Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
“He refused to comply."
Makes it sound almost reasonable, doesn't it?
Small problem - the 'he' was a 16 year old kid who had fallen from a highway overpass and had broken his back. So, naturally, since he didn't respond to the authoritah of the cops on the scene, the cops had to Taser him. 19 times.
See, kids, never make the mistake of not instantly jumping up to comply with instructions given by a cop. Just because you're severely injured is no excuse.
And of course, the multiple "rides" on the Taser didn't help his injuries. I'm sure there was the usual spasmodic response that happens when about 50,000 volts of juice hit you. And it also delayed surgery to correct the damage of the initial fall:
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
I smell lawsuit.
But that's not the only such incident from down this way. Just last week we had a very similar thing happen in my hometown:
Police review Taser use
Captain says device escalated situation.A man injured in a Taser-related fall from the Providence Road pedestrian bridge over Interstate 70 remained in critical condition last night at University Hospital as Columbia police sought to defend their use of force in the incident that began with a man threatening to jump from the overpass.
Phillip McDuffy, 45, suffered two broken arms, a fractured skull and possibly a broken jaw in the fall, Columbia police Capt. Zim Schwartze said yesterday. Police estimate McDuffy fell about 15 feet onto a concrete embankment beside I-70, landing on his right side after the 1½-hour standoff.
Yeah, they didn't want him to hurt himself, so they Tased him. Gee, too bad that he fell and broke all those bones. Who would have expected *that* to happen?
The police use of Tasers is just simply out of control in this country. Seriously. My dad was a cop, and a lot of my family's friends growing up were cops. They've got a tough job. I know that the use of Tasers have protected the lives of officers. But this is insane. It is no longer just the odd asshole who happens to make the Greatest Hits of Police Abuse on YouTube. It has now become commonplace for the police to grab their Taser anytime someone doesn't immediately do what they're told. Time to get rid of the things, nationwide.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos and my blog.)
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Meantime in Queensland, Australia...
"Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson says a 12-month trial of Tasers has prevented serious injury to officers and members of the public."
me too
i was tased in my sleep by a cop for not complying with demands. hell of a way to wake up.
Tasers, billys
As a child in 1960's Spain, I recall my grandfather, an ex-policia civil, had a collection of porras (truncheons).
There was a long hardwood one.
There was a neat thing, maybe a foot long, consisting of a lead core surrounded by hard rubber.
There were others.
He used these back then - coppers today have other "non-lethal" persuaders.
My point: it's not the tool, it's the tool-user that is to blame.
Besides, I think I'd rather be Tasered than shotgunned.
Well, yes.
Well, yes. But in the two instances cited, use of lethal force (a shotgun) would have been *insanely* inappropriate. Tasers are just too damned easy to misuse, and that needs to be changed either through changing the tool, changing the standards for use (and holding those who violate those standards to account), or getting rid of the things.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Putative remedies.
Jim, of the three options you propose to ameliorate occurrences of inappropriate use of force by law enforcement, only the second seems to me to be realistic.
To make enforcement tools more difficult to employ seems retrograde; to eliminate them altogether would be to severely inhibit the options available to law enforcers "at the coal face".
PS I agree with the comments wantobe has made so far.
I can agree with that, Jim
I was going to reply to your initial post, regarding getting rid of the tasers all together, because I think that's going too far. Cops have dealt with the issues of what constitutes reasonable force long before tasers came around. At least with tasers, when irresponsible cops have misused them the majority of the people don't die.
Any tool you give cops has the potential to be misused, because cops are human too and get pushed to a breaking point. And on occasion you have a cop that's genuinely an asshat. The answer isn't to take away the tool, because soon you leave them without any tools and they can't do their job at all. The answer is, like you said, develop reasonable standards of use and hold accountable the ones who misuse the tool.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Hmm.
I've read plenty of glowing stories over the years about upcoming "non-lethal" technology for dealing with "criminals" or "crowd control" and every one of them makes me think we're being boxed in, closer and closer, by a police state. The assumption seems to be that "non-lethal" is perfectly okay ... as if there is no continuum of humiliation or assault between "lethal" and "perfectly fine, no harm done."
Yet somewhere between those two exist all the crimes short of murder that we think are so horrible: rape, torture, molestation, etc. The YouTube celebrity cop who recently beat up a 14-year-old skateboarder, and the one who shoved a cyclist off his bike (both for no acceptable reason), they'd both be perfectly safe in the non-lethal zone of arguability.
"Soon you leave them without any tools" strikes me as an expression of that sort of thinking.
"Cops are human too and get pushed to a breaking point." What the hell?
I'll tell you what, if a class of officials gets handed guns and the power to kill people, I want an INhuman level of restraint, an INhuman level of accountability. Anything less makes the rest of us defenseless sheep.
But then again, not even sheepdogs kill the sheep.
I hope you understand my argument
I'm not arguing that the cops should be given more latitude when they behave inappropriately, whether it's because they are ass-hats or generally good guys who got pushed too far. Because of their positions, and their weaponry, I too expect them to show more restraint than the average bozo. But in real life, some of these officials fall short of that ideal, and they should be appropriately reprimanded. Consideration should be given to the circumstances, though, but in no way would I condone the actions in the two examples you gave.
But as an earlier poster said, and I agree, the tools aren't the real problem. There needs to be better training, stronger standards, and meaningful punishment for the abuses that are inevitable. And because abuses are inevitable, I'd prefer those abuses be with weapons that are mostly non-lethal. That doesn't make the abuses less serious, of course, but it means fewer deaths.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
I'm not sure.
I dunno Rob, I think we might have passed the point where we should allow the damned things at all. The level of abuse by the police is so great, and so widespread, that I seriously question whether it wouldn't be better to just take the Tasers away. In other words, I'm not sure we could put the genie back in the bottle in terms of reasonable standards for use - look at what the police spokesmen *always* say when these instances come to light: they back up the use of the Taser by the cop, no matter how egregiously wrong it is by any normal standard.
It also feeds the mindset of "cops are THE authority, and anyone who questions them deserve what they get". The very fact that misuse seldom leads to serious injury is what is dangerous about them - makes them way too easy to misuse. "No real harm done, so stop your bitchin'." And so slip away any sense that cops work for *us*.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Lowering the Bar
I agree with you, Jim. We're at the point where 7-year-olds and 70-year-olds, people in wheelchairs, with serious injuries, and even those suffering heart attacks or epileptic seizures get tased. Add in the fact that the cops are almost totally immune from any kind of repercussions and you get an ongoing erosion of any sort of restraint.
I had an ex-cop a few years back tell me that the "officer suspended during an official investigation" is the typical strategy used to wait until public furor dies down, after which the guy is returned to full duty, with no lasting mark on his record.
Smart Applicants Need Not Apply
Some time ago, I had read about many police departments turning away applicants who scored too high on the intelligence tests. Maybe it's time to reverse this policy as well.
And in (8 year or so) retrospect, maybe a minimum score on such a test should be required prior to running for public office.
pussy cops
it seems more and more that we've created a nation of nancy cops that would rather tase someone than suffer a bruise or a scratch. what, exactly, do they go to "the academy" for, i wonder? because it doesn't seem to be to learn to deal with potentially hostile individuals anymore...