Streaker without taser, yes. Although it’s not totally clear to me what harm was done.
Most of your other examples – the common thread seems to be that the guys being tasered were violent and incoherent and it’s likely that drugs were involved in several cases. So maybe getting tweaked and then tasered isn’t a wise recreational choice. But I’ve also seen articles where guys got wrestled to the ground by cops and became unresponsive and died. No taser involved. Basically, resisting arrest is a high-risk occupation.
We’re not disagreeing here. Nevada’s set-up certainly does not help, as misuse and abuse appear to be given a pass. I don’t know if stricter rules will help if they don’t have teeth behind them. I do believe that a taser can be used as a first means of force (partly depending on how force is defined). It certainly should not be used in place of physical restraint or on a non-combative subject (and police definitions of combative subject should probably be stricter). Reviews of taser (and firearm) use should not be rubber-stamps processes. Each use should help refine the best way a good officer can respond to an unpredictable situation.
I meant that they hold fast to their strategy of civil disobedience, i.e. go limp, etc.
I don’t believe that any use of force is going to be without risk of injury, or necessarily free from pain. All are going to be unpleasant, or how would it force compliance? I’m sure that cases of people being tickled into submission are few and far between, at best.
I have been on the recieving end of a number of electric shocks, of varying voltages and amperages. I have also been kicked, hit, scratched and cut with a knife during altercations. Of them, I can say that the injuries (cut lip, puffy cheek, laceration on my thigh, etc.) were bad, but the physical feeling of being shocked is absolutely the most painful, excruciating thing that I have felt. And I’ve been hurt in lots of ways, even life-threatening ones through accidents. The notion that we are giving police a device that can cause horrendous pain and leave little or no external mark bothers me, because of the lack of control I feel exists on it’s use.
Recently we had a case here where an officer used a taser on a suspect and then failed to disclose that he had done so. He later claimed that he did not know it had gone off, despite the fact that it was in his hand as he sought to physically restrain the suspect. (cite) Given the description of what a taser does:
It seems incredible to me this officer thought that statement would hold up once anyone began to ask him questions about the incident. (Please note that this was officer was, in fact, fired for his conduct re: this incident & several other highly unethical partakings. Sheriff Bill Young seems to be a good man and a good cop, and IMO has done the right thing in a number of officer-involved cases.)
I would be highly favorable of installing hardware and software in a taser to record the date and time of every discharge, sort of a black box, so that the possibility of oversight will exist beyond recieving statements from the officer and the tazee, but as I write this it is the first time I’ve ever seen the suggestion.
Don’t do anything that will get you arrested is sound advice. If you do get arrested - don’t resist - also sound advice. However, cops often have to deal with people who have already made series of bad decisions. If there is a correlation between drugs and death when tasered, then the police probably need a different approach.
Can’t find my cite in short order, but I recall hearing or reading that some tasers do have accountability devices installed. It should be standard.
Stupid cop misusing a weapon is not the weapon’s fault.
I respectfully disagree. I think the police need the method that puts the public and the police in the least danger, whatever that method is. If someone is going to correlate taser use and death to people on drugs, I think they should also correlate police injuries subduing belligerent drug users with a taser versus without.
The fact that a taser had not yet been determined to have been the cause of death, only a contributing factor, was often used as an argument that the devices were safe to use, and not really that painful or injurious.
Now, the Las Vegas Metro PD has acknowledged that the weapons are not non-lethal, and has discontinued shocking officers as a part of training.
I commend the LVMPD for implenting changes in their training and in their terminology. It is my sincere hope that this will be followed by changes in their use of force guidelines. As I said in the OP,
Let’s hope that other police agencies will also review their policies and their training and make appropriate changes so that no one else loses their life needlessly.
I think you are assuming that reduced use of the Taser will be associated with reduced civilian injuries overall, and that may not be a good assumption. As I mentioned, many methods of effecting an arrest carry as much or more risk than a Tasering. If the other methods are more risky than a Taser, then reducing use of a Taser will increase the risk of injury overall.
Any level of force beyond a “pretty please” carries a risk of death.
Meh. Back in my college days we used to get wasted and shock each other with a stun gun. Yeah, not exactly high class behaviour expected of magistrates and future noblemen, but we all survived. Maybe it was the booze talking, but none of us complained and in fact we all came out unscathed. Not that I don’t admit it was stupid, drunken nonsense. The fact that I remember it is trubute to the fact that it’s not that bad! = )
Then again, I’m not sure how much voltage a tazer has vs a stun gun. My post was mostly in jest, revealing the stupidity of college students… but my point does stand… being shocked is not the “Originally Posted by Snowboarder Bo
I have been on the recieving end of a number of electric shocks, of varying voltages and amperages. I have also been kicked, hit, scratched and cut with a knife during altercations. Of them, I can say that the injuries (cut lip, puffy cheek, laceration on my thigh, etc.) were bad, but the physical feeling of being shocked is absolutely the most painful, excruciating thing that I have felt”, but YMMV.
Shodan, just stop thinking and read the words I write. I made no mention of any of the things you think I am assuming or saying. Please stop trying to put words into my mouth (or into my posts).
If you have an opinion, just state it along with the relevant cites so we know how you arrived at your conclusion. But don’t put words into my mouth, please.
whoa, were you shocking yourself as you typed that?
Seriously tho, it all depends on the voltage and the amperage. A 9v battery is not much. 120V AC at less than 20amps hurts but most people can shake it off after a few minutes with nothing more than mild irritation for a few hours, assuming the jolt was brief. But I would advise against trying out the ballast on a dual flourescent fixture. Or 220V 400amp power. Or a taser. Like I noted, even the police here in LV have stopped shocking each other as part of training because there were too many injuries.
I didn’t put any words into your mouth. I was responding to this:
I understood the bolded part to be saying that you believed that the police should use other physical means of effecting an arrest before resorting to Tasers, and that meant that “no one else loses their life needlessly”. And my response is as posted, that the other physical means also carry risks, and that reducing Taser use will not necessarily reduce the overall risks.
Perhaps there were no alternatives. Without a cite it’s hard for any of us to offer an opinion.
But that type of situation is not analagous to a school kid who is already in custody being tased, or to a pregnant woman who simply refuses to open her car door being tased, or to a pregnant woman who has already been tased and is on the ground being tased again…
Make no mistake about it, folks, I’m not saying cops should never use the things, only that the label of “non-lethal”, which is now being replaced by the label “low-lethality” (an admittance that the orginal term was incorrect), was leading cops to use the things inappropriately. And that without new, more stringent guidelines, cops would soon be using them almost indiscriminately, as seen in many of the examples I cited.
I didn’t see a lot of examples of the kind of indiscriminate “if he hesitates even for a second, Taser him!” that you seem to see coming.
The OP was an incident of Tasering a naked dolt with a fire extinguisher. As I mentioned, that is OK with me. In another of your cites, the police chief questioned the use of a Taser, not because it endangered the suspect, but
In some of your other cites, one relies on the allegations of a woman who
and who was given ten seconds (according to her own attorney) to comply with police demands but did not.
In another cite, a pregnant woman was Tasered after she attacked police with a knife.
Which is something I have mentioned a couple of times.
And in another of your cites,
And in another, the use of a Taser seems to be included in a general complaint of excessive force, and would hardly have been addressed even if Tasers were outlawed altogether.
So I don’t really think you have established that the police is out Tasering anyone willy-nilly who looks at them cross-eyed.
You don’t seem to have established that Tasers are leading to increases in the excessive use of force. And, as has been mentioned, the other “physical means” you recommend have equal likelihood of abuse.
Since I was quoted from the last round of taser debates I guess I’ll weigh in.
After reading the cite (of the event) I would say that the Taser was used by police for convenience. They should have been able to run the guy down in a timely manner. That’s one side of the coin. The guy who decided to call it tails while it was still in the air is another story. His behavior goes beyond the classic streaker and starts to look more like some creepy clown act. Kids don’t need to be exposed to a flasher. A naked man is not going to turn children into pillars of salt but this guy seemed to enjoy the attention of his nudity. If this was Spring Break then he would fit right in but it was a family event. Even Mardi Gras has some standards of behavior. And a citizen is still liable for his or her actions.
Since I was brought up at a time when “halt or I’ll shoot” meant something, I’ll vote for continued use of Tasers. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. History allows for lessons learned. Tasers are not just better than bullets in the vast majority of situations they also limit scuffles (for guns) when police draw them defensively. There is obviously a danger to people with elevated heart problems. Ccaution should be taken with the elderly, the obese, and people who exhibit drug-induced aggressive behavior. “Caution” can be as simple as keeping shock-paddles in the cruiser. It can also mean establishing better combat tactics when dealing with emotional nut-jobs.
