Fascinating that handcuffs were invented so long before tasers considering that they would have been totally useless on anyone who was ‘unwilling’.
Please.
As for the shove… I actually don’t think it was an agressive move at all. This officers mistakes started when he started making threats. Once he did so, he had little option except to follow through, or risk letting the situation spiral out of control in a very dangerous location.
I’ve just heard commentators mention it. You see it occasionally at weigh-ins when they’re trying to intimidate each other but never in the ring/cage. PrideFC is defunct and didn’t operate under American rules anyway (except their show in Vegas); with the exception of elbows, they were generally a lot more permissive.
Please change your location to “Utopia” if you really believe this is how it’s always going to go. What you describe is what happens in a situation where both parties are reasonable. He had her get out of the vehicle because she WOULD NOT sign the ticket and he was arresting her. For some people you can calmly explain why they should sign the ticket until you are blue in the face, they will do what they want. After so many times (how long should the police have to spend telling her over and over? five? ten? how much time wasted?) he told her to step out because she was being arrested. What did she expect? “Sign this ticket or you’re going to be arrested.”
Since you’re wanting to turn this into parenting, when you tell a child what action is needed and what consequence they will receive if they do not comply, you need to follow through with the consequence or they learn nothing. So, she needed to be arrested.
She didn’t offer to sign the ticket until the officer demonstrated to her (after warning her) that she was getting out of the vehicle TO BE ARRESTED. At that point, it’s too late to comply with the first request (signing the ticket) and it’s time to be arrested. Did she learn this lesson and comply with putting her hands behind her back? Nope. Instead she resisted arrest and continued to be belligerent and combative.
Do you have a cite for that?
Really I’m actually curious as to whether that’s true.
Is not signing a ticket an arrestable offense? Or is it used to get tough on people whose attitudes you do not like? It has been said signed or not, she has to pay the ticket. What was the point except to push around an old lady that pissed him off/ The cop was way off base.
I have no idea whether it is true as far as the law is concerned. I’m not a cop or an attorney, that’s MY opinion on the situation. Threatening to arrest someone and then not doing it seems wrong to me. She’d been resisting long enough, IMHO her bullshitting around time was over.
The way I understand it (as it was explained in a very similar thread) is that issuing a ticket is legally equivalent to arresting a person, and when they sign the ticket they are agreeing (for their own convenience as well as the officers) to deal with the matter at a later date.
Thus they are not actually arrested for refusing to sign. (if this is innacurate it just hinges on the legal definition of ‘arrest’)
One thing I am sure of… they absolutely DO have the right to refuse to sign the ticket! (they just can’t drive away if they do refuse)
Got it.
Personal insults-bad.
Impersonal ones like “Boomers are all jerks, tase them.”–OK
So if I hadn’t directly quoted anyone but had made a general comment about disliking the negative tone of the comments put forth by unnamed “young people with ‘parental issues’ who have little or no respect or compassion for their elders or their elders’ contemporaries”–would that have been OK?
I’m looking for guidance here as to what’s “too personal”, not looking to get to get in a fight with you or to get thrown out.
I get growly most days seeing the general ruin that the economy is in and realizing that 17 years from now, at age 75, my co-workers at the Walmart greeting gig will be referring to me as “the new kid with the beard”.Sorry I offended you.
God, Abbie Hoffman must be rolling over in his grave. Maybe while laughing his ass off at the same time. “Respect and compassion for their elders?” 
From what can be seen on this video and the OP video, the “big boy” one is a good example of professional police work. The cops are calmly explaining the situation to the guy, repeatedly trying to defuse the situation and have the guy voluntarily comply. It’s only as a last resort that one calls for the taser to be used. In the OP video, the cop may have been acting perfectly legally, but he appears to be escalating the situation through his actions, and using the taser very early in the situation rather than as a last resort. Legal, yes, but moral or professional? Not in my opinion.
Tasers can be used in place of violent confrontations. in Detroit there was a retarded kid who was threatening the cops and passerbys. The situation was diffused when they tased and cuffed him. in the past they may have shot him . But the taser is not a toy. Cops should not use it whenever they feel like. If someone thinks the cop was threatened, I feel sorry for them. if they say he could not have taken care of it is a quiet and professional manner, I would be amazed.
The cop was way,way wrong and he should be ashamed of himself for tasing an old lady.
Gonzo, she was not some helpless old lady and it does nothing for the argument to pretend she deserves some kind of pass for being old. She was resisting arrest and saying she was leaving the scene. She was dropping the f bomb and daring him to hit her with the taser.
If he had physically restrained her and put the cuffs on her there would be people bitching that he could break her old bones and hurt her. If he hadn’t pushed her away from the road and she got hit by a car there would be people bitching about that.
If she was my grandmother I’d be ashamed of her for acting like an ass. Honestly, with the way she was acting I think he should have given her a field sobriety test. Normal people don’t act that way when they are pulled over and when you resist arrest and act like an asshole, you can hardly cry foul about being some poor defenseless old lady. The spin put on this (grandmother! great grandmother!) is really very silly. If you break the law (and we’ve all been guilty of speeding!) then you buck up and take it like a rational adult, you don’t put your own life and the life of an officer in danger because you want to cop a shitty attitude about it.
The moral of this story is to not act like an asshole
Who said anything about always? I’m talking about this instance. Treating every situation exactly the same is pretty much the epitome of bull-headed idiocy.
And is there tape of the confrontation from the very start? I wonder if the “granny was being mean” proponents would change their tune if it turned out the cop set her off by opening the scene with a horrible attitude of his own.
Hell if I know. My idea of a “decent police officer” apparently no longer has any bearing on reality, and I have some company in that.
And that nothing an officer of the law does constitutes “acting like an asshole,” and that in cold hard terms, both his life and his freedom to act are worth more than yours.
Why, exactly, is he an asshole? Should he have begged her pretty, pretty please to stop acting like a petulant child and sign the ticket? Should he have gotten down on bended knee to beg her for her signature on this matter?
Being old and cranky doesn’t put you above the law. If she were half as frail and fragile as people would like us to think she wouldn’t have fought so much and been so mouthy.
No sympathy. None.
Granny was all too happy to sing her song to the news before the dash cam came out, after? Nope
Another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbnoDkS36Dc
Jesus, issues much? :dubious:
You know, looking at the “shove”, it seems SHE backs up very dramatically – I don’t think he pushed her that hard. And the WHOLE time even before that, all she keeps yapping about is her age.
Sorry, age is no excuse. Look at that guy who shot up the Holocaust Museum. He was 88.
Sorry if I missed it scanning through the thread but is there an uncut version of the dashcam video? You know… before fox news edited it?
Fair enough. Thank you, Bookkeeper.
As for escalating, the officer did give her five warnings to stand back and calm down before using the taser. She seemed to be engaged in a pissing match with him. It would be disingenuous to say that she didn’t have the opportunity to de-escalate the situation as well.