But that was the very substance of **Shagnasty’s ** argument: those who resist arrest deserve to die, so anyone opposing tasers on the basis of potential lethality have no good reason supporting that position. I just want him to explain why we should allow people who deserve to die the luxury of a taser, which is ill-suited to render the justice they deserve.
Well, he can obviously speak for himself…I read his comment more like ‘people who resist arrest get what they deserve’…IOW, they shouldn’t resist, and when they do they take on a measure of responsibility for what befalls them.
Again, I won’t get into the whole ‘deserve’ thingy…and really, I’ll let him speak for himself on this anyway.
-XT
That is so completely far off from my position that it makes me weep for the logic skills of most of humanity. It isn’t restricted to you and opposing viewpoints seem to be so flawed that they are almost insane yet many people adopt them.
Here are the logical steps involved:
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A police officer stops you in your car or questions you on the street.
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Some sequence of events leads to the police officer that you are going to be detained for a supposed crime.
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The reason for arrest isn’t important at that point because you are going to the police station or to jail. The judicial system will have to work things out even if you are a saint. The only job the police have at that point is to get you to a holding facility.
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Any resistance including simply walking away is resisting arrest and is a serious crime on its own even if the prior suspicion was just shoplifting a 3 cent piece of candy.
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You have just turned yourself into a felon and the police have to be dealt with right then and there with whatever force is justified in getting you in the back of the police car. You can’t fight your way out of it, argue your way out of it or simply walk away. The police have to find a way to bring you in. It is just that simple.
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The officers in question have a limited number of options at this point. In the old days, they just had a gun, some physical subduction moves, and a billy club that can easily cause physical harm up to and including death. Modern technology has given them miraculous tools like tasers and sprays that can serve the same purpose with less risk to the person in question. That isn’t to say that there is no risk. The U.S. is big and a taser will sometimes kill a person. I would guess that risk is lower than a pistol shot to the torso or a billy club blow to the side of the the head.
These shrill counter-arguments astound me almost to the point of believing that some people’s brains operate on pure emotion of outcome rather than any logic.
I will invite people that share contrary viewpoints to give feedback on these realistic scenarios.
Situation A) A police officer stops a car on a very rural road in West Texas. The suspect was weaving all over and wouldn’t stop for three miles. The driver was a woman in her 50’s and smelled of marijuana and alcohol. The woman refused to get out of her car and kept making threatening moves to get under the seat and into the glove compartment. The officer has a Glock 9mm, a billy club, pepper spray, and a tazer. The women suddenly tries to drive away but can’t get the car in gear as fast as it takes for the officer to choose a weapon. He obviously can’t let her go and letting her escape is going to result in a high speed chase with innocent people at risk.
What should he do?
Situation B) An officer stops a young black girl for speeding and finds a small piece of crack in her car. He is a big man and she is slight and thin. They are stopped beside a rural road but she has to be placed under arrest because of the crack. As he tries to put the handcuffs on her in front of his police car, she throws a fit and bites him. Remember that she is going to jail immediately at that point no matter what. He can’t let her go and she can’t be allowed to simply slink away. The officer is alone and has a pistol, a billy club, pepper spray, and a taser. The other alternative is complete physical subduction using moves designed to cause extreme pain. You can’t get the handcuffs on her without one of these. Even small women are formidable opponents when it comes to getting the handcuffs on and getting them in the back of the police car if they resist.
What should the officer do?
Is this really so hard? All crimes, including the smallest misdemeanors can result in death if the person in question does not cooperate with the police. Refusing to cooperate is itself a serious crime and that justifies even further force. The power of government is ultimately back by a progression of steps that end in lethal force.
I see you have abandoned your position that "anyone that dies resisting arrest from a taser deserves it. " I withdraw my question.
I didn’t abandon that position. My position has always been that a person that resists arrest and has a bad outcome from it has only themselves to blame as long as the police were acting lawfully and using reasonable force for the given situation.
Once again, let me restate the obvious because some people don’t get it. Once the police say you are going to be detained then you are going to be detained and even the smallest of crimes can end up in death if say, a shoplifting incident ends in a 100 mph chase through downtown Los Angeles. They have to use any measure to bring you in or disable you at that point.
You can’t really single out tasers without putting them in context. The other alternatives are disabling physical moves that are meant to cause pain, guns, clubs, sprays, tear gas, road barricades, offensive police car moves to disable a vehicle, rubber bullets, tear gas, SWAT teams, breaking into houses with a warrant, and helicopters. Those measures will be invoked for even the smallest crimes if there is resistance to arrest and the person fights back or manages to escape. All of them have some risk of death and almost all of them have less risk that tasers even if a few people die from them. The U.S. is big and people die from all kinds of wacky things.
This is a serious question. What would you recommend if a suspect for anything started fighting back and you had the usual tools at hand?
Yeah, but the police should just leave a 15 year old girl alone who is resisting arrest, rather than pepper spray her. Surely they could just shut down long enough to get her some counseling, or a teddy bear, or something rather than pepper spray her for resisting. Right?
See how you moved the goal posts? The taser is justified if the suspect is fighting back, and the safety of the officer is threatened. Would you allow that it is now not justified if the suspect is simply not complying? I reject the notion that the taser is a compliance tool; it is a weapon, and its use should be investigated as closely as when an officer discharges his gun.
The argument is that tasers help law enforcement officers use their gun less, but the only time I see using a taser would be if the other guy has a club or knife or some other non-lethal weapon. That’s essentially the only use I can see. It’s above a club, yet below a gun. At that stage, the risk of death is acceptable. If a cop is facing a guy with a knife then go ahead, tase away.
Why is it torture? Because (correct me if I’m wrong) isn’t the electrical voltage duration controlled by a trigger on the device? I would imagine that it is simply jolts at a defined interval (those clicking sounds you hear) but the duration of the whole event seems to be done by the cops. Sure they are getting tased in school or whatever, but never by people they don’t trust.
But it should under no circumstances be proper for a cop to reach for his taser because someone is resisting non-violently. That’s simply fucked up. Unarmed people shouldn’t be subject to that shit.
What the fuck should the cops do? Just follow the non-violent person around for a few minutes/hours/days/weeks until they finally decide to comply?
Tell me how that would work, I’m dying to hear this.
Here is an idea; put them in handcuffs and then escort them to the police car.
My understanding, here, is that you’re both right and wrong. For handheld contact units, that’s the case. As well for those units that have both a contact and shoot capability, when used in direct contact with a person. But for firing the unit, the sequence of charges is more often set, and not related to what the user does with the trigger.
It’s hard to talk about a uniform taser, because there’s so many models.
Wow, that’d be great…except for the whole resisting part.
Your goal posts are on wheels also I see…
Resisting /= non violent non compliance
Wheel this up your ass
Are you saying you know someone who can verbally protest so loudly that it can render two or more policemen physically incapable of handcuffing them and escorting them to a police car? Them must be lungs of steel.
This is improper use of the taser. There is barely time to establish that the suspect is even resisting. This is a lazy cop, using the taser not to subdued a threat to his safety, but to inflict pain to establish dominance. That is just shitty, lazy, unnecessary brutality.
Any cop who cannot subdue an unarmed suspect without killing him should be thrown off the force, sans pension.
No, all you have to do is walk around with your hands by your sides. If the cops try to cuff you, just don’t move your arms to the back. See, you are being non-violent. You aren’t raising a finger towards the cops, just passively resisting. You can evidently get away with this for as long as YOU see fit, since it seems to be regarded that if the cops do anything to FORCE you to submit to a cuffing is a violation on your right to resist non-violently, per the OP.
No one has suggested this.
So I am non-violently resisting arrest, per the OP. What should the cops do? Just wait until I pass out from lack of sleep? Starve myself to the point that I can no longer resist? Call for Dr. Phil to talk me into seeing it their way?
Or just say, “Look, we’ve tired of this shit, here’s a tase, bro”?
Put. the. hand cuffs. on. Per the OP.