In fact here are some interesting numbers with more crediblity from the Cincinnati article I quoted before.
I’m not a cop, and it sounds like some of the people here are, but I’ve done a lot of ridealongs with several departments, and am interested in getting into the field myself.
That said, from the stuff I’ve personally seen, that guy in the video seems like a really s****y cop. I’ve seen way more belligerent suspects in more high stress situations where the cop DID NOT resort to violence or even arrest. The cop would resolve the situation peacefully, and I’m pretty sure that’s the result everyone wants, right? That’s my whole problem with it. I personally can’t say it looks like it broke any real SOPs or what have you, but come on. If you gotta go from 0 to Taser in 30 seconds maybe you shouldn’t be a cop.
4 warnings sounds like a lot, but it probably goes a lot faster when you compress it into 30 seconds with some MiB phaser gun stuck in your face. As for the thing about her “calling for backup,” a very similar situation actually happened on my very first ridealong. The guy called his wife and his lawyer. Nobody pulled the phone out of his hands. The cop used her wit and intellect to diffuse the situation. And in a pretty clever way I have to admit, especially under those circumstances. The security guard there was the only one who wanted to start bashing heads :rolleyes:
It always seemed to me that half of being a cop is having the patience and smarts to deal with idiots. Sure you can taser her. Or you can take a few extra minutes to you know, be a good cop. Think up a peaceful solution to the problem. What was the solution in this case? I dunno. But I’m pretty sure taking more than 30 seconds to think it out with have been part of it.
So to re-iterate what someone said earlier: legally defensible, morally despicable, and totally unnecessary (my paraphrase 
)
And oh, on that other related note, if they were going to arrest her, I think using the taser is fine in taht situation. I DO think its worse for both the arrestee and the cop to get down to hand-to-hand combat and dragging her out of the car and maybe start rolling on the ground. If its unneccesarry and the taser does seem cleaner by comparison, hey, go for it. My beef was that he resorted to it so quickly.
This just contradicted everything you said before it. The fact is, the officer was arresting her. There is no if. She was under arrest. Pick a position and stick with it.
I meant as opposed to dragging her out of the car. I imagine there was room to convince her to co-operate. Yes, even with psycho-lady. Mostly cuz I’ve seen it happen before, so you’d be hard pressed to convince me that it couldn’t have ended in a way better situation.
Oh it could have ended much better. All she had to do was cooperate, and things would have been fine!
[QUOTE=WonJohnSoup]
I agree with your opinion in that I wish he’d found another way. He might have stepped back and kept his humor and coaxed her out of the car.
“Com’on now maam, you know your license is suspended. Let’s not make this any harder. You got caught, just face up to it.Tell your friend you’re going to location X and they can come bail you out.”
Thats** might **. It’s great if you get an experienced officer who’s in a patient understanding mood. The officer is not at fault if he merely follows procedure and gives you no leeway. There’s too many cops and too many criminals to expect the ideal behavior from every officer. Thats why they have SOP.
She **might ** have had a weapon. Slim chance? Probably but a good officer has to consider that. Ever seen those videos where a cop is jumped beaten and/or shot because when the perp realized they couldn’t talk their way out of an arrest they suddenly turned violent?
As I said before. I’ve dealt with overly aggressive officers and avoided violence by showing them respect and letting them see I was no physical threat.
{thats right, I laid on my back, put my hands and feet in the air , and wimpered. I call in the bad puppy style of self defense}
I think an arrest was inevitable because of the suspended license.
so in that case you thinks its fine?? Quick turn around.
I think morally dispicable is too strong. Officers go out and do a tough job every day. I think we need to allow them to be human beings and not set some unrealistic ideal of how every officer should behave. I’ve met cops who would have dragged her sorry ass out of the car the first time she said “This is bullshit”
She was an example of the spoiled brat citizen who made her own bed and then threatened to sue when she had to lie in it. Having an ongoing pissy attitude with an officer when you know dam well you’re dead wrong {speeding and driving with a suspended license} is just stupid.
“But judge, I couldn’t help myself I was upset and flustered. It wasn’t my fault”
Grow the fuck up. It was your fault.
On a side note. Who knows she may have had one of those brandy new Cingular camera derringer phones 
I would just like to point out that the question raised in the OP is: “Was the use of the taser justified?”
It was not: “Would the best cop in the country have used his taser?” or “Is the user of the taser in this situation absolutely perfect?”
Not, that would be the upper 50% of people who require an escalation of force to comply with the orders of the officer. This alone probably brings us to less than 1% of all traffic stops.
What percentage of traffic stops get snarky with the officer, what percentage of those result in an arrest situation, what percentage of those resist?
We are not talking about something that can happen to just anyone.
You have to:
Commit traffic violation and get caught by a police officer
<lather rinse repeat>
<lather rinse repeat>
<lather rinse repeat>
Commit enough traffic infractions to get your licence suspended
Continue to drive with that suspended licence
Continue to drive in violation of speed limits and get caught
Get snarky with the cop
refuse to comply with cops instructions
9 poor choices at a bare minimum to land in the same situation yourself. More likely closer to 12. Most of us never even get beyond my second or third step.
If you are worried about this happening to you or anyone else you need to take a long hard look at the series of choices this woman made to get to this point. It is a very rare thing for something like this to happen to someone.
This isn’t a random woman drawn from a hat for a random tasering, this is a habitual offender who has no business being on the road.
After watching the video, it looks to me like this incident could have been avoided by either person. The driver who was pulled over was obnoxious and melodramatic, and would most likely have not been tasered if she’d been cooperative. For that reason, I don’t feel much sympathy for her.
At the same time, I was thoroughly unimpressed with the police officer’s behavior. First, the guy was either deliberately being a dick, or he has very poor people skills. Granted, the woman was being a pain, but dealing with difficult people is (I understand) a common task that cops face. The officer’s conduct here seems like an illustration of how not to calm down an angry civilian.
Second, and this is more subjective, the officer struck me as someone who is all too happy to fire off the taser, rather than someone who does it reluctantly. In non-emergency situations, I would hope that most police officers would make some effort to avoid violence if they can. I don’t know if it could have been avoided here, but it looked to me like this guy wasn’t interested in trying.
(I have no opinion on whether – if force was going to be used – using the taser was better than using pepper spray, or wrestling the woman out of the car. I’ve never done any of those things, and I have no idea which is least risky/most effective.)
TJVM, that’s a pretty good synopsis of the events (IMO).
The problem with Taser contributed deaths is that they often involve people who are the most violent or uncontrollable (read drug overdose).
This is a different situation than the video up for discussion. I’ve always had a gut feeling that Tasers were the answer to lawsuits involving victims with broken noses and black eyes.
The problem with dealing with an unruly person is that it is tough to back out of the situation and wait for backup (which will also involve some type of physical confrontation).
From limited personal experience with drunks at a bar there is an extremely short time period between a sane response and psycho-mode. The latter can put you in the hospital because it starts with a sucker punch and goes down-hill quickly. Police are trained to avoid the escalation that results with resistance. They also learn street-smarts quickly when introduced into the real world.
We lost a policewoman in my area because she gave a criminal the benefit of the doubt (she put her gun down in an attempt to get the person to do the same. He shot her). Although this is unrelated to this discussion of Tasers it is germane to the concept of situational awareness. There may be better training down the road but the reality of it all is that police have to put themselves in positions of great harm in otherwise mundane situations.
I never was a cop, but I did security in very rough bars, and handcuffed and pepper sprayed more than a few people. I also worked as a psych tech and restrained a very large number of combative people.
It isn’t like the movies, physically restraining someone is nasty stuff, and people get hurt. Yeah people get hurt or even killed by tasers occasionally but physically wrestling someone to the ground or pepper spraying someone is far far more dangerous and brutal.
I think the cops should tell someone once, maybe twice if there is a chance that person didn’t hear them and then taser them and get it over with. The cops are not there to go toe to toe, they are there to take care of the situation quickly and efficiently. Anyone who fights with the police and gets hurt because of it has only themselves to blame.
Did you read any of these posts or just watch the video? I don’t know how you call the officers attitude being a dick. He was professional but not pleasent. In light of her consistantly beligerent attitude I think he was restrained.
Cite? No, really, find me one that paid off more than $500 to the victim. I dare you.
The going rate for police brutality is only $500? Cite me that one please since I don’t have ready access to LexisNexis and I believe you do.
And I’m still interested in your opinion on car extractions.
Well, between 1990 and 1999 there were 111 LAPD officers found liable for excessive assault and battery. The average payout per officer was over $100,000.
This says nothing for the shootings or other liabilities. This is simple batteries where we can assume the injuries were broken bones or noses.
Are the payouts across the rest of the U.S. so low that they bring the average payout down to $500???
Cite: Page 4 Warning PDF
You know I gotta say the attitudes of both parties in question here were very similar.
Let’s accept that we expect a little more patience from the officer because of his training. He asks her to close her door, She ignores him. She asks a legitimate question. “Why did you pull me over?”
He answers immediately and asks her to close the door for a second time.He used please both times, a term of respect. She ignores him again and keeps talking. He tells her to close the door. She complies but with the comment “I don’t have to close my door” 5 seconds into the stop she’s being argumentative. Can we safely assume that since her license is suspended she’s been pulled over before and knows the procedure? So why does she atart right off being uncooperative? He tells her twice she was speeding. 51 in a 35 isn’t barely over. She them tells him, not asks politiely, that he is not allowed to clock her while driving. He responds with what you can interpert as a sarcastic comment. “tell me how to do my job” She was in fact telling him not asking.
When he backs up and is speaking into his radio she asks him for his name and unit number . She then raises her voice to interupt him while he is on the radio and asks the same question 7 times, while he is talking. I mean please. That is disrespectful and rude and just plain stupid. Let the man finish his call and ask him when he comes to your window again. Note that even after that he responds calmly and gives her his name. He asks for her insurance and license again. Thats when she says .** the lady who was speeding with a break light out and a suspended license, ** that this is bullshit,…twice. Even here the officer remains calm. She continuously complains about how bad the police are while looking for her papers. When he clarifies why she was stopped {four things, not one} she has to make a combative comment. When she overhears him use the word attitude in speaking to someone else she has to make a comment.
Need we go further. What I expect from an officer is that he remain professional and a little detached. It’s unrealistic to expect every officer to be Sheriff Andy and skillfully and patiently turn her crappy attitude around. It’s great if they can do that but it’s not part of the job. They’re trained to not take it personal when the person says “This is bullshit” etc. He didn’t.
The fact that her license was suspended makes this lady even more unbelieveable. She driving 51 in a 35 with a busted windshield and a brakelight out with a suspended license. The fact that she gives the officer attitude on top of this is her just begging for the situation to get worse. It did.
You seem to treat this driver as if she’s just the average citizen on a routine traffic stop. She’s not. She knows it from the beginning. The officer doesn’t and so he treats her like the typical traffic stop until he discovers that by driving her car she’s committing an arrestable offense.
Granted the officer has training. Don’t you have any expectations of this woman being a responsible citizen and a reasonable adult? Since she chose not to be either of those things can’t she expect some consequences for those choices?
Bear_Nenno
Imagine my surprise. Let’s check the scoreboard Alex.
[QUOTE=Magiver]
You can bet there’ll be plenty of lawsuits about tasers too. Some will be ligit. Some will be jerks playing the lawsuit lottery. I wonder if this lady actually sued and what has happened since. I googled but couldn’t find anything.
How tragic.
Thats part of the point I’ve been trying to make. When you think about what cops deal with every day I totally understand any officer choosing to follow the strict guidelines and give no leeway other than that. Especially to anyone that they are going to arrest.
The part that I didn’t like was the use of an unmarked police car to do the traffic stop. Hopefully they aren’t using them at night as well.