Insane. Imagine what'll happen if they DO manage to get the Pentagon's Pain Ray tech licensed for domestic use.
The last time I brought this up, on a story about a cop tasering a crippled boy 20 times, I got in a fairly heated debate with someone who thought it was completely appropriate. I can't imagine anyone can try to defend this one, though.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I remember the crippled boy tasering, and I thought that was extremely excessive. But in this situation I'd have to agree with Shmuel. He warned her many many times, she was combative, non-compliant, and putting them both in danger by repeatedly attempting to get back in her truck.
Just because she was an older woman(calling her a great grandmother is simply for sympathy reasons) doesn't give her the right to act the way she did. And I think he was completely in the right to push her the way he did. You don't gently hold someone back in that situation, you push them back so you can keep your distance and keep both arms free to act.
I don't love the idea of tasing, I think cops can become too dependent on it when it isn't necessary, but I can't really find fault with how the office handled himself in this situation.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
On another note, when you are documenting the citation with a video camera, insisting on getting a signature on the ticket is stupid. I know, it's probably the law, probably not at the officer's discretion, but it's stupid.
Wouldn't it have been nice if the woman refusing to sign didn't escalate the situation?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Pushing her like that was out of line. He could have asked her to step back.
But really, he was the one near the road. The only reason for him to be standing to the left like that would be to showcase himself for the camera. She wasn't the one in the road --- he was. He should have just stepped out of the road, regardless of whether he was blocking the camera.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
I don't even need to watch the video to know what's going on here. I know it will be like 90% of all 'omg evil cop tases poor defenseless X' videos. It will be propogated wildly by people who use it as an example of terrible police brutality and totally cruel unnecessary use of a taser, then when you actually watch an unabridged edition, it will involve a person who is already under arrest, who resists and/or acts like an ass, is warned multiple times by the cop, probably resists having handcuffs put on despite being told they are under arrest, has the taser pointed at them, is warned again with the taser pointed at them, still resists, gets tased.
posted
Ok, I just watched it. Cop did nothing wrong. This includes grabbing her and pushing her back, which police officers are supposed to do if a non-cooperative moves towards traffic or their driver's door while being told to hold put by the officer. Not something you mitigate with words.
Then she resists arrest and physically resists having cuffs put on, gets yet more warnings, then dares the cop to tase her before starting to try to leave again.
Outcome not terribly surprising.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:HURRICANE, Washington County — A man died Tuesday after Hurricane police used a Taser on him.
Officers and medical personnel responded to a call for assistance with an agitated subject on state Route 59 Tuesday afternoon, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Police have not yet released the name of the man, but KSL-TV has identified the man as Brian Cardall, 32, the son of KSL editorial director Duane Cardall.
During the incident, a Hurricane police officer deployed a Taser and Cardall lost consciousness. Cardall was treated within moments by paramedics but was pronounced dead after being transported to a local hospital, according to the release.
According to KSL, Cardall and his wife, who is six months pregnant, had been visiting his family in Salt Lake City. As they were driving, his wife said, Cardall, who has a recent history of mental illness, was having an episode and that prompted them to pull over in order to medicate him.
At some point, Cardall got out of the vehicle and began to run down the road, according to KSL. That's when his wife called 911. She later learned he had been hit with a Taser and was unresponsive. . . .
The Hurricane Police Department declined to comment on the incident Tuesday evening, but Salt Lake City attorney Peter Stirba, who is representing Hurricane city and the police department, issued a statement.
"Obviously, the events of today are unfortunate and indeed tragic," Stirba said. "The Washington County attorney has the incident under investigation and review pursuant to the appropriate protocol. Beyond that, the city and the police department is not in a position to comment."
The officer has been placed on administrative leave, pending the investigation's results.
It is the police officer's job to stand between the person he is arresting and the traffic. He is more visible, and if the person decides to run they are less likely to run out into the street and be hit.
It is also his job to keep a safe distance from someone threatening or behaving in a threatening way. It is for his safety since the woman could have pulled a knife and stabbed him. Saying that she wouldn't because she was an elderly woman is a good way to be killed in the line of duty .
Don't forget that just yesterday an 88 year old grandfatherly man walked into a public place and started shooting, with the intent of killing everyone. He succeeded in killing a security guard.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Well, okay. For starters, the commentary writer states:
quote:The man was sick, he was running away, and now he’s dead. There’s no way that that can be rationally explained.
Of course it can. You have a man experiencing a mental breakdown, freaking out, and doing things which can easily prompt a disasterous restraining situation, whether tasers are used are not.
And, notably, restraint with tasers usually protects people from greater harm in these situations. In this situation, we don't even know yet if it was the taser that killed him, and it's actually pretty unlikely if other factors were involved (a grapple, or the suspect being pinned; the weight of an officer on top of someone is far more lethal than a taser).
The commentary piece is essentially "We don't know exactly what happened yet. But I want you to be disturbed about the use of a taser in this incident, regardless."
And the commentary in the Deseret News article is fraught with ignorance and kneejerk reactions to the Evil Taser, something I've more or less come to expect from these events.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The taser applies about 0.8 amps of current to its intended victim. According to the United States Navy's electronic engineering program (which I attended), cardiac arrest can be induced by as little as 0.1 amp of current.
Proponents of tasers state that the current is "far below the amount that would cause cardiac arrest in a healthy human heart". The problem, is that police officers are not qualified to assess the health of suspects.
The taser is an irresponsible alternative to a firearm. Someone in a poor state of health is less likely to die from a gunshot in the foot.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: The taser is an irresponsible alternative to a firearm. Someone in a poor state of health is less likely to die from a gunshot in the foot.
Even assuming that the shot does go to the foot and doesn't miss, what about the rest of us?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Ehh, shoot old ladies with a paintball gun loaded with jawbreakers then. It's still more responsible than pumping them with what the military considers a possibly lethal amount of electricity.
Crap, what if she had a pacemaker.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
Herblay: except that the police don't shoot someone in the foot who they only intend to subdue, and quite rightly. Police fire only when definitely necessary (someone is in danger of extreme bodily harm or death due to the person being shot at), not for warning, and aim for the torso.
Even if you truly believe shooting someone in the foot is somehow a safe alternative, giving officers the defense that "I was only trying to shoot him in the foot to subdue him" when a person is shot is an invitation to abuse.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:The taser is an irresponsible alternative to a firearm. Someone in a poor state of health is less likely to die from a gunshot in the foot.
This is ridiculous. An officer's firearm is not used as a nonlethal takedown device.
Tasers expand a police officer's options for nonlethal takedown in a way that keeps both officers and suspects much safer overall. You do not use both tools in the same fashion. there is no circumstance where an officer shooting someone in the foot with their firearm, when they could have used their taser, is justified. There are no circumstances where officers attempt to use guns for trope-esque "just a flesh wound" nonlethal takedown. It's pure fantasy.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:He should have just stepped out of the road, regardless of whether he was blocking the camera.
Yeah, see, I'm in big favor of the cops not getting in the way of the cameras-for their sake and for everyone else's.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Ehh, shoot old ladies with a paintball gun loaded with jawbreakers then. It's still more responsible than pumping them with what the military considers a possibly lethal amount of electricity
herblay, honestly. Imagine we go ahead and set up a parallel where officers used the "more responsible" method of pelting people with jawbreakers at 300fps where they would otherwise use a taser. yes, imagine how pleasant that video would have been. What a reasonable policy.
And, on top of that, your "more responsible" method would result in more deaths. Everything a police officer does, physically, during the restraint of a noncompliant, is a "possibly lethal" amount of something, be it force or electricity. Tasers were phased in as a replacement for billy clubs and more forceful takedown methods (if you couldn't get them in cuffs, you would usually just have to start beating them with a stick).
And, guess what! this occasionally resulted in people dying. more often than with tasers.
Tasers are useful primarily because they halt a subject's motor control by overriding muscular signals. This allows officers to cuff greatly resistant people with far less incidences of death due to asphyxiation or trauma, less broken bones, less wounded officers AND suspects. The macro-level analysis is damning to people who point to the taser being an electrical device as though that makes it categorically worse than using, say, a beatstick.
Or, hell, a Herblay Jawbreaker Gun.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: The taser is an irresponsible alternative to a firearm. Someone in a poor state of health is less likely to die from a gunshot in the foot.
Herblay, this just illustrates how uninformed you are about this situation. With the very rare and very conditional exceptions of snake-eating special ops guys*, no one I've ever heard of on Earth who is professionally trained in the use of firearms is trained to use them as weapon to subdue someone.
Has anyone heard of any police or military organization that trains its members to use firearms to subdue people? Serious question there. I've never heard of one, but I could be wrong.
You really ought to inform yourself better (or in this case, at all) before you start making such claims, Herblay.
*And even then, I've never actually heard of any who use guns that way. It's just I imagine with such folks, it might be possible.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Yeah, I don't agree with the use of tasers in many cases. But, when they are used within guidelines, I don't think it's the cop's fault if something goes wrong-- it's the system's fault for giving him a taser and telling him to use it in that situation, or the designer and manufacturer of the weapon's for making it too lethal. I agree that it would be better if more effective non-lethal options were developed so that tasers were relegated to less frequent or non-use, but it's not the cop's fault that someone died from appropriate use of what is supposed to be a "non-lethal" weapon-- it's the makers of the weapon, or maybe it's just a fluke. They do happen.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
It's true. The common person really doesn't understand irony.
Of course I'm not advocating shooting someone in the foot or with a jawbreaker. That's plain silly. I was only exagerrating my point.
The point is, a taser isn't a non-lethal form of enforcement. Medically speaking, it CAN generate enough electrical current to kill SOME people. That is a fact. And to treat it as an abolute non-deadly deterrent is rediculous. It's when officers become complacent that people will die.
It's like playing Russian roulette. Whether you only have one bullet in the chamber or not, there's the possibility to kill someone every time. Perhaps in this case the gun has 10,000 chambers --- that doesn't make it any less lethal when the bullet goes off.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
kq touched on this, but it's important in this conversation to note the difference between moral arguments for or against the use of tasers by police officers, and given the use of tasers by law enforcement whether particular officers are acting justifiably when they use them.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: The point is, a taser isn't a non-lethal form of enforcement. Medically speaking, it CAN generate enough electrical current to kill SOME people. That is a fact. And to treat it as an abolute non-deadly deterrent is rediculous. It's when officers become complacent that people will die.
It's like playing Russian roulette. Whether you only have one bullet in the chamber or not, there's the possibility to kill someone every time. Perhaps in this case the gun has 10,000 chambers --- that doesn't make it any less lethal when the bullet goes off.
This is an absolutely moronic argument against tasers. You don't think nightsticks are capable of killing some people? There is no measure of non-lethal force that doesn't have a chance of killing someone.
Hell, someone could have an allergic reaction to pepper spray and die. I guess that makes pepper spray DEADLY.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Humans are tough. We're large mammals who hunt in packs. It takes quite a bit of damage to make us stop fighting. If you're going to have law enforcement, then occasionally they will have to inflict such damage. A taser is a lot less lethal than the main alternative, which is to have a big damn stick and beat people until their muscles are too bruised to move, and/or they are too dazed to fight. If you object to having law enforcement at all, that's one thing; but objecting to tasers is a bit like supporting a military but not wanting them to have rifles.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: It's true. The common person really doesn't understand irony.
Of course I'm not advocating shooting someone in the foot or with a jawbreaker. That's plain silly. I was only exagerrating my point.
It's not 'irony,' herblay, it's 'facetiousness' or 'sarcasm.' And it was recognized. Yet in the face of that you were still saying things which were stupid, like the idea that a jawbreaker gun was, despite being one of your facetious alternatives, still "more responsible" because a taser uses electricity (gasp!)
Look, the appropriate response to arguments like these is to treat them as ridiculously as they are presented. Want to have your arguments taken more seriously? Don't rely on purposefully ridiculous premises. I'll tackle them at face value.
quote:The point is, a taser isn't a non-lethal form of enforcement. Medically speaking, it CAN generate enough electrical current to kill SOME people. That is a fact. And to treat it as an abolute non-deadly deterrent is rediculous.
Name a single police department that does not specifically teach officers that tasers can be lethal. Name a single police department that honestly approaches nonlethal takedown methods as though they did not engender even a remote possibility of fatal risk and were 100% non-lethal in all circumstances. They don't. They don't even treat pepper spray as unable to cause potentially fatal harm and have been stressing this for decades.
'non-lethal takedown methods' are named as such because this represents their intent: to subdue an individual while minimizing risk of bodily harm. They are as often called "less-lethal."
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
A lot of people are deathly allergic to peanuts. And cops would catch a lot of crap if peanut spray pacified people, but they used it anyway.
What's moronic is to believe that using tasers nonchalantly is okay because "it's not very likely to kill you". That's like saying that it's okay to drive 100 miles an hour because you probably won't wreck.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
The point is, the taser should only be used as an alternative to force. Force was certainly not required in this case. So, neither was the risk of a taser.
Amnesty International's report on tasers stated that 334 people were killed in the US due to taser use between 2001 and 2008.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Amnesty International's report on tasers stated that 334 people were killed in the US due to taser use between 2001 and 2008.
And? How many people were tazed? What were the alternatives to tazing and what are the fatality rates for the alternatives? A single number like that tells us nothing unless it's compared to a control.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: The point is, the taser should only be used as an alternative to force. Force was certainly not required in this case.
You're completely wrong, herblay. She resisted arrest. She was physically noncompliant when the officer began cuffing her after informing her that she was under arrest.
You are not allowed to resist arrest. There is no recourse in this event. If you are under arrest, you are under arrest. There is no defensible position for noncompliance and to physically resist creates the appropriate necessity of physical response. this necessitates force on the part of the arresting officer(s). A person who resists arrest and then gets wrestled to the ground or tased cannot use "but I was not a physical threat to the officer!" as an excuse, or a reason why the response was unjustified.
Do you understand that?
The officer could just as easily have been in the right had he wrestled her to the ground and forcefully bent her arms behind her back, because she was physically resisting arrest. And yet while it would not have sparked near as much outrage, she would have been in greater physical peril.
Tasers will continue to be popular among municipal law enforcement until the liability cost is demonstrably greater than that of other methods. This is not likely to happen, because despite the sound and fury of people who have a vehement and emotional response to tasers because oh my god, they're electrical! that could kill someone! they're actually far safer and absolutely should be incorporated into the process of managing noncompliants.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: The point is, the taser should only be used as an alternative to force. Force was certainly not required in this case. So, neither was the risk of a taser.
Amnesty International's report on tasers stated that 334 people were killed in the US due to taser use between 2001 and 2008.
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Once again, I'm glad I didn't go into the Navy.
Why? Does the Navy use tasers indiscriminately?
No, but they have obviously failed to educate Herblay properly. About tasers, electricity, validity of sociological studies and sample sizes, impartiality of sources, and the definition of resisting arrest.
Not to mention the definitions of the words "can" and "will" and risk assessment.
posted
While usually I am a big less-than-three lover of amnesty international, their case against tasers is downright sloppy.
They point to 334 people 'killed by tasers' in eight years and they do not control this figure to account for the fact that the vast vast vastvastvast majority of these cases (as I recall) actually are only 334 people who died in circumstances where tasers were involved but likely were in no way the principal cause of death.
in effect, if you have a guy hopped up on methamphetamines and he struggles violently with cops, gets pepper sprayed, has the weight of seven cops on him as they struggle to restrain him, and then he gets tased to help the cops get the cuffs and leg binders on, and he goes off to the hospital and dies on-route, Amnesty International (or its data-mining associates) will count this as A Taser Death!
There are a few cases where death probably would not have occurred had tasers not additionally complicated the issue of a meth-pumped, overdosing, overtaxed system getting asphyxiated on a slab of concrete due to being pinned by cops, but we can't say because the AI figure does not control for it. It simply defaults to saying they were killed 'due to taser use.'
And let's say that somehow miraculously this study was not sloppy (it is) and these were all deaths caused by—not associated with—tasers. That puts us at about, what, 40 deaths yearly by tasers?
You will have a significantly larger number of people dying to other routine non-taser restraining methods used by cops the world over.
Although to be fair to amnesty international, even if they are fudging that statistic somewhat, they still may only be using it as a counterclaim to the idea that tasers are 100% non-lethal, wherever that claim may originate from.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I like Lalo's original suggestion... Bring on the Active Denial System!
Even if his suggestion was meant in the most sarcastic way possible. Oh, and sign me up for being tased before being shot or beaten with a nightstick...
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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The pickup truck our sweet littler grandmother was driving is also extremely lethal. She was driving dangerously, going 60mph in a 45mph work zone--endangering the lives of the workers, other drivers, and herself.
She refused to except the ticket, and had the appearance that she refused to accept that she was doing anything wrong or dangerous--hence she would soon be going back to driving as badly.
So Mr. Police man has limited number of options.
1) He can threaten to shoot her, and then do so.
2) He can do nothing, allowing this one to get away with her crime, and continue to believe that all she has to do is scream at the policemen and raise enough stink, and she can continue to commit other crimes, drive her vehicle just as dangerously.
3) Use Pepper Spray which can be accidentally lethal
4) Use force, which can be accidentally lethal.
5) Use the taser, which can be lethal.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: maybe tranq guns? would that work?
Samp, I once told Puffy that every time he linked tvtropes, he owed me fifty bucks for lost time. I think I'm going to have to start charging you too.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Police do not use tasers indiscriminately. All cops I know hesitate to use them, in fact, and hate to use them. They generate all kinds of paperwork - because, rightly so, there is accountability built into the system. Anytime a cop tases someone, he/she has to answer for why the taser was used, what efforts were made to subdue before the taser was considered, and then they have to call medical help for the suspect and remain on scene until paramedics check them out.
The only time they should be used is in a case which, before tasers, would have called for a nightstick. Would people be more or less outraged had the great-grandmother been beaten by a nightstick?
I would submit that tasers are less lethal than nightsticks and much less likely to cause permanent harm.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I don't have anything much meaningful to say about the subject, but I am curious if the Oscar Grant case took a turn on hatrack. Of course if it was, I'll be embarrassed if I find that I posted in the thread.
The claim that the officer thought he was going for his taser appears concocted after the fact, and was not believed by the judge in the case (and I don't believe it either).
What do you guys think, was charging the officer with murder the right thing to do?
The video is probably easy to find online, and is rather creepy to watch. The guy is face first on the ground, and does not appear threatening in any way. The officer stands up, takes out his pistol, and appears to calmly shoot him in the back.
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Herblay: except that the police don't shoot someone in the foot who they only intend to subdue, and quite rightly. Police fire only when definitely necessary (someone is in danger of extreme bodily harm or death due to the person being shot at), not for warning, and aim for the torso.
Even if you truly believe shooting someone in the foot is somehow a safe alternative, giving officers the defense that "I was only trying to shoot him in the foot to subdue him" when a person is shot is an invitation to abuse.
I think you're misunderstanding Herblay. The taser is supposedly intended as a nonlethal replacement for a firearm. If this officer hadn't been armed with a taser, does anyone here seriously think he would be justified shooting her? Or using a nightstick on her?
If not, all these comparisons insisting tasering is better than shooting or beating her are hopelessly stupid. There are ways to restrain great-grandmothers that don't involve weapons.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:There are ways to restrain great-grandmothers that don't involve weapons.
Are they less harmful and more efficient, though?
That's the 3 million dollar question, indeed. A given option may be a regrettable one, but it's still the best one if all the other options are more regrettable.
From what I have read, tasers (used properly by trained people) still have a lower rate of lonr-term damage than other comparable tools in the appropriate settings. And if the total number of problems would be worse with other standard solutions, then it is what it is.
---
And, of course, QFT to underscore:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: kq touched on this, but it's important in this conversation to note the difference between moral arguments for or against the use of tasers by police officers, and given the use of tasers by law enforcement whether particular officers are acting justifiably when they use them.
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Police do not use tasers indiscriminately. All cops I know hesitate to use them, in fact, and hate to use them.
Unfortunately, even if only a tiny fraction of cops use them badly, like 5% or 2%, that still leads to a lot of incidents.
quote:The only time they should be used is in a case which, before tasers, would have called for a nightstick.
Cops in Texas tasered a man having a diabetic seizure. The department determined that the use of tasers was appropriate. Do you really agree?
quote:Would people be more or less outraged had the great-grandmother been beaten by a nightstick?
I think most people would say that the threat invovled in an elderly women swearing and struggling against a guy twice as strong as is not high enough to warrant either. If the situation isn't dire enough to warrent a broken arm, then it's not serious enough to warrant risking someone's life.
quote:I would submit that tasers are less lethal than nightsticks and much less likely to cause permanent harm.
This is a false dicotomy.
Google "taser diabetic". Multiple incidents come up of cops tasering people who were in diabetic comas or seizure, or on the cusp of being in one. In most of the cases, the cops' departmetns cleared the cops of wrongdoing, or gave them light administrative punishment.
How many cops do you think break the bones of people in diabetic crisis with their nightsticks?
Look up the Milgrim experiment, and observe how many more peole were willing to inflict pain when all it took was a flip of a switch, as opposed to manually pushing the subject's hand on the shock plate. It's human nature that tasers will be used more often than nightsticks.
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