CarlosDJackal
02-13-09, 09:12
RIP. Last year was a record low for LEO LODs and one of the studies I read credited the increased used of such less-lethal devices as the "Air Taser".
Cover, who spent most of his career working in the aerospace and
defense industries, originally developed the idea for the Taser in
the 1960s. But it didn't really take off until the 1990s.
By Elaine Woo
5:39 PM PST, February 12, 2009
Jack Cover, an aerospace scientist who invented the Taser stun gun --
a device used by thousands of law enforcement agencies to subdue
unruly offenders with electrical shocks -- has died. He was 88.
Cover had Alzheimer's disease and died of pneumonia Saturday at the
Golden West Retirement Home in Mission Viejo, said his wife, Ginny.
Trained as a nuclear physicist, Cover spent most of his career
working in aerospace and defense industries. He was a chief scientist
for North American Aviation (later Rockwell International) and helped
the firm become a primary NASA contractor on the Apollo moon landing
program in the early 1960s.
He also was a born inventor who in the 1940s was already building
gadgets, including cooked-food testers, voice-activated switches and
an electric toothbrush. One of his last brainstorms was an
alternative-energy generator.
But the Taser was his most successful invention, credited with
preventing deadly police encounters and spurring improvements in the
tactics used to take violent offenders into custody.
"Jack is an unsung hero. He did something great for the world, saved
a lot of lives and prevented a lot of injuries," said Greg Meyer, a
retired police captain who was heading the Los Angeles Police
Department's nonlethal weapons research when he met Cover 30 years
ago.
The Taser also has its share of critics, who have linked the device
to scores of deaths in recent years, including two Orange County jail
inmates last year. The American Civil Liberties Union is pressing to
have Tasers classified as lethal weapons, but experts disagree on
whether the stun guns directly caused the deaths.
Despite the continuing debate, the Taser has come into widespread
use, adopted by more than 13,000 military and law enforcement
agencies around the world, including the LAPD, which worked closely
with Cover to test the device in the 1980s.
According to Meyer, Cover began to develop the Taser in the 1960s in
response to a rash of airplane hijackings. Sky marshals carrying
sidearms began riding on commercial airliners to discourage
hijackers, but Cover saw the risk inherent in the situation. If a
bullet missed the hijacker and pierced the fuselage instead, the
plane could go down.
"He said, 'Let me figure out something better than shooting people
that might crash the plane,' " Meyer said.
Cover told the Orange County Register in 1991 that he got the idea
for the Taser after hearing about a man who was briefly immobilized
by a fallen power line. He began tinkering in his garage and in the
late 1960s came up with a device that looked something like a
flashlight but fired darts that delivered an electrical charge. The
darts could hit a target up to 15 feet away.
He got the name for the weapon from one of his favorite childhood
books, "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle," one in a popular early
20th century series by Victor Appleton. In the book, the young Swift
invents a rifle that shoots bolts of electricity. The story
apparently continued to animate Cover's imagination decades later,
when he conceived the word "Taser" as an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift
Electric Rifle." (Cover evidently added the middle initial "A," which
does not appear in the books.)
Cover was born in New York City on April 6, 1920, and grew up in
Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in physics
from the University of Chicago, where his professors included Enrico
Fermi and Edward Teller, the renowned atomic scientists.
During World War II, he was an Army Air Forces test pilot. After the
war, he spent several years at the Inyokern Naval Ordnance Test
Station at China Lake, Calif. He was a scientist at North American
Aviation from 1952 until 1964 and later worked for IBM and Hughes.
In 1970, he formed Taser Systems Inc., believing that his invention
of a weapon that could stun but not kill an assailant would have wide
appeal. But because the Taser used gunpowder to launch the darts, the
federal government considered it a firearm, a classification that
ruled out a civilian market and also discouraged police and military
sales.
The LAPD had rejected the Taser twice during the 1970s, Meyer
recalled, but reconsidered in 1979 after the controversy involving
Eula Love, a South Los Angeles woman who was shot to death by LAPD
officers in a confrontation over an unpaid gas bill. As a result of
field tests with the LAPD in 1980, Cover won department approval with
an 11-watt Taser that proved more effective than his initial 7-watt
model, Meyer said. But sales remained limited and the business
collapsed.
In 1993, two Arizona brothers, Tom and Rick Smith, contacted the then-
73-year-old Cover about retooling the Taser as a nonlethal self-
protection device that could legally be sold to civilians.
"Jack was very dedicated to the mission," Tom Smith, co-founder and
chairman of Taser International in Scottsdale, Ariz., said this
week. "He had a true belief in where this technology was going to go."
In 1994, the Smiths' company launched the Air Taser, based on Cover's
proposal to change the propulsion system from gunpowder to compressed
air. Among projectile stun guns, the Smiths' devices are the most
widely sold in the world, used by police and military agencies in 45
countries. In addition, more than 180,000 Tasers have been sold to
private citizens, according to a company spokesman.
Cover was cremated, and there are no immediate plans for a memorial
service. In addition to his wife, of San Clemente, he is survived by
four children, two stepchildren, 10 grandchildren and five great-
grandchildren
Cover, who spent most of his career working in the aerospace and
defense industries, originally developed the idea for the Taser in
the 1960s. But it didn't really take off until the 1990s.
By Elaine Woo
5:39 PM PST, February 12, 2009
Jack Cover, an aerospace scientist who invented the Taser stun gun --
a device used by thousands of law enforcement agencies to subdue
unruly offenders with electrical shocks -- has died. He was 88.
Cover had Alzheimer's disease and died of pneumonia Saturday at the
Golden West Retirement Home in Mission Viejo, said his wife, Ginny.
Trained as a nuclear physicist, Cover spent most of his career
working in aerospace and defense industries. He was a chief scientist
for North American Aviation (later Rockwell International) and helped
the firm become a primary NASA contractor on the Apollo moon landing
program in the early 1960s.
He also was a born inventor who in the 1940s was already building
gadgets, including cooked-food testers, voice-activated switches and
an electric toothbrush. One of his last brainstorms was an
alternative-energy generator.
But the Taser was his most successful invention, credited with
preventing deadly police encounters and spurring improvements in the
tactics used to take violent offenders into custody.
"Jack is an unsung hero. He did something great for the world, saved
a lot of lives and prevented a lot of injuries," said Greg Meyer, a
retired police captain who was heading the Los Angeles Police
Department's nonlethal weapons research when he met Cover 30 years
ago.
The Taser also has its share of critics, who have linked the device
to scores of deaths in recent years, including two Orange County jail
inmates last year. The American Civil Liberties Union is pressing to
have Tasers classified as lethal weapons, but experts disagree on
whether the stun guns directly caused the deaths.
Despite the continuing debate, the Taser has come into widespread
use, adopted by more than 13,000 military and law enforcement
agencies around the world, including the LAPD, which worked closely
with Cover to test the device in the 1980s.
According to Meyer, Cover began to develop the Taser in the 1960s in
response to a rash of airplane hijackings. Sky marshals carrying
sidearms began riding on commercial airliners to discourage
hijackers, but Cover saw the risk inherent in the situation. If a
bullet missed the hijacker and pierced the fuselage instead, the
plane could go down.
"He said, 'Let me figure out something better than shooting people
that might crash the plane,' " Meyer said.
Cover told the Orange County Register in 1991 that he got the idea
for the Taser after hearing about a man who was briefly immobilized
by a fallen power line. He began tinkering in his garage and in the
late 1960s came up with a device that looked something like a
flashlight but fired darts that delivered an electrical charge. The
darts could hit a target up to 15 feet away.
He got the name for the weapon from one of his favorite childhood
books, "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle," one in a popular early
20th century series by Victor Appleton. In the book, the young Swift
invents a rifle that shoots bolts of electricity. The story
apparently continued to animate Cover's imagination decades later,
when he conceived the word "Taser" as an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift
Electric Rifle." (Cover evidently added the middle initial "A," which
does not appear in the books.)
Cover was born in New York City on April 6, 1920, and grew up in
Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in physics
from the University of Chicago, where his professors included Enrico
Fermi and Edward Teller, the renowned atomic scientists.
During World War II, he was an Army Air Forces test pilot. After the
war, he spent several years at the Inyokern Naval Ordnance Test
Station at China Lake, Calif. He was a scientist at North American
Aviation from 1952 until 1964 and later worked for IBM and Hughes.
In 1970, he formed Taser Systems Inc., believing that his invention
of a weapon that could stun but not kill an assailant would have wide
appeal. But because the Taser used gunpowder to launch the darts, the
federal government considered it a firearm, a classification that
ruled out a civilian market and also discouraged police and military
sales.
The LAPD had rejected the Taser twice during the 1970s, Meyer
recalled, but reconsidered in 1979 after the controversy involving
Eula Love, a South Los Angeles woman who was shot to death by LAPD
officers in a confrontation over an unpaid gas bill. As a result of
field tests with the LAPD in 1980, Cover won department approval with
an 11-watt Taser that proved more effective than his initial 7-watt
model, Meyer said. But sales remained limited and the business
collapsed.
In 1993, two Arizona brothers, Tom and Rick Smith, contacted the then-
73-year-old Cover about retooling the Taser as a nonlethal self-
protection device that could legally be sold to civilians.
"Jack was very dedicated to the mission," Tom Smith, co-founder and
chairman of Taser International in Scottsdale, Ariz., said this
week. "He had a true belief in where this technology was going to go."
In 1994, the Smiths' company launched the Air Taser, based on Cover's
proposal to change the propulsion system from gunpowder to compressed
air. Among projectile stun guns, the Smiths' devices are the most
widely sold in the world, used by police and military agencies in 45
countries. In addition, more than 180,000 Tasers have been sold to
private citizens, according to a company spokesman.
Cover was cremated, and there are no immediate plans for a memorial
service. In addition to his wife, of San Clemente, he is survived by
four children, two stepchildren, 10 grandchildren and five great-
grandchildren