Or, it could be indicative of his maturity level. It’s not unheard of for people to pull stupid stunts or act defiantly notwithstanding drug- or alcohol-related impairment.
He wasn’t staggering around and his words were clearly enunciated. Both suggest he was not intoxicated. He was spouting the classic “the body is a beautiful thing” hippy mantra and clearly loved the attention from the crowd when he twice threw his cloths away.
I don’t see his behavior as anything different than the childish antics of a jackass of which there is apparently no shortage of. If he learned anything it’s that public nudity is more shocking to the bearer of stupidity and that having the nickname “tiny penis man” isn’t a good ice breaker for dating people of either sex.
You have a different interpretation of the video. But it doesn’t matter.
I’m personally much more bothered by the “knee drop” the one officer does than the tasing.
I can only go by what I see. Other then the flower child “I love you man” pats he kept giving the cop there is nothing to indicate any intoxication. He repeatedly bends over to pick up clothes to throw which will make a drunk unstable on his feet. His behavior reminded me of the “don’t tase me bro” Florida University student.
I tend to agree because there was no follow through. I don’t know what officers are taught but I can think of a number of ways to cuff him that are easier to execute. If 2 cops handcuff one hand each and the cuffs are connected by rope then it’s a simple matter to draw the rope tight and hog tie the hands.
They must have the ability… but they don’t always have to use it. They are supposed to use discretion. Enforcement is not an end unto itself.
Believe it or not that’s a good reason NOT to tell him what to do. Making demands which you know won’t be followed is just ESCELATING the situation! As long as there was no danger to anyone they should have waited for as long as it took, and been ready to act if things got out of hand. Instead they acted like thugs and THEY MADE the situation violent.
I’m sure the cops agree completely. That’s the problem. They weren’t doing their job. They were being street judges. They decided he deserved corporal punnishment and they tried convicted and punnished him on the spot. That is not the role of police.
Wait… which is it? Should or shouldn’t the cops be inflicting corporal punnishment on those who fail to comply? Once again, it seems like some people here think that if the police used any kind of discretion, the public would see it as a sign of weakness and erupt in chaos and anarchy.
On the topic of pepper spray, when it became standard equipment for police, there was a similar situation to what’s happening with the taser today. Cops wanted to dole out corporal punnishment for the well-being of their own ego… so they pressured government to give them a non-lethal weapon. They got pepper spray, and became street judges. The sheeple didn’t notice anything was amiss because it was only ‘undesirables’ being attacked. But as always happens the street judges eventually became street executioners. Then there was an outcry, and just as with tasers the issue went totaly off track with endless irrelevent debates about to what degree a facefull of irritant may have contributed to this persons death or that persons. As with tasers, investigation as to the dangers of pepper spray was confounded by the fact that police will simply lie about the cause of death when they kill someone with their ‘non-lethal’ weapons. Eventualy people came to their senses and realized that everything has risks and a few people are always going to die at the hands of police no matter what policies or weapons they use. But after the whole mess there was too much scrutiny, people were paying attention, looking for cases where police were abusing pepper spray and any situation where pepper spray would actually be justified, it was not sufficient and they’d have to use a gun instead. So cops once again went in search of a new non-lethal weapon which they could use without having to justify their violence. Tasers are that new weapon. And the whole thing begins again.
How did you come up with this? If a criminal doesn’t want to comply and the police can’t subdue him then how do you arrest someone for breaking the law and resisting arrest? The police gave multiple warnings and asked him nicely to put his clothes on. There was no judge and jury scenario here, they arrested him using nominal effort. Naked hippy guy escalated the situation, not the police. they were polite and gave him ample opportunity to address the situation.
I think he was tripping, not drunk. Tripping his hippy, peace-loving ASS off.
There is no contradiction and no issue of how the public would see it. When I say the consequences “will and must be severely unpleasant” I’m not saying they should be but that they must as a matter of fact be. Any method of forcing compliance involves force, which denies a human being freedom and control of his own body - something inherently unpleasant and unfortunate. Forcing someone to do anything is always an extreme step and it should always be regarded as such. Nevertheless, arresting someone has a necessary element of force and coercion that can’t be avoided. Once you decide to arrest someone, you have already decided to use force on them.
Furthermore, because we don’t have the ability to control someone’s mind directly (thank goodness) any use of force will necessarily involve physical pain and coercion in rough proportion to the degree of resistance. Again, it’s not that this should be the case, but that it will and must be the case because of the nature of physical force used against a person. The purpose should never be to cause pain, but if causing pain is the most effective and least harmful method of applying the necessary force for an arrest (which hasn’t been proven, but which is probably the reasonable belief of the officers given their training), then so be it.
“Can’t subdue him” who said anything about that? I said they don’t HAVE TO subdue him. If a person’s non-complience is causing no harm except to the ego of the officers involved, there is no reason to “subdue him”. Attempting to do so, pointlessly endangers the officers and the public… including the person they are “subduing”.
And he didn’t respond. If any one of us asked him nicely to put his clothes on, would we actually expect him to respond? Would any rational person expect a warning from police to be helpful in resolving the situation? Nah… Any idiot could predict it would only make things worse. But these officers went and did it anyway. They think, just because they CAN get their way, that it somehow follows that they HAVE TO… and when he continued to disprespect their athority, their egos could take no more and they resorted to force.
Non-complience, even defiance, is not the same thing as escalation.
But they don’t HAVE TO force compliance!
Nor do they HAVE TO arrest him.
There was no danger to anything except the egos of the officers. They could have just let it go.
I live near a town stuck in the 60’s and it’s like a hippy museum. If he’s tripping he acts like every other hippy I’ve met. Big on flower power but short on respect for laws or authority. He seemed capable of making basic decisions and chose to play to the crowd.
That’s exactly what it is. If you operate under any other premise you will be treated as such.
Yes, normal people would find a warning from an officer to be helpful in their decision making process.
There is no danger in refusing a speeding ticket, and yet you’re going to jail if you do. Your premise is simply incorrect.
I agree that they could have ignored it from the get-go (assuming no one complained). But once they issue an order, their JOB is to get people to comply. They weren’t harassing him because they didn’t like him. They were confronting him because nakedness is against the law, and they decided (much to their eventual regret, I imagine) that it was of sufficient weight to warrant their involvement. Once they get involved, I don’t see why they would just say, “Oh, you want to keep breaking the law, well in that case go ahead.” If he’d been willing and able to provide ID, I could see just citing him and letting him go, but even then, if you don’t comply with the citation, guess what happens?
ETA: Ultimately what your argument comes down to is that laws that you think are trivial shouldn’t be enforced. But the cops HAVE to enforce laws even if THEY think the laws are trivial. Given that premise, what could they have done besides using force once talking failed?
I don’t know if officers are required to arrest a person if they refuse a speeding ticket. But I know they aren’t required to arrest a person if they are nude in public.
Also, I know a rational person would respond to police. But I wasn’t talking about a rational person, I was talking to the nekkid freak in the video 
Also… you will now admit that I am right.
(careful… don’t start escalating things)
It’s not all or nothing. They can simply ask, and keep asking. As long as nobody’s getting hurt, there’s no reason it has to progress to issuing orders or threatening arrest. Even then I don’t think they are required to carry through on their threats. Once again… what do you think would happen if they just let it go? Chaos and anarchy right
I think you know that’s not accurate. You really think he’d have gotten the taser if he was a friend of theirs? You really think they regret what they did? How many people here have said “he deserved what he got” We both know the officers in the vid thought and still think he deserved it. I’m not even going to argue that he didn’t deserve it… but it is NOT the job of the police to carry out corporal punnishment for bad behavior.
Incorrect. Police have discretion.
The requirement is not on the police; it is on the Stupid Naked Tripping Guy[sup]TM[/sup]. If the police tell you to stop breaking the law, you are required to obey. If you decline to obey, and choose instead to defy the police and continue to break the law, and the police arrest you for it, you are required to submit to being handcuffed and put into the cruiser.
That’s how it works in an ordered society. All of us, thru our elected representatives, establish laws to maintain the public order. Then we choose other people to enforce those laws. We give the enforcers the power of arrest, and the (limited) power to use force to compel people to submit to arrest.
So -
[ul][li]Stupid Guy takes on board (apparently) a greater load of chemicals than he can reasonably accommodate. []As a result, he decides to take off his clothes and advertise the fact that his masculine parts are much less than adequate. []The police ask him nicely to put his pants back on and stop displaying his willie to the general public.[/li][li]Several times.[]SNTG[sup]TM[/sup] refuses to comply.[]The police therefore place him under arrest.[]SNTG[sup]TM[/sup] resists arrest.[]The police use a Taser to get him to stop resisting.[*]A multi-page thread blossoms on the SDMB where one side argues that anything beyond “pretty please with cream and sugar” is a sign of jackbooted fascism, and the other side argues that Tasering fat guys with small penes is necessary to maintain the public order, and anyone who says otherwise is a bigger weenie than SNTG[sup]TM[/sup] has.[/ul][/li][quote]
They can simply ask, and keep asking. As long as nobody’s getting hurt, there’s no reason it has to progress to issuing orders or threatening arrest.
[/quote]
There we disagree. I have confidence that the SNTG[sup]TM[/sup] is going to keep refusing for much longer than a non-S and non-T person can keep asking.
And once you have established as a general principle that the police won’t do anything if you just defy them, then the public order is at risk.
Time is a resource. And the police do not have unlimited resources. The more time they spend waiting for SNTG[sup]TM[/sup]s to come down off their buzz and put on their pants, the less time they have for everything else.
They are if they want to be taken seriously.
Complaints from those who don’t want to see SNTG[sup]TM[/sup]s walking around with their dicks hanging out.
Correct. It is their job to make lawful arrests of those who flagrantly defy the law and violate the public order. And sometimes that requires more than a polite request, even one repeatedly made.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh, no, I don’t think they regret what happened to him. I think they regret having to touch a naked man! They probably wish they’d ignored him for their own sakes!
Seriously, have you ever been in a position of authority? It’s one thing to say, “It’s just 5 m.p.h. over the limit, but it’s going with traffic. I won’t single him out.” It’s another thing to turn a blind eye when you see someone deliberately and blatantly flouting the law. If I’d been one of the cops I wouldn’t have wanted to approach the guy at all, but I’d have felt awfully uncomfortable just ignoring him. It just smacks of dereliction. And what do you do in the unlikely event that someone does complain later? “Sorry, chief, but I didn’t want to get involved?”
What would happen if they just let it go? Making “suggestions” that they aren’t willing to enforce is a bad practice for police because no one is going to cooperate with police without the credible threat of enforcement. (I don’t slow down when driving because I’m impressed with the police officer’s selfless concern for my safety!) Plus, it makes the police seem like pointless busybodies. If something isn’t worth arresting or ticketing someone over, WTF are they wasting their time making “suggestions” for? They should mind their own business!
Chaos and anarchy? No, just people ignoring minor laws they know the police won’t bother to enforce, much like they do now. But why should the police encourage that? I’m not aware of police ever deciding unilaterally to just ignore laws. They may prioritize elsewhere, or use less forceful methods of getting you to comply, like issuing a warning instead of a ticket, but if you don’t follow the warning, what do you think will happen? The police don’t have to go around poking in bushes looking for nakedness, but if they completely ignore the most blatant offenders, it’s hard to say they’re doing their jobs.
Take this guy, they could have kept asking him to get dressed, and he could safely ignore them. Then he decides to go home when the concert (or whatever) is over, and they want to arrest him, but he doesn’t comply, so they just keep asking him to submit to arrest rather than force him. He gets in his car and they follow him, lights flashing, but he doesn’t stop. He gets home and they knock on the door to arrest him, but he doesn’t open it.
At some point, in order to prevent this from becoming SOP for scofflaws, the police have to MAKE people do things, like submit to arrest. If the police are only allowed to use force in the case of imminent violent harm, non-violent laws will be completely unenforceable.
I do not think this phrase means what you think it means.
If a ticket has been issued, that person has been arrested. However minor violations such as a ticket allow the subject to be released with a signature that promises they will appear in court (or resolve it through the mail, etc.) Refusing to sign is refusing to acknowledge that you have been arrested and therefore they need to go through the typical arrest procedure.
The police have discretion, but it is up to the procedures of the department. These police may have no choice in the matter. Unless you happen to know the specifics of their procedures, there is no way you can justify that statement.
Under what scenario do you see an officer ignoring the law in this case? Sympathy for his Richard Simmons voice or manly physique?
He acts like all the authority-phobic hippies I’ve ever met.
OK, you’re a Republican.
Dude, you’re not going to win this one. Let it go. It’s obvious to anyone who has ever used or been around recreational drug users that this guy’s mind was in another solar system at the time.
To me, resisting arrest implies a more… direct and hands-on approach to the procedure. You know, things like kneeing the cop who’s trying to cuff you in the nuts, that sort of thing. Seems to me, Naked Wizard is in the Ghandi tier of the “resisting oppression” scale. I dunno about you guys in the US, or guys in California (I have a tendency to equate naked guys drunk out of their skulls with California. Sue me), but 'round these parts, you resist arrest with a sawn-off shotgun.