Student tasered - opinions?

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This happened locally yesterday, and is stirring up quite a debate. I'm still not so sure what I think, personally.
Student tasered, arrested at Kerry talk

[ September 19, 2007, 13:31: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

I agree. It seems he wanted to start a controversy and that's exactly what he got.

 

I'm with Tal on this one. The kids seemed determined to cause a ruckus and he got what he deserved.

 

You can all guess what I think of stuff like this -- he showed a lack of respect for not only authority but also for the rights of the general populace (overstaying his allotted time at the microphone.) I hate troublemakers like this. He deserved everything he got. People who think that if they are loud and obnoxious enough that the rules of common decency will be suspended for them need serious discipline. I hope the tasering hurt.

 

The guy got what he deserved. I'm with LKD. I hope it hurt.

 

The kid's a jackass. In an abstract sense, I'm all for tasing him.

However. Tasing is supposed to be one step down from the use of lethal force. Meaning its use in this case was excessive.

Which, actually, has become par for the course.

 

So if someone is resisting arrest are the cops just suppose to ask him nicely to stop resisting and come with them? Maybe they should say pretty please with sugar on top? I guess the other option is to beat him up with billy clubs. Tasering seems like a much better option to make someone who is resisting a bit more tractable.

Also, police using excessive force is acutally less common than it used to be. This age of litigation and video has contributed to the decline. In the old days the police were quite liberal with the use of their billy clubs. What you see nowadays is more the exception than the rule. Considering the kind of crap that cops have to deal with on a daily basis, I find the restraint that most demonstrate to be admirable and, quite frankly, incredible.

 

Amen to that, Dinsdale. Reason and pleasantries don't work with some people, and it is for those people that force is necessary. The more I think about this kid the more I think of some of the arrogant, snot nosed little buggers that I taught in the past -- growing up in a consequence free environment turned them into absolute idiots who believe that it is their right to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That particular set of rights does not exist in any society.

 

I think the whole debacle illustrates the violence inherent in the system.

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

Just had to throw that in there.

Think the kid got what was coming to him.

 

False dichotomy.

Sure. But police using tasers when they shouldn't is increasingly common.

 

At the end of the day, he resisted arrest - plain and simple. The police were merely trying to escort him out at first, not arrest him. He insisted on fighting with them and causing a scene. If the police weren't asserting "stop resisting!" repeatedly, I would agree that it would have been excessive force. They were justified in tasing the little tool, IMO. However, I will say that once he was aware that he was about to be tazed ("Don't taze me , bro!!"), at that point the officers should have shown better judgement and offered to let him up at that point if he would stop resisting. I agree that the kid had it coming, but the officers still could have shown better restraint. This certainly lends credibility to those who say tasers are overused by law enforcement these days.

 

Pfft. There are plenty of cases where it's not justified (one of them happened less than a block from my house), but this isn't one of them. The twerp should've been tased even earlier than he was.

 

When dealing with this kind of teenage-level mentality, once they have been given one chance to cooperate and they spit on it, it is rank folly to give them more chances. Case in point, the kid had repeatedly resisted both escort and then arrest. His loud, "sound-byte" plea "Don't taser me, Bro!" was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to garner sympathy and paint himself as a victim rather than the slimy little dork he was and is.

Had they let up on him, he's the type who would have continued causing a ruckus. The only thing that works with this sort of dirtbag is showing them that there will be consequences for their disobedience. Otherwise, they break their word each and every time ("One more chance, Teach? THIS time I'll be good!") They think those who continually fall for their line of crap are morons, and react with a commensurate lack of respect.

In an era of no Tasers, the cops would have been forced to use physical force to a degree that he would likely have been injured (this is the type of kid who will fight so hard that his shoulder gets dislocated and then blames to police instead of himself.) Any tool useful enough to restrain this kid would have been seen as excessive by some in society.

 

If you accept that the taser is considered to be one step below shooting someone in terms of tools available to the police, then you must think that his behavior was so bad that it nearly, but not quite, was enough to kill him over. Do you really think his behavior was that bad?

I can only speak for myself, but, no, that's not the case.

Any tool that is one step below shooting people would have been excessive in this case, yes. But that's not the same thing, at all.

 

@ AMaster - There's a huge difference between shooting someone and tasering them. I suppose that they could have used pepper spray, but then you have the danger of innocent bystanders being affected by the spray. Imagine the negative reaction had THAT occurred. Here are the options the police had as I see it.

1. Do nothing - Not a good option (see LKD's latest post).

2. Ask firmly for him to leave - Didn't work (the guy has no respect for authority).

3. Shoot him - Out of the question.

4. Pepper spray - Sometimes ineffective, danger of others, including the officers, being sprayed.

5. Beat him up - Not a good option either.

6. Taser - Enables cops to target the perpetrator without endangering bystanders and with far less risk of injury to themselves or the perp.

Since the guy didn't comply with the officers' firm request to leave and then resisted the officers, tasering was the best available option. The only other viable option was pepper spray.

 

*shrug*

I'm going by the only police ROE for taser use I've seen. Which, granted, was from New Zealand, but the bottom line was "this is not something to be used casually. Ever." The rationale is simple; you are inflicting excruciating pain on the target, and that is not something that should be done lightly.

I do understand that the ROE in US departments is a bit, ah, more permissive, but I'm not exactly a fan of those ROE.