Heat beam thing? What do you mean? Was it mentioned in this thread and I missed it? Can you swing me a link please?
I’m a cop (20+years) and I carry a taser. I think they are wonderful tools in the right circumstances.
However, I wholeheartedly agree that they are being misused by my brethren. Once we were handed these things, we seem to have forgotten that there are other options.
Part of the reason for this is that using a taser pretty much guarantees that the officer won’t be hurt in the fight. I don’t like getting hurt - I would prefer to avoid it if possible. I’ve been in plenty of “fight-for-your-life” situations, and it is great to know that I can just zap someone and end the fight instantly.
Also, in those real hard fights, the suspect is far more likely to be injured. If I’m rolling around in the gravel with some drunk, I’m not pulling my punches. I’m going home to my wife, and I’m not letting some asshole prevent that.
As to “taser-related” deaths - my understanding is that only a very few deaths have been even linked to the use of a taser. If you really read many of these stories, these people often die many hours or even days after the arrest. If the electric shock was killing them, I would expect it to happen very quickly.
Most of these deaths are more accurately caused by “excited delirium”. A person is extremely amped up by drugs, mental illness or anxiety and then exert themselves in a fight with the cops. For some reason (I don’t think anyone really knows the mechanism), the body shuts down. We had people dying from this long before the tasers.
I agree with many other posters - the need is for proper training, NOT taking away the tasers.
It’s the Army’s Active Denial System, called, informally, an Agony Ray. Here’s a GD thread on the system.
ETA: Thalion, thanks for your input. I appreciate hearing from someone with law enforcement experience on this issue. The fact that you seem to be agreeing with my position has nothing to do with it. Really. 
I am not condoning anything, but I do want to point out that “The cop was speeding too” is not a valid excuse for speeding. (Yes, even if he’s in front of you.)
I decided to do a separate post about the Utah trooper video. I think he handled that situation extremely poorly, but that the use of the taser was actually justified.
When the guy said he wouldn’t sign the ticket, the officer never explained what the consequences would be or tried to get him to cooperate. Once he had the guy out of the car, he immediately drew the taser and began screaming at him. That’s a sure way to make someone NOT cooperate.
However, once the guy started walking back to his vehicle and reaching into his pocket, using the taser was the right thing to do. The other options were to try grabbing the guy and getting into a fight in the middle of a highway (where both the trooper and the citizen could be killed) or let him get back in his rig and drive off (possibly precipitating a dangerous pursuit). Either one would have been foolish.
The trooper created the whole mess, and should be sent to remedial training on handling citizen contacts (hell, I’d probably reprimand him for handling it so poorly). But once the situation was created, I think the taser was the right way to end it.
Just a quick FYI, since I hear this argument all the time. There is no requirement to read anyone their rights until you are ready to question them. It has nothing to do with placing a person under arrest. On TV, they read a person their rights as soon as they arrest them. I’ve never done that, except when I want to ask them questions right away.
I thought you were a cop, not a pathologist?
Fun fact about electricity is that while many people have survived shocks much, much more severe than a taser, the reality is that there is no absolute line when it comes to a lethal level of current. Even a defibrillator, designed to save lives, stops the heart in order to bring it out of fibrillation.
I think the tasers should be done away with, not just because they are over used by bullies with badges, but because electricity is too damned dangerous to use on a person unless it is a last-ditch effort to save his life.
It does illustrate that he wasn’t exactly following normal speeding ticket procedure, and that he doesn’t think he needs to follow the same rules as everyone else.
I think what would’ve been justified is if the woman in the SUV had run his ass over for the risk he posed to her husband’s life.
The asshole cop created a situation in which two people guilty of nothing more than being in a car going more than 40 MPH were either tortured or threatened with it, and you’re defending that torture.
Thin blue line, eh?
If it’s not actually required by law that the guy sign the ticket on site, which in Utah it is not, then there were no ‘consequences’ to explain. The officer, get this, can write ‘Refused to sign’ on the line and then the ticket is still a ticket and the guy still has to either pay it or show up for court!
It is not illegal to refuse to sign a traffic ticket in Utah. The badge-wearing bully is entirely and solely at fault for everything that happened after he said ‘get out of the car’.
He had his thumb hooked in the side pocket of his pants, with the rest of his hand outside the pocket. The SUV driver seems somewhat scared, but very calm, considering that the badge-wearing bully has shown that he has no impulse control whatsoever but is armed.
No, it wasn’t. The badge-wearing bully should have tried to de-escalate the situation rather than, at every step of the way, getting more and more unstable and irate with a man who did nothing outside his actual, legal rights. Instead what he did is act angry, belligerant, and menacing until he got to use his taser, and then boast about it to the other cop who shows up after the fact, including telling at least one outright lie.
I guess you’ve never told people what they’re being charged with either.
So much for rights in this country. When a cop acts like a dick to you, whether you’ve done anything illegal or not, you’re fucked because no matter how calm you try to be, he’s going to tase you.
Y’know Thalion, you’re not doing a damn thing to change my opinion of badge-wearing bullies.
An insurmountable task, as you’ve made quite plain in your many prior antiauthoritarian temper tantrums on this board.
How frustrating it must be to face that there are some confrontations you cannot solve by shooting your way out of them. Emasculating, one might say.
Hardly. If you read the GD thread about the girl who was pepper sprayed, I was on the side of the cop in that one.
What terrifies me is that Thalion and others do not care how much of a loose-cannon a cop is, nor how dangerous the cop makes a situation, nor that the motorist who was tasered twice, left lying on the road with his head in traffic, and threatened with tasering again if he wouldn’t stop talking while already in the back of the cop car, nor the fact that the state trooper blatantly lied to the second trooper to respond. They think that despite everything that cop did wrong, using his taser on a man who had committed no criminal action (even if he was actually speeding, it’s a code infraction, not a crime) was perfectly hunky-dory.
It terrifies me to hear a guy who states that he’s been a cop for 20 years say that even if what the cop is doing to you is something he has no legal right to do, you better not try to defend yourself, you just take the abuse and hope that don’t end up like Abner Louima.
And the next time you want to accuse someone of being afraid their balls might be cut off, you should probably check to see if they’ve got any. Although I suppose you will come back with some female-specific insult next - that perhaps my distrust and fear of the police because of the use of bully tactics and the defense of the same - is due to some irrational uterus-related condition.
You didn’t respond to a single one of the actual points that I made, and no one has disputed any of the facts of the Utah video, but since this is the Pit, and you’re certainly free to do nothing but hurl insults about my fear of losing my balls, go for it.
It stands for itself that it’s all you could do.
I’d rather be Tasered than shot, and I’d rather anybody get Tasered than shot. But Tasers are probably more likely to be abused as “compliance tools” in situations where force of any kind is not needed. They say Tasers are safe, but they’re tested on people who know what’s coming, not on people who may be drunk or just irrationally upset that they’re being confronted or arrested by police.
For the people enjoying this, by the way, just wait until Taser’s guns and crowd-control devices hit the market.
I’m glad Thalion posted here, it’s just one cop’s perspective but even he sees a problem with how readily tasers are used.
Being a cop would often be a really crappy and dangerous job, and I can understand why cops would get tired of resistance, back talk, and non-compliance that is preventing them from doing their job. I think subconsciously these cops we’re seeing on video see tasers as a compliance device.
So what should the cop do? He told the guy to not walk away, the guy walked away, anyway. Ask him pretty please, don’t walk away? Call for back-up, so more cops can ask him to not walk away? Get physical with the guy? How is wrestling him to the ground any worse than tasering him? Maybe spend a few hours arguing with the guy, trying to get the guy to see it his way?
There has to be some point when the guy has to obey the police, even if you think it’s for a bullshit reason.
And I’m no cop-worshipper, but I think that if you are disobeying an instruction from an officer, you had better be prepared to be challenged about that decision. If you are walking away, for example, don’t be surprised if the cop employs some means of keeping you from walking away. It’s your choice.
You bet they could, but isn’t having 2-6 cops piling on somebody who is non-violently resisting just a bit of overkill? Say, as much as tasering the person? I got the impression that the non-violent resister had some sort of halo of immunity from any police action. After all, they aren’t doing anything, just not complying with the orders of the police. Or is that not the way it works?
Actually, I think he’s an expert on deflecting responsibility.
Haven’t you heard of the Thumb Gun? It’s threatening officers nationwide.
“Piling on”–those are your words. If a gaggle of police officers today is completely unable to pull someone’s arms behind his back without turning it into a rugby scrum, law enforcement is in a sad fucking state.
The mind boggles. The thing that trips me out about this is that you posted this in response to a post advocating the physical restraint of suspects. Whatever you’re smoking, please share.
I’m actually well aware of your gender, Catsix, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there.
Funny, I’ve reread Thalion’s posts repeatedly and I don’t see anything remotely resembling this statement. Rather, I see someone agreeing that the trooper handled the situation poorly and deserves to be retrained/reprimanded. The “points” in your post, however, include a number of your own unsupported opinions and no small measure of angry hyperbole, much if it toward Thalion, whom you eagerly lump in with the rest of the “badge-wearing bullies,” a pet phrase of yours.
You also accuse him of defending torture, mockingly refer to the “thin blue line,” and suggest he “never tells people what he’s arresting them for.” Which of these cogent, inarguable facts would you like me to address first?
And here is my personal favorite:
Exactly. If you meet a cop, he will tase you, and there is nothing you can do to avoid it. I was tased four times on my way in to work this morning. The sidewalks were littered with citizens convulsing and grimacing at the jackbooted feet of the BWBs.
Hey, this style of “debate” is pretty fun! You have the floor.
bolding mine:
A drove of officers, Hostile. I think its called a drove.
From the point at which the driver is told to get out of the car, to the point of him being shot with the taser, three seconds elapse.
He ‘walked away’ for approximately one second, prior to being told he was under arrest, before being tasered. In fact, the cop doesn’t even finish his command for the driver to turn around and face him before firing the taser. The driver is ordered out of the car, which he complies with. The officer, as the man is getting out of the car, puts his clipboard on the car and draws his taser. The driver sees the taser, and asks ‘What the hell are you doing?’ The officer tells him to turn around, and put his hands behind his back. The driver turns around with his thumbs hooked in the sides of his pockets, fingers outside the pockets, and takes two or three steps toward the SUV at which point the cop begins to say ‘Turn around’ and fires the taser. The driver falls over the white line, with his head in the travel lanes. While still in shock after being tasered, the officer orders him to roll over, and within one or two seconds of that order, tasers the driver again.
All for refusing to sign a traffic ticket - which is not illegal in Utah..
There was never a reason to order this man out of his SUV at all. The proper response would have been to write ‘Refused to sign’ on the ticket, issue the citation, and await the court date.
Utah state law further says that if an officer is unable to serve the traffic citation at the time of the infraction, it may be served later by delivering it to the person who is being cited, so even if he did get back in his SUV and drive off, the officer’s recourse should have been to deliver the ticket to the guy’s home, either in person or through the mail. Remember that by this point the officer has already run the license and registration and it’s obviously come back as valid, or the man would’ve been arrested for an actual offense.
Yes, there is, and it is when the cop actually has a legal reason to do what he’s doing. Arresting someone for not signing a ticket, which is not illegal, is not one of those reasons.
Then he’s not agreeing with me. I don’t think this was just a matter of ‘poor’ situation handling, or that the trooper deserves to be ‘retrained/reprimanded’.
I think this was an example of outright police brutality, that this cop is a loose cannon and a liar, and that a reprimand is way too mild. He deserves to be charged with assault/battery, and with reckless endangerment (for leaving the guy lying there with his head in the travel lanes of a freeway), and to lose his job.
I note you left out the part that says ‘When a cop acts like a dick to you’, probably because it’s contrary to your strawman argument. I never said every encounter, at all, with a cop means you’re going to get tased.
I said that there’s nothing you can do when one is being a dick. When one is breaking the law, or assaulting you for no valid reason, you’re theoretically allowed to defend yourself. In actual reality, you’ll be lucky to end up more like Jared Massey than Abner Louima, but both are possible.
And there’s nothing you can do to avoid either one.
True. I’ve just read pathology reports on the topic. I know I haven’t read everything nor do I have the expertise to properly evaluate them. I only said that this was my understanding.
I didn’t realize this was your area of expertise (electricial engineer or medical doctor?). I just don’t agree with the fear of electricity. The effects of electricity are actually very well understood.
OK, I completely missed this fact. In Washington it was illegal to refuse to sign a Notice of Infraction until this year, so I assumed (foolishly) that he was justified in making an arrest.
With that in mind, I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG. This trooper should be fired and possibly criminally charged.
There is no requirement under the US Constitution or Washington Constitution that we have to tell the arrestee what the charge is. However, I usually do.
All I was saying above was that just because he didn’t read the person his rights, that didn’t invalidate the arrest (of course, the fact that he didn’t commit a crime DOES invalidate the arrest).
Well, guess what: I’ve had encounters with police before, and a few of them were dicks. Guess how many times I’ve been tased, pepper sprayed, hit with a baton, handcuffed, or had a broomstick shoved up my ass? Would you be surprised if I told you “none?” How on earth did I manage that, I wonder, under your theory that “a cop acting like a dick to you” necessarily and unavoidably ends up with me being assaulted?
I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’ve had at least one run-in with a police officer that was less pleasant than you’d have liked. How many times were you tased, and do you still bear scars from the prongs?
There is something you can do when a cop is “being a dick,” and that’s answer his questions and comply with his orders. If you feel you’ve been wronged, you can later complain to his supervisor, or sue, or post anti-cop rants to a message board as you see fit. While it’s probably not as satisfying as it would be to knee him in the balls, or say “fuck you, dickhead cop, I’m outta here” and walk away, or stand there and argue the finer points of the traffic code, it nevertheless decreases the likelihood that you’ll end up in handcuffs.
I have a B.S. in Computer Engineering, which at first glance does not sound related until you take into account that >50% of the credits in my major were in hardware design (digital electrical circuits) and I had several EE courses in AC/DC circuits. I taught both AC and DC circuits courses, as well as industrial motor controls (the buggers that use 480V 3-Phase and up) for electricians, which involved a live lab in which we built 480V 3-Phase circuits and tested them, hot, during every class. I also taught the electrical safety class for electricians.
I’m not an expert in medicine, but I am pretty well educated about electricity.
I don’t fear electricity, but I certainly respect what it can do to a living thing, and I know that it’s far from 100% certain that even a small shock won’t kill someone. While many people have survived large jolts of electricity, 0.1 Amps is considered the threshold for death to occur, and depending upon a lot of factors, less than that can be fatal depending on the path through the body, the size of the person, the sweat on their skin, the duration of the shock, and a lot of other variables.
People have survived lightning strikes, and people have died from plugging in a blender. It may sound crazy to you, but I’d rather be pepper sprayed, or have my arm broken, than be tasered. It’s not just about the pain, it’s that it scrambles the body’s electrical signals, which is one of the ways that electrocution kills.
Now this, well, you’ve changed my mind about you at least. You are not a bully with a badge. I’m sorry that I lumped you in with the insane one.
I’m going to take this to mean that if someone asks, while cuffed and in the back seat of your cruiser, ‘Why are you arresting me?’ you would say something like ‘You are being arrested for possession of marijuana.’ not ‘Shut up or I’ll taser you again.’