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	Photo by Sam Yu John Myers of North Church Street in Thurmont recalls the night last June when he was hit with a Taser by a Thurmont police officer. Myers was standing on one of the steps to his home in the background.
	COMPLETE COVERAGE Go to fredericknewspost.com/taserturmoil for complete coverage. — — — DATABASE Search through 44 reports of Taser use by the county's police agencies from April 2007 to July 2008 Age breakdown Click the image for a look at the age breakdown of those who were tasered.

On a scale of one to 10, "it was an eight or a nine," Buracker said recently, chuckling.

"It hurt," he said. "It was a pain I'd never had before."

Eighteen months have passed since Buracker, 34, of Brunswick , got tasered on his shoulder blade about 2 a.m. Aug. 5, 2007.

Buracker wasn't wearing a shirt at the time, so the Taser probe came in direct contact with his skin.

A use-of-force report filed by Brunswick police states that Buracker was tasered after he became combative while en route to the Frederick County jail on charges including first-degree assault.

The Frederick News-Post obtained 44 use-of-force reports from the county's police agencies during a 16-month period by making a request under the Maryland Public Information Act.

Use-of-force reports document events leading up to the use of force, which include hands-on maneuvers, a strike from an expandable baton or deploying pepper spray, a Taser strike or gunfire.

All but two of the 43 people tasered during the time frame studied were men.

Police said Buracker was tasered as he was slamming his head into a passenger door; he was damaging the police cruiser, the report stated.

"I don't think it was fair," Buracker said this month. "I was talking to him, and he tasered me," he said of Brunswick Officer Chris Handler.

"I didn't say nothing after that," he said.

Buracker is one of three men who discussed what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of the electronic devices used by local law enforcement.

John Clifford Myers is another.

About 5:30 p.m. June 27, 2008, Thurmont police went to Myers' residence to investigate whether the 6-foot, 250-pound man had assaulted his wife with a club.

When Officer Mark DeBord arrived, Myers opened his door and jumped on his front porch. He began screaming about the removal of his cars.

Myers "lifted his arms in rage above his head, clenched his fists, lowered both his fists, assumed a fighting stance (and) lunged towards me," DeBord wrote in a use-of-force report.

"I then deployed my Taser."

Contacted recently, Myers recounted how one probe hit him in the chest. The second hit him in the leg beside his groin.

"I was 16 feet away when he tased me," said Myers, 47, a former Army specialist with the 82nd Airborne.

"It's pretty sad when a cop can't manhandle a man to the ground," he said.

Police called an ambulance, as they do when any force is used, and told Myers to leave the probes alone.

"But I pulled 'em on out," Myers said of the probes, which can penetrate skin or clothing an inch deep.

"I can still feel it in my body," Myers said. "It's very, very bad."

Myers called on law enforcement to stop using the Taser.

"They eliminated the electric chair because they decided it was too cruel and inhumane," he said. "I think they should do the same thing with the Taser."

Not everyone has a vivid memory of their experience, however.

Michael Althardt was tasered about 1:55 a.m. Aug. 22, 2007, as he struggled with staff in the emergency department at Frederick Memorial Hospital.

"I don't remember any of it," said Althardt, 24, of Brunswick . "I was blacked out from drinking."

Althardt said he doesn't understand why Brunswick Officer Lee Brierly felt compelled to use the device.

"Why do they need to tase someone in a bed?" he asked.

In the use-of-force report he filed, Brierly wrote that the force was needed to restrain Althardt, who had kicked Brierly and a hospital security officer in the face.

Althardt later pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, according to court documents.

Considering what they experienced, Buracker and Myers said they suspect they know what they would do if faced with an officer poised to use a Taser on them again.

"I'd do whatever he told me to do," Buracker said. "I'm all done with trouble."

Myers recalled the jolt of electricity initially "makes you weak in the knees," he said. "But I'm a pretty big guy, so it didn't affect me that much."

"I think I would go right after them."