Bottom line is that you shouldn’t be able to shock someone because they’re annoying you. The girl was in handcuffs and completely harmless. We as a society should accept that there are people who act annoying sometimes and we have to deal with it without resorting to electricity. Imagine if parents tased their kids for being annoying.
What about people who decline to abide by a request when they’re not breaking the law, such as the guy filming the police searching his neighbors home without a warrant?
I think I should have added that my link is to a (small) pdf.
cheesesteak people being arrested are occasionally complete asses? Who’s have thunk it?
Tasers use is on par with beating someone up (at least as much pain) and police are not allowed to do that to someone already in custody just because the subject is a complete ass who won’t shut up. Yet in the real world they can deny they did it more with a Taser than with a person who has pictures of bruises that they received. That is real world abuse that occurs because the Taser is there that would likely not have happened if the leave no mark Taser was not present. Tasers are also expensive. I would think the burden is upon those who promote their use that they provide enough benefit to support their wide deployment.
Most definitely will do that. By any chance, did you get a chance to look at the study from UCSF that Red Barchetta posted up thread? Almost all of the anti-taser articles I was looking through revolved around that one study and it’s findings. Any thoughts on the study? Do you think Cecil will include info from that study in his article? Just curious about his and your take on it.
I meant to comment on it last night but it completely slipped my mind in the alcohol haze (at least I didn’t run out naked and get tasered though). Correct me if I’m wrong here…but the naked guy in the OP wasn’t harmed in any case…was he? So, it seems to me (assuming I have that part right) that it would have been a wash for the polices. The difference would have been that instead of a video showing police brutalizing a poor naked man with a taser we’d have had one of them hosing down said naked dude with pepper spray…which would have probably gotten nearly the same marks on the outrage scale (‘Why did they have to pepper spray that dude?!? Why didn’t they just do <something else>?? He was naked and helpless, blah blah blah…’).
And of course I suppose there would always have been the outside possibility that this guy was allergic to the pepper spray, or would have freaked out on getting hit with it and harmed himself, etc etc.
Optimally, I think the police should have simply tried to cuff the guy and take him away. But I think the fact that he was nude played a role in them not wanting to get physical with him (how would THAT have looked on YouTube?? ;)).
-XT
Because they didn’t want to touch the naked guy. I think a lot of the problem they had dealing with the guy was due to his nudity and their reluctance to have to touch the guy.
If true (and I’m not assuming it is), that’s just ridiculously immature on their part. These are guys who have to handle shit, blood, cum, spit, piss, mung, and god knows what else in the line of duty but they don’t want to touch a naked dude’s skin? They’re SO reluctant to do so that they’d rather taze him? Reminds me of my friend who wouldn’t get in the back seat of my car because my wife left a tampon back there . . . STILL IN THE PACKAGE!
What sort of asshole puts a taser to a naked harmless guy? Were they threatened by his micropenis? In a civilised setting the correct thing would have been to have a laugh at him, take a picture and go about your business. If anyone deserves getting tasered it’s those porky bullies.
There’s another point I was reminded of by a poster in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11078017#post11078017
Obviously, we don’t know whether that’s the case or not yet; however, this wouldn’t be the first time that has been demonstrated (or used as an excuse–it’s admittedly hard to tell). Those from the Bay Area surely remember the uproar just a few months ago over an officer who shot someone on Bart, who used the “I thought it was a taser” defense.
I don’t know how often this has occurred, Thalion seems to believe it’s happened a few times. All I know is that it’s good deal more difficult to mistake a club or pepper spray with a gun than it is a taser.
Has he officially claimed that defense? Til now I’ve only heard armchair authoritarians use it on his behalf.
According to his lawyer:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_11592317?source=most_emailed
Okay . . . possible, I guess, only because I can’t comprehend why he would so cold-bloodedly murder someone in front of such a crowd, but it still leaves the question of why he would taser a guy who is face down on the floor, surrounded by cops, and not armed or resisting. I don’t want to get too sidetracked, but it seems a little relevant.
Good question! Which, assuming he actually did mistake the gun for a taser, loops back to my original point that tasers are being used in situations where they’re uncalled for. And it’s especially unfortunate if/when guns have been mistakenly deployed instead.
Grim Statistics – Taser Deaths Keep Rising | Five Husbands This article puts it at 367 last August. I will not quibble because I read the article saying 400. It is not out of line. I just want the cops to show a little respect for Tasering. Some seem to be taser happy. I have heard of people being tasered multiple times. If it incapacitates, why do we have to nail a guy 5 times?
I just got back from a party where a prosecutor was telling everyone how he loves talking to the cops right after they taser people and listening to them make fun of the perps, talk about how fun it is, etc.
I looked at the study - I think the study is somewhat limited due to its tight geographic focus, as well as the self-selection of only using data from police departments who gave complete responses within their small subset (in fact, the study authors note this as two major failings of their work). This quote from the study itself is somewhat damning - on Page 879:
So they didn’t even ask if the Taser had actually been used in those incidents? Really?
On your other query, I know Cecil looked at the UCSF study, but I cannot answer if he thought it was worth including as a specific item to call out.
Tasers (according to presentation from their CEO that I sat through);
- Reduce office shootings (since they have something else to use)
- Reduce officer injuries (since they don’t have to wrestle with people).
Taser’s site has .pdfs of several police dept. review of the use. Now, these are the positive spins - but I thought that some of you might find this interesting.
http://www.taser.com/RESEARCH/STATISTICS/Pages/FieldUseandStatistics.aspx
Did you investigate alternate methods of making people cooperate? It seems worth pointing out that people in similar states of ill-health can die from other treatments as well.
Not really myself, but it’s very possible Cecil or some other assistant did. But keep in mind as well it’s a big subject, and it’s hard for the Big Guy to fit everything he wants to say into 800 words.
Man if only that guy what have just done what they told him to begin with?
I am sure they were dealing with this guy several minutes before the camera came and they put up with him a several minutes after that. This situation was only going downhill and it was obvious that unless the cops had waited until the guy wasnt drunk that he was going to do anything they told him. They also had to put up with a very angry crowd. To be honest with you, the idiot got what he deserved.