Absolute, Season 1: Taser Incorporated is at once a tale as old as time - a true believer learns the hard way that the costs of lofty ambition and hubris just might outweigh even the most optimistic upside - and a thoroughly modern story of technology overtaking the very people it is meant to serve. In this case: the ubiquitous electric gun carried by cops everywhere and inspiring comedic shenanigans in movies like The Hangover.
Host and documentarian Nick Berardini has been obsessed with this story for his entire adult life. With Absolute, Season 1: Taser Incorporated, he left no stone unturned.
Taser, Inc., now known as Axon, the 800-pound gorilla in the paramilitary police equipment industry, is led by its charismatic CEO and co-founder, Rick Smith. Fueled by a self-described religious dedication, Smith’s Star Trek obsession, and an ambitious vision of a world without gun violence, Rick leads Taser, Inc. to be the key tech supplier to virtually every police force in America. But as stories of alleged misuse, deaths, and serious injuries from Tasers begin to emerge, Taser, Inc. and Rick arrive at a crossroads between Rick’s vision and reality, with cops and the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect paying the price.
Absolute, Season 1: Taser Incorporated is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode Transcript
I know a lot of cops. I've heard a lot
of their stories, and they get asked all the time,
have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the
answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a
future where the answer will always be no. Get her
a new space age weapon that stuns but does not kill.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We have saved an estimated two hundred thousand or more lives.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The initial response was that's not real.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
No, that's not real. And so the first thing they
did we got there, no introductions, made, no nothing. Okay,
everybody line up and they shocked us all and then
at that point they had our attention.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh down like a box of rocks, full neuro muscular incapacitation.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
If your local police officers are not get armed with tasers,
chances are they will be soon.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Across the country.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Cops called this taser the revolution.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Tasers saving lives.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's the business that we're in.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We're protecting the truth and we're protecting lines.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Every senior employee this company has been hit with a taser.
Many of our wives, many of our children have been
hit with tasers. So we believe this is the safest
way to get a violent person under control. That's huge.
We're very proud of what we do and it is
like a religion to us.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, they talked out of both sides of their mouth,
so it depended on which side of their mouth you
were on.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And for my friend, Officer Matt Masters and his wife Stacy,
the consequences got personal. On the ground, Ah told you,
hands on your back.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
There's a fire truck there and ambulance there, and of
course we walk up to the scene.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Of course, you know, the cops are like.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Get back, you know, and You're like, do not touch me,
you know.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I'm like, that's my kid.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I get right back there.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And it's bad.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's really, really really bad. From Lava for Good and
the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story
about what happened when a multi billion dollar company dedicated
itself to one visionary mission making the bullet obsolete. This
(02:29):
is absolute Season one Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I want to start by addressing a couple of questions
we've been receiving. The first one is our chest hits
with the taser dangerous and the answer to that is definitively.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No cops believed everything, everything that Taser told me.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
We're not talking about a bunch of electrical engineers here,
We're talking about a bunch of cops. They said, We've
now warned you, and if you do this, guess what
it's on you.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season one Taser Incorporated,
starting May twenty first, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two,
and three on May twenty first, and episodes four, five,
and six on June fourth, ad free at Lava for Good,
plus on Apple Podcasts
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.