So, to sum up this thread: This is America, so if you don’t produce ID on demand, the cops have a duty to shock you into compliance. Police are on the streets to beat and taze people into obidence so they don’t get out of line.
You guys have been reading too much Judge Dread.
No, this America, where even liberal-minded sympathetic people say the solution is to have dozens of cops standing around on streetcorners ready to spring into action in case one poor widdle student decides he doesn’t want to walk out of the library on his own feet.
And here I thought fewer cops was a good thing.
You need to work on your math skillz, two plus two does not equal eight hundred and thirty twelve.
If you’re in a private building that requires ID to use, and fail to present that ID to the staff, the staff can ask you to leave. If the people in charge of a private building ask you to leave, and you don’t, you are committing a crime called trespassing. If you’re committing a crime, such as trespassing, the police may be called to enforce the law. If you fail to follow the lawful orders of the police, they may use force on you in order to make you follow their orders.
My Og, could you have read that more wrong. This is America, where if you fail to leave someone’s property upon request, you can be accused of trespass, and when the proper authorities are called to enforce your removal from the property and you fail to comply, they are permitted to forcibly remove you. As to the best means of forcible removal, this is America where officers are given instructions on what constitutes reasonable use of force, and where their actions can be and often are reviewed as to whether or not they are within guidelines, and whether the guidelines are accurate.
This is also America, where the property’s owner, such as UCLA, can dictate the circumstances which will allow you to remain on their property. Instead of ID, they could have said that only people wearing orange shoes will be permitted to stay, and anyone not wearing orange shoes was trespassing, and it would have been legal to have them removed forcibly if they did not comply.
And you haven’t been reading enough of this thread. :rolleyes:
I dont understand your sarcasm. Do you really think that you can’t? Do you think you have to just let someone reach into your pocket and take your wallet?
There is a point where the assault no longer prevents the crime, and becomes excessive.
If a guy reaches in your wallet, and you punch him or push him. Fine. If he then falls down and you jump on top of him and continue to pound him, that’s a different story.
They dont have to fear immediate physical harm to use a Taser. We’re back to our original Policy debate.
I can’t *assault * the guy, which is what my point was…
… and it’s also your point. You’re right, there is a point at which the violence is excessive - it’s unnecessary. I’m fine in pushing away a guy if I have to stop him taking my wallet, but as you say I wouldn’t be alright if I jumped on him and started pounding. It’s the same thing here; tasering the guy wasn’t necessary, the cops could have just dragged him out.
Really? This is actually news to me. I assumed that cops did have to have reasonable grounds to fear immediate physical harm to use a taser. After all, as you’ve said in this thread, a taser is only incapacitating briefly - enough to stop an immediate attack, but not enough to prevent an attack that came later. In what situation would a taser be of any use in a situation where a cop feels a suspect may attack them at some later point?
Can I taze him?
To clarify my position, I don’t like that this student got tasered in the first place, or that the police had to use any force at all. I wish it hadn’t been necessary, and that a peaceful alternative could’ve been found. Carrying the kid out bodily would’ve solved this situation.
However, I fail to see how it’s a sustainable policy to have enough cops on hand to carry suspects out — both non-compliant and actively resisting — for every arrest. It’s not viable as a departmental policy. It’s expensive and it turns us into a police state. Having been to a country where there were military officers on every streetcorner armed with SMGs, I don’t want my country to be like that.
Yes, you’re right. I’m sure you remember those days, before tasers were used, when military officers with their SMGs did stand on streetcorners. I remember when I visited the U.S. how disturbing it was.
Sarcasm aside; who’s arguing that tasers should never be used? Certainly not me.
So allow me to question the policy. Is there good, solid evidence that Tasering is able to accomplish complience? That is, can people actually follow orders to leave a building within * n minutes after being Tasered?*
If the average person is unable to for a duration of n minutes, the policy for use of a Taser then needs to be rewritten to include a duration between uses for non-complience of something like 2n minutes.
No, but you’re conveniently dismissing that the student was inciting others to resist, by suggesting that since he intended them to sit in, that the situation wouldn’t get out of hand and it would all be peaceful and non-violent thereafter. “Oh, I didn’t intend to incite them into violence,” the student can say. “Anything that resulted from my cries for resistance is therefore not my fault.”
Cops are trained to be in control of their situation, especially in crowds, because crowds can turn violent in a heartbeat. Carrying him out bodily means the cops could not defend themselves (their hands would be full) if the crowd got ugly.
What’s your reasonable alternative? What do you say should be the policy?
I thought by point he’d told the cops to fuck off, the guy had pretty much used up his option of leaving peacefully. Chances are he was going to be arrested, peacefully or not.
Dragging him out is not necessarily safer. Hell, even a simple bruise from that would be more of a lasting injury than what the Taser gives him.
I did say the effects of the Taser are immediate. I did not claim the suspect’s threat of physical harm had to be.
Depending on the department, the Taser falls somewhere between Pain Compliance and Impact Weapons. They teach certain pressure points in the police academy. The point of inflicting this pain is not to punish the uncooperative individual, put force him to comply. The pain from the Taser is the same idea. It’s like a whack to the common peronial or a thumb under the mandible. Depending on Department Policy, an officer does not need to fear immediate harm to use his Taser. Simply showing a likelyhood for violence and in some departments, simple verbal noncompliance, are enough to reason to use a Taser.
A cop putting his hands on a suspect is a risk to the safety of the officer and to the suspect. The Taser–while scary and overwhelming in videos–is actually a safer option for cop and suspect. Much of the screaming and crying out comes from the suprise of the shock. Once it is stopped, the pain is gone. It really the safer of the two options you keep proposing.
I’m not following. In every situation it would be of use. He could simply pull the trigger again and reTaser him. What is your point here, I dont understand.
Wait, you mean “Why would a cop use a Taser at all if there is not immediate threat of attack?”
If that’s what you mean, then I explained that above. In any situation where pain compliance from pressure points would also be an option. Pain Compliance by means of pressure points actually is more of an injury risk because it involves physical contact between officer and suspect. Also any situation where pepper spray would be used. However, pepper spray in this situation (if it was even available) is a very poor option because this was an indoors and there were many other people around who would have suffered from it’s use.
So of those options:
Pressure Points
Dragging down the Stairs
Pepper Spray
Taser
Taser is the best option for all parties.
Somebody has already responded that he has been tasered as this student was, and would have been able to stand up and walk out of the room under his own power in the time allowed this student.
Provided possession of the Taser is legal in your jurisdiction, Yes. You can Tase him.
This might be true. I would submit that Bear_Nenno underwent a good tasering as part of his already rigorous physical training. Is it reasonable to suppose that an ordinary person could have done the same?
Uh no he screams “I SAID I WOULD LEAVE!”
Is this an informed, legal opinion or just a WAG?
I dont know about “average guy”, but I was not physically immobilized (from pain or otherwise) any length of time after the shock stopped. But I retained the memory of being shocked, and I would do anything the officer said to not be shocked again. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It will immediately stop you in your tracks and will make you want to cooperate. (or cry like a girl… one or the other)
For an example, watch this officer IMMEDIATELY walk away after the tasing stopped.
Every officer in the country certified to carry the M26 Taser has himself been Tasered.
Another good one:
