16 years old and described as having
11:14the
11:14intellectual capacity of a year one or two student today she's determined to explain the impact it's had on her
11:26it's tazer it's like i feel like i'm gonna cry too much t joanna has experienced increased seizures since she
11:39was tasered
11:40i mean i can't wait what they're done to him i have to wait pull-ups and i can't go
11:46to the toilet any more
11:51it's not
11:55done tomorrow
11:59i appreciate you being brave and talking to us
12:03yeah
12:11for six years now her family's been trying to hold queensland police accountable it was february 2020
12:18when two officers investigating allegations t joanna had been abused arrived at her school to interview
12:25her her mum robin says she instantly felt overwhelmed
12:34they went up there to ask her questions and she didn't want to answer them she told them she
12:39didn't want to talk to them that's what set her off
12:47outside t joanna picked up a plastic cricket bat
12:50and was hitting things before staff started calming her down
12:58so it was when t joanna went into a room and tried to close the door behind her that police
13:04drew
13:04the taser the officer apparently said that he feared she was going to pick up a knife or something
13:11that's when she was tasered
13:18what went through your head when you heard that that your daughter had been tasered
13:22uh i was i mean i got really upset because i think why would they taser a girl with a
13:28disability at a
13:29disability school
13:39the incidents we've investigated raise issues over whether police are becoming too reliant on tasers
13:58the more tools that police have the less they rely on good old-fashioned policing skills like using your voice
14:08like negotiation and tasers simply put the emphasis on coercion so much that it it degrades
14:17good quality policing criminologist dr emma ryan has spent her career researching tasers which were
14:25first introduced to australia more than 20 years ago mostly as a way to stop police shootings
14:32firearms deaths have not decreased since tasers have been introduced mission creep is what i have
14:40observed occurring so if a police officer pulled a firearm out in a lot of the cases that we see
14:47around tasers
14:50we'd have a very we'd be living in the wild west basically
15:09the market for conducted energy weapons is dominated by just one company it's a 32 billion
15:18dollar tech giant whose ceo takes home a bigger pay packet than the boss of apple i believe we're
15:27approaching the end of war and the end of killing as an acceptable aspect of human society i think a
15:34world without the taser weapon is one that is far more dangerous than the one we live in
15:49the company captured the australian market through a retired special operations cop from melbourne
15:57and you might say to someone you know that's aware of what they're doing just say have a look at
16:02your chest if that was a real meet george haitley yeah so i'm going to put 50 000 volts in
16:09george in george the company found a fearless ally and the ultimate salesman
16:27i was the most knowledgeable person in the country about taser and you've been tasered yourself tell me
16:35about that 13 times 13 times not counting um well you clearly are counting yeah you don't you can
16:42remember every one of them but it's it's quite painful
16:48yeah because be real with me what does it really feel like i've obviously never been tasered what
16:52what's the sensation well to the police in a mixed in a room full of place i said it's like
16:57getting hit
16:58with a lightning bolt up your bum it's just you know just frightening pain and and severe
17:04shock of you know something like that and that's what you want for pain compliancy for sure a deterrent
17:11and the message goes through the community a criminal community that hey don't muck around
17:16if they say we're going to toast you give up put your hands up please welcome ceo and founder of
17:25axon rick
17:26smith george's unrelenting passion for taser is nothing compared to axon's leader
17:36uh thank you everybody rick smith is a zealot he is a taser zealot zero in on target
17:44take off the safety
17:45and fire
17:50heavens
17:52rick smith took an invention from the 1970s that never took off
18:00and revolutionized the technology
18:06part of how they did that is by raising the level of electrical discharge that comes out of the taser
18:14that created new risks to human life initially the success was quite good a lot of people flocking to
18:21buy shares but then uh cases started to hit the courts tonight police in the town of clay are trying
18:28to figure out why a man died after being tasered by one of their officers polish immigrant was announced
18:34dead after rcmp officers tasered him at the vancouver airport last month people were freaking out
18:40politicians it was out of control in the united states lawsuits over taser related deaths kept mounting
19:01this posed an existential threat to the company because if they got into the habit of losing these
19:07cases it would very quickly uh eat up all their entire profit margin in the early days the company
19:13set up what research scientist justin feldman describes as a product defense strategy to counter
19:20litigation and negative publicity the crux of that strategy would be to bring together medical experts
19:30in various fields and fund them to uh do uh studies showing their product to be favorable and who would
19:38testify in court uh that tasers did not kill people axon's extensive network of experts included emergency
19:48doctors a neuroscientist and biomedical engineers some of them owned shares in the company or sat on the
19:57board all the while publishing studies and telling police tasers were safe we can see over the years taser
20:06jealously guarding the reputation of its um product to the point where they would even
20:13sue forensic pathologists who would dare to link taser to a death that really happened yes
20:28very few scientists have publicly disputed axon safety claims
20:38as a young doctor cardiologist zian sang was quoted in the media warning that tasers could stop the heart
20:45if deployed directly to the chest unbeknownst to me i was really i think the first cardiologist to
20:52say such a connection could occur taser contacted me immediately and asked if they could have a
20:58conversation with me do they did i really think it's lethal um you know would you reconsider your
21:04statements um and that escalated actually to the point where um they offered you know me to visit
21:11their company and offered me grant money actually he turned down their offer and instead did his own
21:18independent research on sudden deaths in police custody before and after tasers were introduced
21:25and what we found um surprised us that in the first year after taser deployment there was a
21:30six-fold increase in sudden deaths they really didn't like that study and they went to the lengths of
21:36taking us to federal court to try to compel the release of all of our research documents to attack
21:42our study and thankfully a judge um refused that order 16 years later i've not seen any study that
21:50has refuted our study uh results yeah that same year the company did make a concession issuing a warning
21:59to police that repeated taserings and chest hits should be minimized to avoid controversy about whether
22:06tasers affect the human heart police customers were so concerned that ceo rick smith held a conference
22:15call to reassure them i want to start by addressing a couple of the questions we've been receiving
22:21over email the first one is our chest hits with the taser dangerous and the answer to that is
22:28definitively no but the real sort of biggest reason here in my mind is risk management and avoiding the
22:37controversy they weren't really conceding lethality they were saying you know do that to avoid lawsuits
22:50for decades now axon has actively tried to shape the science evidence and legal outcomes around its
22:59signature device at the center of its strategy is a controversial diagnosis known as excited delirium
23:10the term excited delirium first rose to prominence here in miami during the 1980s when
23:18the city was in the midst of the cocaine boom
23:23excited delirium is a theory about how people die in police custody it starts with a true reality
23:31which is that there are people in the world who are in states of acute mental health crisis
23:38often that involves drugs like cocaine sometimes these individuals act aggressively often these individuals
23:45have high body temperature the leap that they make is to go from those genuine symptoms to saying that those
23:53were the cause of death excited delirium has been rejected by medical and psychiatry groups the world health
24:02organization has never recognized it yet the company has pushed it as the cause of death in taser incidents
24:10and they really developed a rapid response plan that would follow any news story of a death related to tasers
24:17where they would intervene
24:27exactly how the company did this was laid bare in the death investigation of israel hernandez lock
24:34a young miami graffiti artist known as reefer hey felix how are you i'm grace nice to meet felix fernandez
24:45witnessed the moment police tasered his friend after they caught him spray painting an abandoned building
24:52and he runs straight towards a bank and he gets tased and he was just face down on the floor
25:00in the dirt
25:00not moving and they were like uh there's nothing to tell you your friend is dead
25:09within four hours of the taser being deployed the company injected itself into the death investigation
25:17in an email to miami police marked confidential taser executives provided urgent instructions ahead of the autopsy
25:30law enforcement is given an excited delirium checklist where they can check off different kinds of signs
25:37and symptoms that they attribute to this condition the company pushed for brain tissues to be sent asap to
25:47the university of miami's brain endowment bank to look for excited delirium markers it didn't mention the lead
25:55researcher there at the time was its paid expert witness in multiple lawsuits
26:05despite tasers efforts the medical examiner found the death was heart failure due to the taser discharge
26:13but the company was never found liable
26:17across the u.s excited delirium has been linked to 276 deaths following taser use
26:29death investigations are supposed to be neutral medical and scientific processes and when a corporation
26:36inserts itself into the into the process and tries to sway things that there are serious conflicts of interest involved
26:48you might be thinking at this point well that wouldn't happen in australia where our coronial
26:53system that investigates deaths is just too robust but that's not what our investigation has found
27:01it has happened i've been contacted by the organization i i did an autopsy on on a person who had
27:09died
27:09in custody um a taser had been used and i was contacted and all of these were provided professor johan
27:19de flue is a senior forensic pathologist who's investigated and given testimony in taser related
27:26deaths so we've got here the document the excited delirium checklist axon once targeted him with its taser
27:35defense strategy so all these documents here were sent to you in an email from axon yeah that's my
27:42recognition so this is what you should do including obtaining the various samples etc etc including
27:51contacting the university of miami brain endowment bank did you feel at all pressured to follow some of
27:58their advice or instructions um i think i was lobbied not necessarily pressured
28:11was the lobbying successful well in the end though was it i i i don't think it influenced me
28:42it's been a long time but i think of him a lot
28:49these people this church of taser pushed for excited delirium to coincide at the same time as
28:57their weapon discharge the death of antonio galliano is one of australia's most controversial taser
29:07incidents
29:13he died in june 2009 as police restrained him during a violent drug-induced mental health episode at his
29:21friends home it's controversial because of the 28 firings that's why his sister giovanna now realizes
29:33the full extent of axon's involvement in the investigation and inquest do you feel like you
29:41got the truth no no it was anything but the truth right from the start the company's representatives were
29:51in contact with police investigating the death yeah i got a phone call the next morning from the homicide
29:59squad up in queensland and said george this guy's been tasered and uh we need to talk to you and
30:05after
30:06the brief discussion i said taser didn't kill him and they said how can you be so certain i said
30:12i am
30:12100 certain what did make you so confident uh i'd been to america quite a few times sat down and
30:21with
30:21these doctors and said tell me guys i need to know does this thing kill you know what happens in
30:28this
30:28scenario what happens if they've got a pacemaker what happens if they're feeble what happens if they're
30:32whatever you know heart attacks and they said george it doesn't affect the heart and so you were
30:37you were convinced by these doctors and researchers at taser international by facts and evidence
30:44we've examined the coronial files and discovered taser's own experts and their research feature
30:50heavily in this case including references in the pathologist's autopsy findings he found that my brother
30:58died of excited delirium that was the first time i'd ever heard of it inquest documents show the
31:08pathologist conceded he had minimal experience of excited delirium but read up on the experiences of
31:15american experts and literature to make his findings we've found he relied on a report of a taser board
31:23member and also referred to the excited delirium checklist taser's got their fingers in it at every
31:30turn so it becomes almost impossible to um you know disaggregate the truth from the propaganda
31:41lawyers for the company queensland police and the officer who fired the device brought in four american
31:48experts who were part of tasers network to testify on the cause of death three of them blamed excited
31:56delirium they used excited delirium they used the idea that he would have died anyway whether the taser had
32:05been used or not why would they do that why put so much effort into convincing everyone that this
32:12excited delirium condition exists look use the word convincing it's more informing it's a coroner that
32:19that makes that final decision the coroner delivered her findings in november 2012
32:28the cause of death was found to be excited delirium
32:32and the taser use was only very peripherally implicated the findings were
32:41very hard to accept because even at the time of your brother's death you're saying that excited
32:47delirium was surrounded in controversy yes it was and it still is today well it's debugged it's not
32:53it's not acknowledged as a condition
32:58the findings are even more striking when compared with an inquest being held at the same time over the
33:05border in new south wales the death of roberto curty chased by up to 11 police mr curty was eventually
33:13brought down by a taser and handcuffed but the tasering continued along with capsicum spray
33:21it's impossible to believe that he would have died but for the actions of police
33:28i've never forgotten that and i'm sorry to say that there was some appalling behaviour
33:35from police i at the time called it like behaviour from lord of the flies
33:41as state coroner mary jerem ended up making an open finding but much like in queensland an expert
33:49witness on taser's payroll had argued excited delirium killed him
33:56what did you make of that evidence not much why was that well well i think he had a bias
34:03an obvious
34:04bias it makes a a mockery really of expertise if you're just appearing for a company that pays you not
34:15good
34:17the axon ecosystem is the global operating system for public safety axon doesn't just sell tasers
34:24anymore equip your officers with industry-leading smart devices to affect it has an ever-expanding
34:29list of interconnected products that include body cameras evidence software ai tools and drones
34:38the company is making itself indispensable to police at a furious pace join 18 000 agencies across
34:46the world that trust the axon ecosystem to help them protect more lives in more places
34:57in the world that trust the axon is the world that trust the axon is in the world that trust
34:58the
34:58the axon is in the world that trust the axon is in the world that trust the axon is in
34:59the world
35:00we've found more than 300 million dollars in axon contracts for body-worn cameras tasers and other products
35:09victoria is rolling out 10 000 taser 7s to frontline police and queensland has recently signed
35:16a 47 million dollar contract for more than 6 000 taser 10s
35:27but the rapid adoption of axon's new technology could have unintended consequences for frontline police
35:37we've been contacted by a hacker who's discovered a major vulnerability in bluetooth technology
35:45in axon devices that he says is putting police lives at risk
35:55he's worried about retaliation from axon hello how are you i'm grace nice to meet you too
36:05and is asked that we don't use his name or show his face
36:08what is it that you've discovered pretty much that you can uh track police devices via bluetooth
36:17glow energy uh from quite a significant distance away things like body worn cameras tasers
36:26he shows us how he built his own proof of concept software and how it could be scaled up and
36:33weaponized by
36:35criminals it could be used for ambushing the police attacking them escaping them organized criminal gangs
36:42or whatever he explains to us that every device that uses bluetooth has its own digital footprint a 12
36:51digit code that's called a mac address most mobile devices like apple iphones have inbuilt privacy
36:59features making them harder to track when he realized axon's devices were detectable he emailed police
37:08i'm trying to raise a potentially serious cyber security issue with police i've created software
37:13that can detect the presence of police officers from 400 meters away using a laptop or a phone
37:19the axon brand tasers need to be recalled they leave the entire force essentially wearing beacons that
37:25broadcast their location and what came of those emails i got nothing but uh radio silence so no
37:33police agency in australia has ever written back to you about it no
37:41all right thanks for having us uh so today's talk is snoop under them as they snoop under you
37:46details about the security floor are being shared online there are even tutorials the boys in blue are
37:53actually the boys in vle last year u.s border agents were told to stop using their body cameras
37:59in the field due to the potential security risks this is like quite an open secret basically
38:10there are already police tracking apps available publicly the hacker downloads one to show us how it
38:17works so the app will start alerting us to the fact that a police officer is nearby yeah yeah it'll
38:23start
38:24alarming you get a notification and it'll probably start beeping we pull up outside a police station
38:29in melbourne's inner suburbs and wait
38:36axon taser detected there's a net car right there oh yeah there's a couple of police officers walking out
38:43right now and it's just cars pulling in so picking up quite a few another one there
38:50got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten tasers that were picked up the last couple
39:00of minutes
39:02our investigations discovered victoria police did receive the hackers email back in 2024.
39:10the issue was assessed internally with the risk found to be very real especially for officers
39:17undercover in tactical units or who take their axon devices home we know police executives were told to
39:26act but dismissed the advice victoria police refused to confirm whether its officers have ever been
39:35directly told they can be tracked while wearing their axon tasers and cameras a spokesperson said it
39:43hasn't had any issues with unauthorized tracking of tasers or body-worn cameras over bluetooth and that it had gone
39:50to axon for security advice
39:55four corners went to all policing agencies about the floor but they refused to confirm if any steps had been
40:02taken to protect the safety of their offices why wouldn't axon just fix it you would need to design a
40:13brand new
40:13device and basically replace probably most of their products with newly designed products that actually
40:19make the specifications of bluetooth buried within its website axon itself acknowledges the vulnerability to
40:27its bluetooth products warning operational security considerations should be made where detection
40:34may result in unintended outcomes how embedded would you say that axon is now with police oh hugely they're
40:46captured there is i cannot see a way in which police can separate their reliance
40:56she's really known as caring claire and she brought up eight children on her own and always had a concern
41:04about other people i mean you know she was our mom i mean she was the best mom in the
41:18world and you know like um she was there for us every every day
41:23so um tasers were meant to be a safer way for police to stop dangerous situations without taking a life
41:36but after more than two decades of use in australia people are still dying and others are seriously
41:43affected when tasers are used in situations they were never intended for
41:52in australia not a single death has ever been solely attributed to the use of a taser but our
42:00examination of 18 deaths shows the role of the device is often contested and not clearly understood
42:08i'm the first to admit taser weapons aren't perfect but taser 10 is a hell of a step towards
42:14making taser energy weapons the most reliable and effective force option in the world axon maintains
42:20its signature product saves lives and that its research supports that but how that science is
42:28shaped and the company's influence during police investigations is far from transparent
42:36taser the most researched weapon in history but researched by the company
42:43not by the media by everyone most analyzed researched and taser are very focused on making sure
42:51decision makers get all the information for claire nowland's family their hopeful and upcoming
42:57inquest may address key issues about taser policies and training do you feel like you still want some kind
43:06of reassurance from new south wales police that this was a one-off cop that this isn't going to happen
43:12with other officers as well i mean the only way that's going to happen is if they number one better
43:19training and number two change something in the policy i'm sure that they have some really precious
43:26situations they have to make that decision instantly you know this is completely different where you know
43:33there was no one's life under threat at all you know and um it still happened
43:47you
43:50you
43:51you
43:52you
43:52you
44:03you
44:07you
44:08You
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