Where did the policeman screw up?
As someone with no LEO education whatsoever with no knowlege of proper protocol, here’s my WAG. When the person got out of his car, the LEO clearly told him to get back in his car. The suspect clearly had no intention of getting back in his car. ISTM that the officer should have gotten out of his cruiser with his gun drawn. Again, I have no idea if that’s protocol or not.
I could hear his taser clicking, but the leads either didn’t make the connection to the suspect or they weren’t effective as the guy didn’t seem to slow down which indicates to me that he may have been high on something (PCP?). At that point, I’d think the pepper spray should have come out right away, either by him or the other officer that showed up.
But this is all easier said then done and the situation got out of hand very very quickly.
ETA, does pepper spray do anything physically? IOW, if you’re on a drug like PCP that will let your overcome the pain, can you still see?
Most Police cars here have a lock of some kind that needs to be released before the transmission will leave park. That stops most of these idiots.
No training here. But…
After the tazer was ineffective, twice, (that’s how many times i heard it clicking), I would have shot him with my gun. The suspect attacked the officer…that’s not insignificant. I bet he would have been fully in his rights to shoot this guy after his tazer was ineffective.
Again, I’m not a LEO, or a lawyer, or anything but a guy with normal anecdotal experience. And it’s my guess that this cop would have had no negative repercussions from his superiors or the media (other than the normal “A cop shot a black man - woe is the black community” nonsense from some overzealous black rights advocates) for shooting this suspect after a failed tazer attempt and obvious caught-on-film physical attacks from the suspect.
The guy charged at the cop. The tazer didn’t work. That what guns are for…when all else has failed.
ETA: So, this cop screwed up by not popping this fool with a few rounds from his sidearm. There’s no telling how many minivans full of soccermom/kids that could have died because this idiot ran off with a cop car. The video shows how wonderful his driving skills were…
If you did that as a private citizen you’d probably be charged with murder. You can’t shoot someone if there’s no imminent danger to you life.
I do have a good bit of LE training.
Suspect jumping out of car before you even stop is a HUGE red flag. The cop didn’t do anything grossly wrong, but if I was doing the stop I would have stopped farther back from the suspect’s car and ordered him back in his until my backup arrived (You can see in the video there is another cruiser maybe a mile up the road). If he refused to, I might draw down on him until backup arrives and we can try to take him down together. I would not have tried to charge him and immediately taze him- they ended up in traffic and clearly the guy was not subdued if he was running around and able to get in the cruiser. The biggest thing the officer did wrong was just fail to establish control over the offender, but based on that guy’s actions that’s not really something he could be expected to do on his own. Backup is always key, especially with a felony suspect.
He MIGHT be able to justify taking shots after the suspect steals his cruiser just because he obviously has grossly reckless intent, but it might not hold up in court; I wouldn’t take the shot. Once the suspect had the cruiser, they were pretty much screwed.
What kind of country do we live in? A police officer pulls you over and you attack him and it is not immediately ok to shoot him? If you are such a fool or under the influence to such a degree to think it is ok to attack a police officer, you pretty much forfeit any expectation to be treated civilly. How this is not obvious to all is astounding.
In the United States of America, police officers are only allowed to use lethal force in the imminent defense of life.
When would you have shot him? Before the tazer was used the guy wasn’t threatening the officer’s life. He was actually backing away from the officer and acting very odd. He didn’t attack the officer until after the tazer was used and at that point, I’d say the suspect was too close for the cop to pull out and discharge his firearm without a very strong possibility of the suspect taking it away from him…if the officer could even get it out of his holster. The way I saw it play out, once the officer was out of the car and ordering the suspect to put his hands behind his back (and he wasn’t doing it) the LEO had a two choices, lethal or non-lethal, but only enough time to chose one. Lethal was not called for.
We can’t shoot people that resist arrest, but aren’t threatening anyone, on the off chance they might steal the officer’s cruiser.
He didn’t attack the officer until after the officer used the tazer.
Ahh guys go back and look at the video and read the intro to it again. The guy that got out of the car (shoplifting suspect) is NOT the guy that took the car.
The clothes are different and the video itself says a passerby took the car.
The officer left the keys in in the patrol car and this allowed the passerby to take the car while the officer was busy with the suspect.
Well that changes everything. The cops should shoot anyone passing by an arrest scene. That stop people from stealing squad cars. 
I have the video paused and am reading the intro now. It says:
It clearly says (to me, at least) that the shoplifting suspect took the police car after getting into an altercation with the police officer and the passerby.
Also, the news story linked to in the OP makes no mention of a passerby and states that the suspect, Arthur Lee Thompson, is indeed the same man who stole the police car.
29 years of law enforcement here, 25 with one of the largest agencies in the state.
A few points:
*The taser is not only a weapon of self defense. It can be used as a tool of compliance. Local/state laws and individual agency policies vary on this.
*Police officers are always free to escalate or disengage.
*Police officers can and should be one level above a subject. If a subject throws a punch, the officer can use a baton (or taser, pepper spray, etc.). If the subject uses a club, mace, a brick, etc., the officer can use a firearm.
*There is a factor called “preclusion” when it comes to defensive tactics. If a weapon fails the officer can use more force. In the case of hand to hand combat exhaustion is a huge factor. Within a minute one can be too tired to fight. If the officer can articulate that he was exhausted, his taser failed, and he was fearful the subject would be able to beat him to death or get his firearm away, lethal force would be justified. The important part is articulating the fear of death/great bodily harm. Police officers shoot unarmed people now and then and most of the time are able to justify their actions.
*Most of the squads I’ve driven had a feature in the ignition that allowed you to keep the car running but pull the key out when it was in park. This prevents the battery from going dead while the rollers are on (squad car lights suck a tremendous amount of juice. They can kill a battery in 10-15 minutes.) but it also prevents the car from being driven because the car cannot be put in drive without the key.
I’m curious if the taser ever actually deployed properly. What state does a person have to be in to shrug off a taser?
In layman’s terms, the prongs can fail to stick. But an officer can utilize a “dry” stun (pushing the unit directly onto the subject like one uses a traditional stun gun). If the prongs stick (as they do in about 98% of the time) or a dry stun is used, I’ve yet to see anyone fight through it. I didn’t carry a taser with the department I retired from after 25 years. But I carry one now with the department I work part time at. I just got certified with it in February. Which meant I had to take a hit. I hate to be crude but it sucks the sweat off a dead mans balls. Subjects who have been tased before usually comply immediately when you pull it out. It really, Really, REALLY, REALLY fuggin sucks!
Can clothing mitigate the shock? And would you describe the effect as pain?
For the most part, no.
It’s not really a “shock” sensation. it feels more like your muscles are all cramping up at once and imploding on themselves. It’s almost impossible to move which is why subjects can’t just run away while being tased. Some police recruits are afraid that because it’s electrical they’ll empty their bladder or bowels during training when they’re tased. Just the opposite. The sphincter contracts and get’s sucked up into the upper esophagus during the tase. (At least that’s what it felt like to me).
Unlike pepper spray (which can take an hour or even several hours to wear off) once the taser has been turned off recovery time is very quick. Seconds to a few minutes at most.
I have been pepper sprayed as a work requirement. It is quite painful and restricts your ability to see (mostly because of the excessive production of tears and the pain of keeping your eyes open) but it isn’t anything like the instant-incapacitation you see in movies. Even without pharmecutical enhancement, I would not be suprised to hear of a person continuing to fight after they have been sprayed.
Tasers, on the other hand, ARE capable of the instant-incapacitation you see in movies. It is impossible to fight through the pain of a taser, because your muscles involuntarily spasm. I would be quite surprised to see a person get shocked with a well functioning taser, and be able to keep fighting.
ETA: I assume the taser did not function correctly in the video.
I once asked a policeman friend if he’d ever accidentally tasered himself, and he said no. He emailed a few months later and said he’d done it – he had to do a dry stun on someone and got his own finger on one of the prongs. He said he retained the presence of mind to curse me as it happened, saying I had jinxed him.