June 11, 2025 • 41 mins
A couple of lawyers seek to prove that CEO Rick Smith hid the truth from cops for years. And when lawsuits threaten to destroy the company, Rick has one way out – sell out the very customers who made him a fortune.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Previously on Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I remember looking at the screen and I said, that's capture.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
There was no change in what I was trained in
four to twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
None of these cases has the person died while being
hit with the taser.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
You're saying that this was a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
They would have died anyway.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
In every single case, these people would have died anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I walked into Matt and Stacy Master's house on a
sticky July night, about a month after Timothy Runolds was
sentenced to four years in prison. Matt was sitting at
their kitchen table. That big accordion folder he'd stuffed full
of taser articles and court papers for years was spilled
out in front of him. Pages and pages marked with
handwritten notes in red ink and highlighted passages yellow and
(01:06):
orange marker.
Speaker 6 (01:08):
That's what blows my mind and then just infuriates me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, I started skimming the titles covering the kitchen
table and began to laugh. I realized we were too
obsessive sitting down to compare notes I was.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
Told, And as I moved along through my own research,
and it was so eye opening that I'm like, why
the fucks don't departments know this, Like where is the disconnect?
Where is Like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I was one of the few people in the world
who actually understood what Matt was looking at. Like seeing
one paper effects of cocaine intoxication on the threshold for
stun gun induction of ventricular fibrillation, I'd go, oh, yeah,
that's the study from the Cleveland clinic that first discovered
cardiac capture. Or another Butler versus Taser International. It's one
(02:00):
of the first lawsuits that exposed the Taser's cardiac risks.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
Like cops believed everything, everything that Tayser told.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Me, and like now I think I listened to Matt
Rant for hours. Timothy Runnalds was in prison, but now
it was time for the fight. Matt really wanted.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
I want to be in that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
He told me Bryce was going to file a lawsuit
against Taser International. Matt wanted the company to pay for
what happened to his son. This is absolute. Season one,
Taser incorporated a story about unchecked power. I'm Nick Beredini.
(03:27):
Episode five n FW. There was one lawyer whose name
kept coming up in the trial transcripts Matt put in
his folder, John Burton. He was like the Michael Jordan
of suing Taser International, and he'd studied Tasers every move.
Speaker 7 (03:50):
They had convinced their customer base, which are law enforcement agencies,
that this device was absolutely safe and that any who
says differently is just trying to take this great tool
away from you and is probably some acou liberal pinko
who wants to take your car away or something or
(04:14):
bagas so you can eat Hamburgers.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
If anyone fit the stereotype of liberal pinko, it was John.
John grew up in Pasadena. He became a hard charging
civil rights attorney who hung portraits of famous jazz musicians
on the walls of his office. He even ran for
governor of California in two thousand and three, supported by
the socialist Equality Party.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
I got like seven thousand votes. I remember Gary Coleman
finished ahead of me and Arianne Huffington.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
John took his first taser case back in two thousand
and five, nine years before Officer Runnels Taste Brice Masters.
This is when news stories about grandma's and kids getting
tasered and people dying from the weapon were becoming more
and more common. Taser International was in an escalating battle
with critics who thought the taser could kill. The company
(05:04):
was spending lots of money on legal fees defending themselves
and what they called the war against Taser, and CEO
Rick Smith was in the news defending tasers all the time,
like when he answered questions on CBS News of.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
The cases that we've seen, we strongly believe and our
medical experts strongly believed the taser had no causal effect
in those fatalities.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
In one of his first taser cases, John represented the
family of a forty year old man named Robert Heston,
who died after police tasered him twenty five times for
more than a minute straight. John brought on his friend
Peter Williamson. They were a team, two men with the
same job and the same goal do what no legal
team had done before and defeat Taser in court. They
(05:53):
even sound similar. Well.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
First of all, they had had tremendous success in litigation
before John and I got involved. I think was seventy
six cases where they had been able to kick the
cases out of court on summary judgment.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It was actually seventy and zero. But Peter is right.
So far, no lawyer had ever been able to convince
a jury or a judge that Taser International was responsible
for someone's death.
Speaker 8 (06:21):
So they had a certain arrogance and swagger about them that, hey,
we can't be defeated, right, And who were these guys
coming into court and you know, fighting us? And as
I've often said, when I think back on this litigation,
I wouldn't put it on the same level, but it
(06:41):
was akin to tobacco litigation. It was a company that
absolutely refused to concede any point whatsoever, fought everything tooth
and nail, appealed everything. They would not give an inch
on any of this. And you know, they got lawyers
who had the same kind of mentality that you know,
(07:03):
we're too big, you can't beat us.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Taser's lawyers and executives had a swagger in part because
they saw themselves as the good guys, providing a technology
that made a violent world safer every day. CEO Rick
Smith explained his personal frustration to a reporter from GQ
magazine in twenty ten. They quote him saying, we're saving lives,
don't you get it? And then he compares himself to
(07:28):
Batman quote this sort of tragic thing where he's trying
to stop the criminals, but the media and the general
public think he's a vigilante, a bad guy. But John
and Peter didn't see Rick Smith as batman. It seemed
to them that the taser played some role in killing
their client's son, Robert Heston, So they filled their offices
(07:50):
with boxes and boxes of documents everything they could learn
about the company and the weapon.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
I mean, the amount of time we spent researching and studying.
I can't even calculate the amount of hours we spent.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
They were looking for two pieces of information, proof that
the taser could kill, and proof that Taser International knew
about it and didn't warn cops. John and Peter combed
through what felt like endless pages of medical studies spread
out around the office, and after a while, they came
(08:24):
upon a couple of independent studies that suggested the taser
might cause this thing called acidosis. Simply put, acidosis is
a dangerous condition where lactic acid builds up in your
blood from muscle contractions. One taser shot won't do much,
but a taser shot that lasts sixty seconds that's roughly
(08:46):
a thousand muscle contractions in one minute. In John and
Peter's case, Robert Heston had been tasered for over a minute.
Now they had their strategy. Before they went to trial,
they had depositions, and this is where they met Rick
Smith for the first time. John especially remembers reading Rick's resume.
(09:08):
It was pages long going back to high school.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
And then it had its SAT scores going into college.
It's college admission scores. There is a guy who was,
you know, the CEO of a publicly traded company, and
he's putting his SAT scores on his resume. I wasn't.
I wasn't that in press because they were lower than mine.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But you know, as you can imagine, things between the
two sides got ugly in a hurry.
Speaker 8 (09:38):
I mean, we would get into screaming matches in some
of these depositions. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I've seen over one hundred hours of footage of depositions
from this case and others, and no doubt they were contentious,
but there isn't much screaming. I'd say it was more
like pissing contests.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
We take one last bathroom break. It can be very fascinating.
Speaker 8 (09:59):
Actually I'd prefer not. If you can hold on for
twenty minutes, then I.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Can twenty minutes. I cannot assure that I can't answer
well cognitively and accurately. We've been going for well over
an hour.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
Oh no, when I've been going for a lot less
than an hour.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This time Peter got the sense that to Rick, these
cases were a waste of his time.
Speaker 8 (10:20):
He never ever showed any empathy for anybody in any
of these cases. He could have cared less. Yes, it
was beneath him, for certain. Never, once ever did I
hear him say anything or do anything that would suggest
to me that he had any empathy for anybody. He
only cared about the bottom line of his company, and
(10:41):
that was it.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
The depositions only made John and Peter want to win more.
In previous cases against Taser International, other lawyers had tried
to argue that exposure to the tasers electric current was
directly causing cardiac arrest, like sticking a fork in a wall,
but Taser had lots of research to show the electric
current was too weak to really do that. No lawyer
(11:07):
had ever won an argument against Taser International by focusing
on acidosis until John and Peter made their case to
the jury. They said the company failed to warn cops
that so many shots in a row could cause acidosis.
It was an emotional, intense back and forth in the courtroom.
Taser's lawyers claimed Heston's death was a classic case of
(11:29):
excited delirium because he was high on methamphetamine when he died.
They said the Taser had nothing to do with killing him.
But after listening to both sides make their arguments, the
jury found the Taser partially responsible for Heston's death. On
June sixth, two thousand and eight, John and Peter became
the first lawyers to beat Taser International in a wrongful
(11:51):
death case. It made headlines across the country, turned John
and Peter into the Taser lawyers, the guys who finally
got a court to say on the record that the
Taser could kill. Their win against Taser brought John and
(12:11):
Peter more cases families who claimed the Taser killed or
injured their loved one, and though they'd gotten that first
big legal win, it was looking like the Heston case
might be a one off because acidosis didn't actually explain
all these other cases. Many of these were cases where
sober or healthy people were shot in the chest, sometimes
just once or twice, not long enough to cause acidosis.
(12:35):
So John and Peter went back to the pile of
research papers, and John noticed something he'd missed before.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I mean, this would be typical of Taser propaganda that
maybe fooled me at first.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It was about how the taser delivers an electric shock.
Even though it seems like the shock delivered by a
taser is constant, the electricity actually comes in extremely short,
fast waves. At the peak of one of those waves,
the electric current was high. Once John understood this, he
(13:08):
noticed that Taser's lawyers and master instructors referred to the
average current when they explained how safe the weapon was.
Using average current would be like trying to argue your
way out of a speeding ticket using your average speed.
Like after you got caught driving eighty five and a
fifty five, you told the cop that's bullshit, Officer, I
(13:29):
was just stopped at two red lights. You should measure
my average speed. John realized the peak current was much higher,
much more dangerous than the average. This is how the
company made the taser look weaker than a Christmas tree bulb.
Before this, he and Peter had been focused on acidosis.
(13:51):
But now that they understood how strong the taser current was,
they went back to their research with a new question,
is the taser's current strong enough to affect the heart?
And that's when they hit the jackpot. The information they
were searching for was you guessed it in a pig study.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
I told you I.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Wasn't going to use profanity in this interview, but I
just went holy shit.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Taser International funded a study published in two thousand and
six by a prominent doctor at the Cleveland Clinic named
Patrick Chu. Doctor Chew and his team gave five pigs
cocaine and shocked them to see what would happen. The
pig hearts were visible on an ultrasound machine, so they
could see everything during the taser shots. The cocaine didn't
make the pigs any more likely to have a cardiac arrest,
(14:37):
but buried in the studies conclusion was something that changed
everything for John and Peter.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
These studies of these pigs show that there's cardiac capture.
So I was really shocked that the science actually supported that.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The taser's electric current was strong enough to override a
normal heartbeat and speed it up, sometimes causing death.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
That's a much different kind of thing than the acidosis
because that could just happen instantly.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
This study was exactly what John and Peter needed. Proof
the company had known about the risk of cardiac capture
for at least two years. It was buried right there
in Taser's own research, and they still weren't warning cops.
(16:01):
Around this time, John had a new client, the family
of seventeen year old Darryl Turner. Daryl was tasered in
the chest for thirty seven seconds straight. He collapsed to
the floor of the grocery store where he worked and died.
The entire incident was caught on video. It seemed like
a clear case of taser induced cardiac capture. The taser
(16:23):
sped Darryl's heart up and killed him. Soon they were
back at it, meeting with Rick Smith again in depositions.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
So what you're saying, I mean, I'm trying to understand
what you're saying. What you're saying is that the use
of the taser had nothing to do with the cardiac
arrest in this case. Is that your testimony.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Taser International's argument was that Darryl Turner had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,
a condition where the heart muscles thicken and can cause death,
and that he happened to die because of this condition.
At the exact moment he got tased. Grilled Rick about it.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
What I'm saying is that, to the best of our knowledge,
this does not appear that the direct electric effects of
the taser would be the most likely cause of the
cardiac arrest, and that this case is were similar to
the cases of sudden cardiac death in high school athletes.
It's not a fully understood phenomenon why young, otherwise healthy
(17:24):
looking people collapse and die during physically stressful events.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
While John was litigating on behalf of Darryl Turner, he
and Peter kept taking on more cases, and many of
these cases were headed to trial. Darryl Turner's case wouldn't
go to trial for another couple of years, but it
was clear John and Peter found a blueprint that threatened
the company. The taser could affect the heart, the company
(17:56):
had the science that proved it. When the Turner case
finally went before a jury in twenty eleven, John and
Peter won easily, and it cost the company millions. In
two thousand and nine, Taser International was staring down the
barrel of over forty separate lawsuits. If even a handful
(18:19):
of those cases were as clear cut as Darryl Turner's death,
Tayser would likely lose a fortune. Even the Canadian government
was investigating them. After someone died in the Vancouver airport
after being tased, Peter Williamson decided it was a good
time to offer Taser a chance at legal surrender.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
We actually approached Mike Brave.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Mike Brave, one of Taser's lawyers.
Speaker 8 (18:44):
And we said to Mike Brave, I'll tell you what.
We're going to make you an offer. You resolved the
few cases at that point that we had, and we'll
sit down with you and we'll rewrite your warnings for you.
And if we do that, you're going to insulate yourself
from all future cases. And you know, you'll settle the
(19:05):
cases that we have with us, and we'll be done
and we'll move on in our lives to other things.
And he said, wow, that's really interesting. I don't know
how long it was after that, probably maybe a month
or so after and we got an email from Mike
Brave and the email just said it just contained three
initials n f W. That was their response. So at
(19:31):
that point we said, okay, games on, you know, no
fucking way. And that decision ended up paying major dividends
for us. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
What Peter means is that Taser kept fighting them. If
the company kept refusing to warn cops, they were going
to keep paying for it.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
And somebody got the clue, Hey, we've got to do
something here or we're gonna keep getting sued.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Taser International would eventually make changes to the design of
its weapon too, and their words improve safety margins. They
would issue a new version of the taser that shut
off automatically after five seconds, so an officer would have
to repress the trigger again to keep the electric current
flowing longer than five seconds, and they would reduce the
(20:27):
electric charge by about half. But before redesigning the weapon,
on September thirty, two thousand and nine, they issued their
own version of a warning, a new eighteen page training update.
And this is that same warning. Matt Masters was so
surprised to find Taser International was telling cops the risk
(20:49):
to the heart from the taser is not zero. They
also said that cops, when possible, should avoid shooting people
in the chest.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Baker of the Taser is now telling police officers where
to shoot. This new requirement is to stay away from
the head the neck and the chest.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
When an officers.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Copsy read this bulletin, who had been under the impression
that the taser was completely safe, were confused. The company
immediately started getting calls and emails from cops asking for
more information. This was a huge change for officers. CEO
Rick Smith scheduled a two thousand and nine version of
(21:29):
a zoom a conference call with hundreds of police departments
around the country.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Taser
International Incorporated customer Updates. I would now like to turn
the call over to mister Rick Smith, CEO of Taser International.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Lease proceed, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I want to start by addressing a couple of questions
we've been receiving over email. The first one is our
chest hits with the taser dangerous? And the answer to
that is definitively no.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Definitively no. Rick explained this addition to the training wasn't
because the taser was dangerous. Chest shots were just less
effective than shots to the back or stomach.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
But the real.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Of the biggest reason here in my mind is risk
management and avoiding the controversy.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
He was basically saying, new training recommendations were just to
keep the greedy lawyers and anti cop critics off all
their backs. If you still needed to shoot someone in
the chest with a Taser, the company would be by
your side. Taser International wasn't backing down or abandoning officers
in a way.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Will Taser helped defend officers where there's chest shots involved?
And the answer is unequivocally yes. We pride ourselves that
we stand up both for our technology and for officers.
Here you'll recall a few years ago in Ohio Medical.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I've listened to this call so many times. Cops were
looking for the truth, but there wasn't any real dialogue
about research results or science. I've often wondered how things
might be different if there had just been an honest conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So there is an acknowledgement that there's a minute possibility
that shat to the chats could result in cardiac a risk.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
I think the better way that I would answer that
not better, But from the company's perspective is we cannot
prove it's zero, and that means.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Why didn't Rich just tell them it's rare, but it's
a real risk. That's not what happened.
Speaker 9 (23:42):
Thanks to all of you a taste for what you've
done for law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Thank you, hey, and I would say sorry for you
know this situation. I don't enjoy it either. Unfortunately live
in a country where you spill hot coffee in your
laugh and you can see it for ten million dollars,
So appreciate your understanding and support.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
On the conference call, Rick tells cops that his company
will always stand by any officer who needs their legal
support if they still have to shoot someone in the chest.
But the reality was very different. When Taser International talk
(24:40):
to cops in that conference call, they downplayed the real
risks of the weapon. Instead, they said they were just
writing this warning to help everyone avoid controversy. This is
a pattern I've noticed in how the company deals with cops.
In the beginning, they were calling Taser's non lethal and
warning about the obvious like people falling and the taser
(25:02):
is flammable, so if you shoot someone covered in gasoline,
watch out. Over the years, they started calling tasers less lethal.
They recommended officers not shoot people for longer than fifteen seconds,
recommended they not shoot them in the chest, not shoot
pregnant women or people running away. They were warning about acidosis,
cardiac risks, metabolic changes, just about everything, but in training,
(25:26):
were cops actually getting the message that the taser posed
any risk. About five years after this conference call, Matt
Masters thought tasers were one hundred percent safe. That is
until his own son went into cardiac arrest. Matt wanted
(25:46):
John Burton to bring Bryce's case against Taser International.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I called John's office out in California and got through
to him and just kind of explained to him who
I was.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
He raced through the details. He was convinced that Officer
Runnels didn't understand how dangerous the taser was when he
shot Bryce, and that Taser International was legally responsible for
what had happened. John looked through everything Matt sent him,
and he knew it wouldn't be an easy case. All
those warnings Taser International had quietly added to their products,
(26:23):
they gave the company an out. They could argue, it's
written right here. You're not supposed to taser someone for
more than fifteen seconds at a time. You're supposed to
avoid the chest. It wasn't their fault when a cop
misused the product. John told Matt Bryce's case wasn't the
slam dunk Matt thought it was, but he did see
illegal strategy. Officer Runnels tasered Bryce with an old model
(26:46):
of the taser that allowed him to hold down the
trigger as long as he wanted for twenty seconds. Taser
International had since changed the design and reduced the charge,
but the company never recalled the older teaser model that
caused Bryce's cardiac arrest. Taser even stopped selling that model
in twenty fourteen, the same year Bryce was shocked. John
(27:09):
could argue they knew the old version of the taser
was more dangerous. Taser International was still being negligent, so
he came up with a plan to sue both Taser
International and Timothy Runnels at the same time. The more
defendants at the start, the more information the lawyers can gather,
and the easier it becomes to figure out who to blame.
(27:32):
John partnered with some local Kansas City attorneys for Bryce's case,
and in March of twenty eighteen, they got the chance
to question Timothy Runnels for the first time. Runnels was
still serving his prison sentence. A video of the deposition
shows him wearing green Department of Corrections scrubs. He's calm,
what's going on?
Speaker 9 (27:52):
With the taser if you hold the trigger dead.
Speaker 10 (27:54):
At that point in time, I believed it would do
a five second cycle.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
It was your understanding that even if you continued to
hold the triggered in that the person you had tased
would only receive a five second cycle of current.
Speaker 10 (28:12):
Yes, and our most recent training, they were talking about
the new Taser, which was an automatic shut off.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Runnell says he thought he'd been given a smart battery
that would give his older Taser model an automatic shut off,
but this wasn't the case. Later, he has asked what
he learned about chess shots from his most recent training.
Speaker 9 (28:33):
What was your training and information on the potential for
cardiac arrest as it related to chess shots that were
close to the heart muscle?
Speaker 10 (28:46):
Chess safts are still appropriate if it's the option.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Provided that was still okay under the City of Independence.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Correct.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
More than two hours into the deposition, Taser Internationals lawyer
takes her turn, and it's hard for me to hear
the company defending or standing up for Officer Runnels in
her line of questioning.
Speaker 11 (29:10):
They specifically say, avoid chest shots when possible.
Speaker 10 (29:13):
Right when possible.
Speaker 11 (29:15):
Yes, and that was your understanding. Describe reviewing this training
bulletin that you received, correct.
Speaker 10 (29:22):
My understanding that any shot is acceptable. It's preferred to
try to aim for lower center mass.
Speaker 11 (29:28):
Show me where it says any shot is acceptable in.
Speaker 10 (29:31):
This bulletin, it says when possible, and also says preferred.
We can indicate any area.
Speaker 11 (29:37):
So it doesn't say it's acceptable, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
John Burton was infuriated by Taser's legal strategy. The company
he'd battled for so long was using the warning he
pushed them to write to try to win a case
against him.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
They talked out of both sides of their mouth, so
it depended on which side of their mouth you were on, right,
because they were saying, yeah, I look right there. It says,
you know it could cause cardiac capture, and hearing a
Taser lawyer questioning law enforcement and raking them over the
(30:20):
coals about it causing cardiac capture when I had spent
so much of my life at that point disputing that
exact point with him.
Speaker 11 (30:33):
It specifically says that to reduce any risk of setting
cardiac or risk right, that's what we just read in
the previous.
Speaker 10 (30:42):
Paragraph previous one, Yes, and.
Speaker 11 (30:46):
It says minimize repeated continuous or simultaneous exposures. That's what
was in the warning that you reviewed and signed off on.
Right right.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
I wish I could ask Runnels about this moment, but
he declined to be interviewed. What he did to Bryce
was terrible, but Runnels was in prison for that crime.
Taser International, on the other hand, never admitted the taser
cause Bryce's cardiac arrest. But here was their lawyer throwing
it back in his face, implying with her questions that
(31:24):
he didn't heed the warnings. Bryce's cardiac arrest is your fault.
As Peter Williamson explained to me, writing the warning in
two thousand and nine, deflected the liability of the taser
from the company that made them to the cops who
used them.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
Here, they were that company was formed in order to,
you know, do something favorable for law enforcement. Right, We're
going to give you a device that won't kill people,
and it ends up killing people. So now what they
do is they put the onus on the officers.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Matt Masters watched runnels deposition afterwards.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
It was weird because I thought, well, maybe Runnels missed something,
but then his sergeant, Blake Moore, said the exact same
thing in his deposition that we were taught that the
taser couldn't cause cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
After the depositions, John Burton spoke with Matt Stacy and Bryce.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
John knew that, like, look, we've got to make a choice.
We're going to either battle Taser and all their attorneys
and all the stuff they're gonna throw at you, and
they're gonna you know, it's gonna be rough.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
In the Hollywood version, Matt Stacy, Bryce, and John Burton
take on the company in an epic legal battle to
hold Rick Smith accountable for what they believed was a
betrayal of cops. The climactic a Few Good Men courtroom
scene where the Tom Cruise version of John Burton yells,
did you know that taser could cause a cardiac arrest?
And the Jack Nicholson version of Rick Smith shouts back,
(32:59):
your goddamn I'm right I did. It'd be a good movie.
But Matt, Stacey and Bryce were living in the real world.
John explained making the Hollywood version real was complicated. Maybe
they could win that case, but it would be hard,
(33:20):
and if they lost, well, they didn't want to think
about how hard Bryce's life would be if they lost,
there was a much easier victory.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Do we want to continue this route and go after
both or do we want to go after the easy money,
which is Timothy Reynolds and his insurance company.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
They dropped taser from the lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
It was much easier to pen it all on Reynolds
and say he shouldn't have shot the kid and held
the trigger down for twenty four seconds, which is all true.
Speaker 10 (34:00):
Or not.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Runnels knew his taser could be lethal, didn't matter. He
signed training documents that warned him, and he fired the
taser anyway. The trial lasted about a week. Do you
remember anyone in the jury in particular? Do you make
eye contact to anyone on the jury who stood out
to you.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
There was a guy that I remember, just a kind
of a country bumpkin guy. If I remember, he had
a beard, and he was kind of up in the
upper left hand corner. He just made eye contact with
us throughout. I really remember that he was really engaged
and he seemed just like this guy that I kind
(34:38):
of was worried to. Honestly, I was kind of worried
about him. I don't know about that guy, you know,
like he just looked like he'd just come right out
from the farm, you know, and he parked his truck
out in a lot and came in and I just
I remember thinking that guy is probably not gonna be
on our side, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Bryce's lawyers started the try with the dash cam video
from inside runnels squad car. I was there and saw
the jury members cover their mouths and shock the US
Marshal guarding Runnels burst into tears and had to rush
out of the courtroom after it was over two years earlier.
In the criminal case, officer Runnels wasn't even charged for
(35:18):
tasing Bryce and causing his cardiac arrest, only for dropping
him onto his face. Now, in the civil case, Bryce's
lawyers had to prove that the taser shot on its
own was excessive force. Fortunately for the Masters, their attorney
called an expert witness to the stand, a former cop
(35:39):
himself who'd seen firsthand how dangerous the taser could be,
Mike Leonisio, a now retired use of force expert from
Oakland PD. Mike explained to the jury that every five
second taser shot was its own individual use of force.
So even if you thought the first five seconds was reasonable,
(36:00):
the next fifteen seconds of taser shock was unnecessary. Ronalds
should only have tasered Bryce for as long as he
needed to get him into handcuffs. Today, looking back at
the situation, Mike isn't sure what Ronald's knew about the weapon.
Do you think he understood what might happen by tasering
(36:21):
Bryce in the chest?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I don't think so, and I say that based on
my review of all the other case materials, I don't
think that he understood that that weapon was capable of
affecting the human heart. And I think, unfortunately, there's still
a lot of officers out there today who, because of
their department training, don't understand the capabilities of this weapon.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
After Mike came Stacy, Ronald's lawyer, had tried to make
it seem like Bryce wasn't hurt so badly, that he
was living a normal life. But when Stacey took the stand,
she just described how Bryce had changed the memory loss,
mood swings, insomnia, the deep and terrifying depression. She told
the jurors what Bryce was like before this all happened,
(37:11):
and how Bryce told her he would give anything to
have that version of himself back. After several emotional days,
the jury filed out to make their decision. Timothy Runnels
guilty again, Bryce Masters awarded six point five million dollars.
Matt made eye contact with the guy on the jury,
(37:33):
the one who he thought might go against them.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
If I remember, I think he even winked at me like,
you know, like gotcha, you know type thing.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
He had made it and it wasn't all for nothing,
and we didn't end up with, you know, nothing for
Bryce's future, nothing to make sure he was taken care of.
And it was quite literally, you know, pay day.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
They had imagined this moment for years. Rick Smith at
the defense table and listening as the jury found his
company guilty. But Rick wasn't there. Timothy Runnolds was alone.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I used to think when we first started that there
was this reckoning coming. You know, it's hard for me,
like because I know Rick Smith is a father. I mean,
there's crazy numbers out there. At least a thousand people
have died from him tasers. You know, how do you
(38:31):
live with yourself like you do you live with yourself that.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
I'm just I'm saving lives.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
Oh you're really.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You're not saving lives one hundred percent?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Do you feel like they got away with it a
little bit. Oh yeah, by design, he got over there.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
Really.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Rick Smith loves to talk about his company using science
fiction and superhero culture. Rick started out as Captain Kirk,
the altruistic leader protecting a utopian society. Then as people
died from the Taser, he talked about himself as Batman,
a dark hero fighting for justice. But in the best
superhero stories, the villains think they're the heroes. Next time
(39:41):
on Absolute Season one, Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
We want to be building technology for the society we
all want to live in, and we don't want this
stuff to get misused.
Speaker 10 (39:52):
At one point, Rick Smith, the CEO of the company,
accused me of costing them more than five hundred million
dollars in shareholder value.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Then next thing I know, I'm getting these anonymous written complaints.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
My thing would be the question, why didn't you tell
the truth from the beginning because you knew.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Absolute Taser Incorporated is a production of Lava for Good
in association with Signal Company Number one. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and threads at Lava
for Good. Follow me at Nick Beredini on Instagram and Twitter.
Taser Incorporated is written and produced by me Nick Beredini.
Our executive producers are Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis.
(40:47):
Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Paul is our producer.
Hannah Biel is our writer and producer. Joe Plored is
our sound designer. Music composed and produced by Alexis Quadrado
at the Plaza Rojas Studio. Marianne mckowne is our editor.
Fact checking by Donya Suleman. Jeff Cliburn is our head
of marketing and operations. Our social media director is is
(41:09):
Marie guard Rama, our Social Media manager is Sarah Gibbons,
and our art director is Andrew Nelson. Additional reporting by
Matt Strapp.
Previously on Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I remember looking at the screen and I said, that's capture.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
There was no change in what I was trained in
four to twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
None of these cases has the person died while being
hit with the taser.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
You're saying that this was a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
They would have died anyway.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
In every single case, these people would have died anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I walked into Matt and Stacy Master's house on a
sticky July night, about a month after Timothy Runolds was
sentenced to four years in prison. Matt was sitting at
their kitchen table. That big accordion folder he'd stuffed full
of taser articles and court papers for years was spilled
out in front of him. Pages and pages marked with
handwritten notes in red ink and highlighted passages yellow and
(01:06):
orange marker.
Speaker 6 (01:08):
That's what blows my mind and then just infuriates me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, I started skimming the titles covering the kitchen
table and began to laugh. I realized we were too
obsessive sitting down to compare notes I was.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
Told, And as I moved along through my own research,
and it was so eye opening that I'm like, why
the fucks don't departments know this, Like where is the disconnect?
Where is Like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I was one of the few people in the world
who actually understood what Matt was looking at. Like seeing
one paper effects of cocaine intoxication on the threshold for
stun gun induction of ventricular fibrillation, I'd go, oh, yeah,
that's the study from the Cleveland clinic that first discovered
cardiac capture. Or another Butler versus Taser International. It's one
(02:00):
of the first lawsuits that exposed the Taser's cardiac risks.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
Like cops believed everything, everything that Tayser told.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Me, and like now I think I listened to Matt
Rant for hours. Timothy Runnalds was in prison, but now
it was time for the fight. Matt really wanted.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
I want to be in that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
He told me Bryce was going to file a lawsuit
against Taser International. Matt wanted the company to pay for
what happened to his son. This is absolute. Season one,
Taser incorporated a story about unchecked power. I'm Nick Beredini.
(03:27):
Episode five n FW. There was one lawyer whose name
kept coming up in the trial transcripts Matt put in
his folder, John Burton. He was like the Michael Jordan
of suing Taser International, and he'd studied Tasers every move.
Speaker 7 (03:50):
They had convinced their customer base, which are law enforcement agencies,
that this device was absolutely safe and that any who
says differently is just trying to take this great tool
away from you and is probably some acou liberal pinko
who wants to take your car away or something or
(04:14):
bagas so you can eat Hamburgers.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
If anyone fit the stereotype of liberal pinko, it was John.
John grew up in Pasadena. He became a hard charging
civil rights attorney who hung portraits of famous jazz musicians
on the walls of his office. He even ran for
governor of California in two thousand and three, supported by
the socialist Equality Party.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
I got like seven thousand votes. I remember Gary Coleman
finished ahead of me and Arianne Huffington.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
John took his first taser case back in two thousand
and five, nine years before Officer Runnels Taste Brice Masters.
This is when news stories about grandma's and kids getting
tasered and people dying from the weapon were becoming more
and more common. Taser International was in an escalating battle
with critics who thought the taser could kill. The company
(05:04):
was spending lots of money on legal fees defending themselves
and what they called the war against Taser, and CEO
Rick Smith was in the news defending tasers all the time,
like when he answered questions on CBS News of.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
The cases that we've seen, we strongly believe and our
medical experts strongly believed the taser had no causal effect
in those fatalities.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
In one of his first taser cases, John represented the
family of a forty year old man named Robert Heston,
who died after police tasered him twenty five times for
more than a minute straight. John brought on his friend
Peter Williamson. They were a team, two men with the
same job and the same goal do what no legal
team had done before and defeat Taser in court. They
(05:53):
even sound similar. Well.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
First of all, they had had tremendous success in litigation
before John and I got involved. I think was seventy
six cases where they had been able to kick the
cases out of court on summary judgment.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It was actually seventy and zero. But Peter is right.
So far, no lawyer had ever been able to convince
a jury or a judge that Taser International was responsible
for someone's death.
Speaker 8 (06:21):
So they had a certain arrogance and swagger about them that, hey,
we can't be defeated, right, And who were these guys
coming into court and you know, fighting us? And as
I've often said, when I think back on this litigation,
I wouldn't put it on the same level, but it
(06:41):
was akin to tobacco litigation. It was a company that
absolutely refused to concede any point whatsoever, fought everything tooth
and nail, appealed everything. They would not give an inch
on any of this. And you know, they got lawyers
who had the same kind of mentality that you know,
(07:03):
we're too big, you can't beat us.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Taser's lawyers and executives had a swagger in part because
they saw themselves as the good guys, providing a technology
that made a violent world safer every day. CEO Rick
Smith explained his personal frustration to a reporter from GQ
magazine in twenty ten. They quote him saying, we're saving lives,
don't you get it? And then he compares himself to
(07:28):
Batman quote this sort of tragic thing where he's trying
to stop the criminals, but the media and the general
public think he's a vigilante, a bad guy. But John
and Peter didn't see Rick Smith as batman. It seemed
to them that the taser played some role in killing
their client's son, Robert Heston, So they filled their offices
(07:50):
with boxes and boxes of documents everything they could learn
about the company and the weapon.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
I mean, the amount of time we spent researching and studying.
I can't even calculate the amount of hours we spent.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
They were looking for two pieces of information, proof that
the taser could kill, and proof that Taser International knew
about it and didn't warn cops. John and Peter combed
through what felt like endless pages of medical studies spread
out around the office, and after a while, they came
(08:24):
upon a couple of independent studies that suggested the taser
might cause this thing called acidosis. Simply put, acidosis is
a dangerous condition where lactic acid builds up in your
blood from muscle contractions. One taser shot won't do much,
but a taser shot that lasts sixty seconds that's roughly
(08:46):
a thousand muscle contractions in one minute. In John and
Peter's case, Robert Heston had been tasered for over a minute.
Now they had their strategy. Before they went to trial,
they had depositions, and this is where they met Rick
Smith for the first time. John especially remembers reading Rick's resume.
(09:08):
It was pages long going back to high school.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
And then it had its SAT scores going into college.
It's college admission scores. There is a guy who was,
you know, the CEO of a publicly traded company, and
he's putting his SAT scores on his resume. I wasn't.
I wasn't that in press because they were lower than mine.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But you know, as you can imagine, things between the
two sides got ugly in a hurry.
Speaker 8 (09:38):
I mean, we would get into screaming matches in some
of these depositions. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I've seen over one hundred hours of footage of depositions
from this case and others, and no doubt they were contentious,
but there isn't much screaming. I'd say it was more
like pissing contests.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
We take one last bathroom break. It can be very fascinating.
Speaker 8 (09:59):
Actually I'd prefer not. If you can hold on for
twenty minutes, then I.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Can twenty minutes. I cannot assure that I can't answer
well cognitively and accurately. We've been going for well over
an hour.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
Oh no, when I've been going for a lot less
than an hour.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This time Peter got the sense that to Rick, these
cases were a waste of his time.
Speaker 8 (10:20):
He never ever showed any empathy for anybody in any
of these cases. He could have cared less. Yes, it
was beneath him, for certain. Never, once ever did I
hear him say anything or do anything that would suggest
to me that he had any empathy for anybody. He
only cared about the bottom line of his company, and
(10:41):
that was it.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
The depositions only made John and Peter want to win more.
In previous cases against Taser International, other lawyers had tried
to argue that exposure to the tasers electric current was
directly causing cardiac arrest, like sticking a fork in a wall,
but Taser had lots of research to show the electric
current was too weak to really do that. No lawyer
(11:07):
had ever won an argument against Taser International by focusing
on acidosis until John and Peter made their case to
the jury. They said the company failed to warn cops
that so many shots in a row could cause acidosis.
It was an emotional, intense back and forth in the courtroom.
Taser's lawyers claimed Heston's death was a classic case of
(11:29):
excited delirium because he was high on methamphetamine when he died.
They said the Taser had nothing to do with killing him.
But after listening to both sides make their arguments, the
jury found the Taser partially responsible for Heston's death. On
June sixth, two thousand and eight, John and Peter became
the first lawyers to beat Taser International in a wrongful
(11:51):
death case. It made headlines across the country, turned John
and Peter into the Taser lawyers, the guys who finally
got a court to say on the record that the
Taser could kill. Their win against Taser brought John and
(12:11):
Peter more cases families who claimed the Taser killed or
injured their loved one, and though they'd gotten that first
big legal win, it was looking like the Heston case
might be a one off because acidosis didn't actually explain
all these other cases. Many of these were cases where
sober or healthy people were shot in the chest, sometimes
just once or twice, not long enough to cause acidosis.
(12:35):
So John and Peter went back to the pile of
research papers, and John noticed something he'd missed before.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I mean, this would be typical of Taser propaganda that
maybe fooled me at first.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It was about how the taser delivers an electric shock.
Even though it seems like the shock delivered by a
taser is constant, the electricity actually comes in extremely short,
fast waves. At the peak of one of those waves,
the electric current was high. Once John understood this, he
(13:08):
noticed that Taser's lawyers and master instructors referred to the
average current when they explained how safe the weapon was.
Using average current would be like trying to argue your
way out of a speeding ticket using your average speed.
Like after you got caught driving eighty five and a
fifty five, you told the cop that's bullshit, Officer, I
(13:29):
was just stopped at two red lights. You should measure
my average speed. John realized the peak current was much higher,
much more dangerous than the average. This is how the
company made the taser look weaker than a Christmas tree bulb.
Before this, he and Peter had been focused on acidosis.
(13:51):
But now that they understood how strong the taser current was,
they went back to their research with a new question,
is the taser's current strong enough to affect the heart?
And that's when they hit the jackpot. The information they
were searching for was you guessed it in a pig study.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
I told you I.
Speaker 7 (14:09):
Wasn't going to use profanity in this interview, but I
just went holy shit.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Taser International funded a study published in two thousand and
six by a prominent doctor at the Cleveland Clinic named
Patrick Chu. Doctor Chew and his team gave five pigs
cocaine and shocked them to see what would happen. The
pig hearts were visible on an ultrasound machine, so they
could see everything during the taser shots. The cocaine didn't
make the pigs any more likely to have a cardiac arrest,
(14:37):
but buried in the studies conclusion was something that changed
everything for John and Peter.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
These studies of these pigs show that there's cardiac capture.
So I was really shocked that the science actually supported that.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The taser's electric current was strong enough to override a
normal heartbeat and speed it up, sometimes causing death.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
That's a much different kind of thing than the acidosis
because that could just happen instantly.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
This study was exactly what John and Peter needed. Proof
the company had known about the risk of cardiac capture
for at least two years. It was buried right there
in Taser's own research, and they still weren't warning cops.
(16:01):
Around this time, John had a new client, the family
of seventeen year old Darryl Turner. Daryl was tasered in
the chest for thirty seven seconds straight. He collapsed to
the floor of the grocery store where he worked and died.
The entire incident was caught on video. It seemed like
a clear case of taser induced cardiac capture. The taser
(16:23):
sped Darryl's heart up and killed him. Soon they were
back at it, meeting with Rick Smith again in depositions.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
So what you're saying, I mean, I'm trying to understand
what you're saying. What you're saying is that the use
of the taser had nothing to do with the cardiac
arrest in this case. Is that your testimony.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Taser International's argument was that Darryl Turner had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,
a condition where the heart muscles thicken and can cause death,
and that he happened to die because of this condition.
At the exact moment he got tased. Grilled Rick about it.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
What I'm saying is that, to the best of our knowledge,
this does not appear that the direct electric effects of
the taser would be the most likely cause of the
cardiac arrest, and that this case is were similar to
the cases of sudden cardiac death in high school athletes.
It's not a fully understood phenomenon why young, otherwise healthy
(17:24):
looking people collapse and die during physically stressful events.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
While John was litigating on behalf of Darryl Turner, he
and Peter kept taking on more cases, and many of
these cases were headed to trial. Darryl Turner's case wouldn't
go to trial for another couple of years, but it
was clear John and Peter found a blueprint that threatened
the company. The taser could affect the heart, the company
(17:56):
had the science that proved it. When the Turner case
finally went before a jury in twenty eleven, John and
Peter won easily, and it cost the company millions. In
two thousand and nine, Taser International was staring down the
barrel of over forty separate lawsuits. If even a handful
(18:19):
of those cases were as clear cut as Darryl Turner's death,
Tayser would likely lose a fortune. Even the Canadian government
was investigating them. After someone died in the Vancouver airport
after being tased, Peter Williamson decided it was a good
time to offer Taser a chance at legal surrender.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
We actually approached Mike Brave.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Mike Brave, one of Taser's lawyers.
Speaker 8 (18:44):
And we said to Mike Brave, I'll tell you what.
We're going to make you an offer. You resolved the
few cases at that point that we had, and we'll
sit down with you and we'll rewrite your warnings for you.
And if we do that, you're going to insulate yourself
from all future cases. And you know, you'll settle the
(19:05):
cases that we have with us, and we'll be done
and we'll move on in our lives to other things.
And he said, wow, that's really interesting. I don't know
how long it was after that, probably maybe a month
or so after and we got an email from Mike
Brave and the email just said it just contained three
initials n f W. That was their response. So at
(19:31):
that point we said, okay, games on, you know, no
fucking way. And that decision ended up paying major dividends
for us. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
What Peter means is that Taser kept fighting them. If
the company kept refusing to warn cops, they were going
to keep paying for it.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
And somebody got the clue, Hey, we've got to do
something here or we're gonna keep getting sued.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Taser International would eventually make changes to the design of
its weapon too, and their words improve safety margins. They
would issue a new version of the taser that shut
off automatically after five seconds, so an officer would have
to repress the trigger again to keep the electric current
flowing longer than five seconds, and they would reduce the
(20:27):
electric charge by about half. But before redesigning the weapon,
on September thirty, two thousand and nine, they issued their
own version of a warning, a new eighteen page training update.
And this is that same warning. Matt Masters was so
surprised to find Taser International was telling cops the risk
(20:49):
to the heart from the taser is not zero. They
also said that cops, when possible, should avoid shooting people
in the chest.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Baker of the Taser is now telling police officers where
to shoot. This new requirement is to stay away from
the head the neck and the chest.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
When an officers.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Copsy read this bulletin, who had been under the impression
that the taser was completely safe, were confused. The company
immediately started getting calls and emails from cops asking for
more information. This was a huge change for officers. CEO
Rick Smith scheduled a two thousand and nine version of
(21:29):
a zoom a conference call with hundreds of police departments
around the country.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Taser
International Incorporated customer Updates. I would now like to turn
the call over to mister Rick Smith, CEO of Taser International.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Lease proceed, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I want to start by addressing a couple of questions
we've been receiving over email. The first one is our
chest hits with the taser dangerous? And the answer to
that is definitively no.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Definitively no. Rick explained this addition to the training wasn't
because the taser was dangerous. Chest shots were just less
effective than shots to the back or stomach.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
But the real.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Of the biggest reason here in my mind is risk
management and avoiding the controversy.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
He was basically saying, new training recommendations were just to
keep the greedy lawyers and anti cop critics off all
their backs. If you still needed to shoot someone in
the chest with a Taser, the company would be by
your side. Taser International wasn't backing down or abandoning officers
in a way.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Will Taser helped defend officers where there's chest shots involved?
And the answer is unequivocally yes. We pride ourselves that
we stand up both for our technology and for officers.
Here you'll recall a few years ago in Ohio Medical.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I've listened to this call so many times. Cops were
looking for the truth, but there wasn't any real dialogue
about research results or science. I've often wondered how things
might be different if there had just been an honest conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So there is an acknowledgement that there's a minute possibility
that shat to the chats could result in cardiac a risk.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
I think the better way that I would answer that
not better, But from the company's perspective is we cannot
prove it's zero, and that means.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Why didn't Rich just tell them it's rare, but it's
a real risk. That's not what happened.
Speaker 9 (23:42):
Thanks to all of you a taste for what you've
done for law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Thank you, hey, and I would say sorry for you
know this situation. I don't enjoy it either. Unfortunately live
in a country where you spill hot coffee in your
laugh and you can see it for ten million dollars,
So appreciate your understanding and support.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
On the conference call, Rick tells cops that his company
will always stand by any officer who needs their legal
support if they still have to shoot someone in the chest.
But the reality was very different. When Taser International talk
(24:40):
to cops in that conference call, they downplayed the real
risks of the weapon. Instead, they said they were just
writing this warning to help everyone avoid controversy. This is
a pattern I've noticed in how the company deals with cops.
In the beginning, they were calling Taser's non lethal and
warning about the obvious like people falling and the taser
(25:02):
is flammable, so if you shoot someone covered in gasoline,
watch out. Over the years, they started calling tasers less lethal.
They recommended officers not shoot people for longer than fifteen seconds,
recommended they not shoot them in the chest, not shoot
pregnant women or people running away. They were warning about acidosis,
cardiac risks, metabolic changes, just about everything, but in training,
(25:26):
were cops actually getting the message that the taser posed
any risk. About five years after this conference call, Matt
Masters thought tasers were one hundred percent safe. That is
until his own son went into cardiac arrest. Matt wanted
(25:46):
John Burton to bring Bryce's case against Taser International.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I called John's office out in California and got through
to him and just kind of explained to him who
I was.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
He raced through the details. He was convinced that Officer
Runnels didn't understand how dangerous the taser was when he
shot Bryce, and that Taser International was legally responsible for
what had happened. John looked through everything Matt sent him,
and he knew it wouldn't be an easy case. All
those warnings Taser International had quietly added to their products,
(26:23):
they gave the company an out. They could argue, it's
written right here. You're not supposed to taser someone for
more than fifteen seconds at a time. You're supposed to
avoid the chest. It wasn't their fault when a cop
misused the product. John told Matt Bryce's case wasn't the
slam dunk Matt thought it was, but he did see
illegal strategy. Officer Runnels tasered Bryce with an old model
(26:46):
of the taser that allowed him to hold down the
trigger as long as he wanted for twenty seconds. Taser
International had since changed the design and reduced the charge,
but the company never recalled the older teaser model that
caused Bryce's cardiac arrest. Taser even stopped selling that model
in twenty fourteen, the same year Bryce was shocked. John
(27:09):
could argue they knew the old version of the taser
was more dangerous. Taser International was still being negligent, so
he came up with a plan to sue both Taser
International and Timothy Runnels at the same time. The more
defendants at the start, the more information the lawyers can gather,
and the easier it becomes to figure out who to blame.
(27:32):
John partnered with some local Kansas City attorneys for Bryce's case,
and in March of twenty eighteen, they got the chance
to question Timothy Runnels for the first time. Runnels was
still serving his prison sentence. A video of the deposition
shows him wearing green Department of Corrections scrubs. He's calm,
what's going on?
Speaker 9 (27:52):
With the taser if you hold the trigger dead.
Speaker 10 (27:54):
At that point in time, I believed it would do
a five second cycle.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
It was your understanding that even if you continued to
hold the triggered in that the person you had tased
would only receive a five second cycle of current.
Speaker 10 (28:12):
Yes, and our most recent training, they were talking about
the new Taser, which was an automatic shut off.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Runnell says he thought he'd been given a smart battery
that would give his older Taser model an automatic shut off,
but this wasn't the case. Later, he has asked what
he learned about chess shots from his most recent training.
Speaker 9 (28:33):
What was your training and information on the potential for
cardiac arrest as it related to chess shots that were
close to the heart muscle?
Speaker 10 (28:46):
Chess safts are still appropriate if it's the option.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Provided that was still okay under the City of Independence.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Correct.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
More than two hours into the deposition, Taser Internationals lawyer
takes her turn, and it's hard for me to hear
the company defending or standing up for Officer Runnels in
her line of questioning.
Speaker 11 (29:10):
They specifically say, avoid chest shots when possible.
Speaker 10 (29:13):
Right when possible.
Speaker 11 (29:15):
Yes, and that was your understanding. Describe reviewing this training
bulletin that you received, correct.
Speaker 10 (29:22):
My understanding that any shot is acceptable. It's preferred to
try to aim for lower center mass.
Speaker 11 (29:28):
Show me where it says any shot is acceptable in.
Speaker 10 (29:31):
This bulletin, it says when possible, and also says preferred.
We can indicate any area.
Speaker 11 (29:37):
So it doesn't say it's acceptable, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
John Burton was infuriated by Taser's legal strategy. The company
he'd battled for so long was using the warning he
pushed them to write to try to win a case
against him.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
They talked out of both sides of their mouth, so
it depended on which side of their mouth you were on, right,
because they were saying, yeah, I look right there. It says,
you know it could cause cardiac capture, and hearing a
Taser lawyer questioning law enforcement and raking them over the
(30:20):
coals about it causing cardiac capture when I had spent
so much of my life at that point disputing that
exact point with him.
Speaker 11 (30:33):
It specifically says that to reduce any risk of setting
cardiac or risk right, that's what we just read in
the previous.
Speaker 10 (30:42):
Paragraph previous one, Yes, and.
Speaker 11 (30:46):
It says minimize repeated continuous or simultaneous exposures. That's what
was in the warning that you reviewed and signed off on.
Right right.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
I wish I could ask Runnels about this moment, but
he declined to be interviewed. What he did to Bryce
was terrible, but Runnels was in prison for that crime.
Taser International, on the other hand, never admitted the taser
cause Bryce's cardiac arrest. But here was their lawyer throwing
it back in his face, implying with her questions that
(31:24):
he didn't heed the warnings. Bryce's cardiac arrest is your fault.
As Peter Williamson explained to me, writing the warning in
two thousand and nine, deflected the liability of the taser
from the company that made them to the cops who
used them.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
Here, they were that company was formed in order to,
you know, do something favorable for law enforcement. Right, We're
going to give you a device that won't kill people,
and it ends up killing people. So now what they
do is they put the onus on the officers.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Matt Masters watched runnels deposition afterwards.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
It was weird because I thought, well, maybe Runnels missed something,
but then his sergeant, Blake Moore, said the exact same
thing in his deposition that we were taught that the
taser couldn't cause cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
After the depositions, John Burton spoke with Matt Stacy and Bryce.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
John knew that, like, look, we've got to make a choice.
We're going to either battle Taser and all their attorneys
and all the stuff they're gonna throw at you, and
they're gonna you know, it's gonna be rough.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
In the Hollywood version, Matt Stacy, Bryce, and John Burton
take on the company in an epic legal battle to
hold Rick Smith accountable for what they believed was a
betrayal of cops. The climactic a Few Good Men courtroom
scene where the Tom Cruise version of John Burton yells,
did you know that taser could cause a cardiac arrest?
And the Jack Nicholson version of Rick Smith shouts back,
(32:59):
your goddamn I'm right I did. It'd be a good movie.
But Matt, Stacey and Bryce were living in the real world.
John explained making the Hollywood version real was complicated. Maybe
they could win that case, but it would be hard,
(33:20):
and if they lost, well, they didn't want to think
about how hard Bryce's life would be if they lost,
there was a much easier victory.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Do we want to continue this route and go after
both or do we want to go after the easy money,
which is Timothy Reynolds and his insurance company.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
They dropped taser from the lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
It was much easier to pen it all on Reynolds
and say he shouldn't have shot the kid and held
the trigger down for twenty four seconds, which is all true.
Speaker 10 (34:00):
Or not.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Runnels knew his taser could be lethal, didn't matter. He
signed training documents that warned him, and he fired the
taser anyway. The trial lasted about a week. Do you
remember anyone in the jury in particular? Do you make
eye contact to anyone on the jury who stood out
to you.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
There was a guy that I remember, just a kind
of a country bumpkin guy. If I remember, he had
a beard, and he was kind of up in the
upper left hand corner. He just made eye contact with
us throughout. I really remember that he was really engaged
and he seemed just like this guy that I kind
(34:38):
of was worried to. Honestly, I was kind of worried
about him. I don't know about that guy, you know,
like he just looked like he'd just come right out
from the farm, you know, and he parked his truck
out in a lot and came in and I just
I remember thinking that guy is probably not gonna be
on our side, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Bryce's lawyers started the try with the dash cam video
from inside runnels squad car. I was there and saw
the jury members cover their mouths and shock the US
Marshal guarding Runnels burst into tears and had to rush
out of the courtroom after it was over two years earlier.
In the criminal case, officer Runnels wasn't even charged for
(35:18):
tasing Bryce and causing his cardiac arrest, only for dropping
him onto his face. Now, in the civil case, Bryce's
lawyers had to prove that the taser shot on its
own was excessive force. Fortunately for the Masters, their attorney
called an expert witness to the stand, a former cop
(35:39):
himself who'd seen firsthand how dangerous the taser could be,
Mike Leonisio, a now retired use of force expert from
Oakland PD. Mike explained to the jury that every five
second taser shot was its own individual use of force.
So even if you thought the first five seconds was reasonable,
(36:00):
the next fifteen seconds of taser shock was unnecessary. Ronalds
should only have tasered Bryce for as long as he
needed to get him into handcuffs. Today, looking back at
the situation, Mike isn't sure what Ronald's knew about the weapon.
Do you think he understood what might happen by tasering
(36:21):
Bryce in the chest?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I don't think so, and I say that based on
my review of all the other case materials, I don't
think that he understood that that weapon was capable of
affecting the human heart. And I think, unfortunately, there's still
a lot of officers out there today who, because of
their department training, don't understand the capabilities of this weapon.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
After Mike came Stacy, Ronald's lawyer, had tried to make
it seem like Bryce wasn't hurt so badly, that he
was living a normal life. But when Stacey took the stand,
she just described how Bryce had changed the memory loss,
mood swings, insomnia, the deep and terrifying depression. She told
the jurors what Bryce was like before this all happened,
(37:11):
and how Bryce told her he would give anything to
have that version of himself back. After several emotional days,
the jury filed out to make their decision. Timothy Runnels
guilty again, Bryce Masters awarded six point five million dollars.
Matt made eye contact with the guy on the jury,
(37:33):
the one who he thought might go against them.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
If I remember, I think he even winked at me like,
you know, like gotcha, you know type thing.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
He had made it and it wasn't all for nothing,
and we didn't end up with, you know, nothing for
Bryce's future, nothing to make sure he was taken care of.
And it was quite literally, you know, pay day.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
They had imagined this moment for years. Rick Smith at
the defense table and listening as the jury found his
company guilty. But Rick wasn't there. Timothy Runnolds was alone.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I used to think when we first started that there
was this reckoning coming. You know, it's hard for me,
like because I know Rick Smith is a father. I mean,
there's crazy numbers out there. At least a thousand people
have died from him tasers. You know, how do you
(38:31):
live with yourself like you do you live with yourself that.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
I'm just I'm saving lives.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
Oh you're really.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You're not saving lives one hundred percent?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Do you feel like they got away with it a
little bit. Oh yeah, by design, he got over there.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
Really.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Rick Smith loves to talk about his company using science
fiction and superhero culture. Rick started out as Captain Kirk,
the altruistic leader protecting a utopian society. Then as people
died from the Taser, he talked about himself as Batman,
a dark hero fighting for justice. But in the best
superhero stories, the villains think they're the heroes. Next time
(39:41):
on Absolute Season one, Taser Incorporated.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
We want to be building technology for the society we
all want to live in, and we don't want this
stuff to get misused.
Speaker 10 (39:52):
At one point, Rick Smith, the CEO of the company,
accused me of costing them more than five hundred million
dollars in shareholder value.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Then next thing I know, I'm getting these anonymous written complaints.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
My thing would be the question, why didn't you tell
the truth from the beginning because you knew.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Absolute Taser Incorporated is a production of Lava for Good
in association with Signal Company Number one. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and threads at Lava
for Good. Follow me at Nick Beredini on Instagram and Twitter.
Taser Incorporated is written and produced by me Nick Beredini.
Our executive producers are Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis.
(40:47):
Kara Kornhaber is our senior producer. Jackie Paul is our producer.
Hannah Biel is our writer and producer. Joe Plored is
our sound designer. Music composed and produced by Alexis Quadrado
at the Plaza Rojas Studio. Marianne mckowne is our editor.
Fact checking by Donya Suleman. Jeff Cliburn is our head
of marketing and operations. Our social media director is is
(41:09):
Marie guard Rama, our Social Media manager is Sarah Gibbons,
and our art director is Andrew Nelson. Additional reporting by
Matt Strapp.
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