That seems like a pretty heavy response to an umbrella that’s on the other side of a closed door to me, especially when the man with the umbrella has said nothing, made no threats, and has not attempted to strike anyone. But it gets worse.
My $.02 is that the officers are idiots and dangerous to the public. To feel threatened by an umbrella (which we don’t even know Mr. Love had in his hands; it may have been on the floor or propped against the wall for all we know) on the other side of a closed door is ludicrous. To then arrest the man for disorderly conduct after ascertaining the facts (he was sick, is deaf and mentally disabled) shows a further (and huge) lack of judgement.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: tasers should be taken away from the police. They use them with nary a thought and see no problem with inflicting great pain on a person for virtually no reason at all. In this case, the officers went about their job poorly and a man who wasn’t hurting anyone or anything was subjected to intense suffering.
So, 2 points for discussion: did the police here do anything wrong, IYO? And should we continue to allow law enforcement officers to inflict great pain and suffering on citizens?
A follow-up for people who like the idea that police have tasers: is there anything that could sway you to think that police should not have tasers? This could be an incident, a series of incidents, new information about tasers, etc.
To be fair, people who think tasers are a bad idea: could anything sway you to rethink your position?
When police make an arrest in a situation like this they may not have all the facts. That’s just the way it goes.
I’m certainly willing to discuss better training on using the taser but they’re an excellent tool. While there are certainly cases where tasers are abused there are other cases where tasers likely prevented both officers and suspect from sustaining serious injuries. Compare the use of the taser with nightsticks that could result in multiple contusions or broken bones.
I don’t know if they did anything wrong. I wasn’t there nor am I privy to the facts beyond what was printed in the link. As for your second question maybe we can rephrase it. Should we continue to allow law enforcement to use a less lethal weapon that typically leaves no permanent damage or should they use nightsticks that are likely to leave injuries that could be very serious?
Please don’t mistake me for a “rah rah the police are never wrong” kind of guy. I don’t think they’re always right but I also don’t think tasers are inherently bad.
Sure, I can change my mind when presented with new evidence.
Because it quite clearly does not violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Tasers aren’t used to get confessions, they’re not used as a form of punishment, though, I suppose, you could argue that the taser is being used to coerce or intimidate. Of course that’s covered under “pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
The officers weren’t afraid of an umbrella. There was some punk disobeying the orders of the officers of the law. That gives them the right to capture and arrest you. If you put up resistance to getting arrested, it’s their duty to use non-lethal means to subdue you into compliance.
This is what we pay them to do.
Yes, it ends up that it wasn’t some punk disobeying orders. But the odds of such is impressively low as to be silly to put into consideration when the worst that happens is getting tasered. No, getting tasered isn’t a fun and joyous thing, but it is likely the safest and most efficient way for police to subdue a person. So of the options, that’d be the one to ask for.
Tase them all… tase them all
Tase the young and the short and the tall
Tase the old ladies because it is fun
tase the arrestees even in the bun
Tase them all… tase them all
George III’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter will be happy to know that you have come to the realization that those punks disobeying orders lawfully issued by authorized agents of the Crown were wrong, bacy 233 years ago.
A policeman has the right to give orders to a member of the public only under certain specific circumstances – and this was not one of them.
If the officer has been called to eject a person from a place of business, I would venture to guess that he has the right to do just that.
Unfortunately, I’m not a lawyer or I’m sure I could fish up the specific laws in just a minute or two.
Ultimately, I suspect you’ll have a much harder time to prove that a police officer does not have the right to remove a person from a privately owned building, that he doesn’t have the right to force (for some value of force) compliance, nor that he can’t arrest you for any undue resistance. If you truly want to make that argument, I’ll gladly look over the ordinances which state it and admit defeat.
Punk: hood, hoodlum, goon, punk, thug, tough, toughie, strong-armer (an aggressive and violent young criminal)
I would submit that a young lad who has holed up in a bathroom, won’t respond when asked to leave, and hits you when you try to force him, who is most likely doing drugs or vandalizing the restroom, quite firmly fits in the descriptor of punk.
Yeah yeah, he’s evil and awful for making assumptions totally in line with his experiences every single day. It’s not like Dopers would ever accuse their cow-orkers of stupidity, or clients at any sort of sales/customer service job as being stupid before proven intelligent.
Yes, the cop was in the wrong in the end. But it’s silly to pretend like he wasn’t doing anything other than his job based on what he was legally obliged to do and based on real world experience. 999 times out of 1000 it would have been some dumb punk who’d been snorting glue, and not a person in the world would have cared that he got tasered. This cop just happened to win the anti-lottery.
Believe it or not, there are many people in the world who do care when the police overstep their authority, even if the victim is some dumb punk snorting glue.
Probably because this topic has recently been discussed ad nauseam in terms of cases where the issues were much more ambiguous. In this case however, the mere sight of an umbrella as a justification for the use of force, let alone weapons, is too absurd to merit a serious response.
So what alternate course of action do you suggest? You’ve got a door between you and the kid you’re trying to manhandle, giving you all of a few inches access, and its just as likely you’ll lose an eye or impale yourself on the umbrella tip if you try to rush in.
Really, I’d like to here this magical alternative to getting in and dealing with people resisting arrest where the arrestee just steps out all lackadaisical-like and accepts getting handcuffed. I’ll bet you that option just doesn’t exist short of pointing a gun at the person and telling him to comply or he’s going to get aerated. And I’d argue that that’s not a better alternative.
You need to deal in reality. A police officer has a job to do. He has means and training to finalize a problem in a safe and dependable manner. We’re paying him to use that training to defuse situations like this. We’re not paying him to sit on his thumb every time someone doesn’t do as ordered, while a SWAT team drives over to climb through air conditioning venting, sneak up behind a person, and slip handcuffs on. That’s just not practical.
I think you have umbrellas confused with bayonets. I supposed there’s a tiny chance of eye trouble, but I’m sure even cops can wear safety goggles if it’s that much of a risk.
