Killing Them Safely

The documentary is about a weapons company founded by two brothers. TASER International, the company of Rick and Tom Smith, sold its electrical weapon to police as an option that was not lethal. The product spread quickly and the company grew very large. As it spread, deaths occurred in incidents where the weapon had been used. The film takes up how the company answered those deaths and how weak the oversight around the product remained. The account follows both the company’s own promotional material and the growing doubt among the police forces who were its customers. Nick Berardini asks how a product comes to be declared safe. The film was shown at Tribeca in 2015. Nick Berardini’s hundred minute American documentary was completed in 2015.