SInce when is tasering a bad thing?
All the hoopla over the tasering of the student at the John Kerry rally has somewhat irritated me. I'm not going to argue whether the police should have reacted to him, or gotten involved. What I want to comment on is the spin that I keep hearing from both sides. "He got what he deserves, to be tasered" or "He didn't deserve to be tasered".
But, both of these statements, and many like them in the media any time a taser is used, profoundly mistate the purpose of a taser.
A taser is a weapon used to overcome resistance. Period. It is not a punishment. It's merely a step in what is called the "use of force continuum". Here it is in a nutshell.
When a police officer wishes to gain the compliance of a person (assuming he has the lawful right to do so), he may use whatever force is necessary to overcome their resistance, and no more. The force continuum starts with the safest, least likely to cause harm force (verbal request) and moves through to the most drastic level, deadly force. You start with the lowest level that will likely gain the objective and move up if it fails. Once compliance is obtained, you stop there.
The normal levels are:
1. Officer Presence - Often, the mere presence of a police officer will gain compliance
2. Verbal Command - "Come with me"
3. Physical contact - talking someone by the arm to walk them out.
4. Non-Lethal - Taser, Pepper Spray
5. Physical Control - joint locks, pressure points,
6. Serious Physical Contro - blows, strikes, batons.
7. Deadly Force - Firearm.
Here's the part people don't seem to get. The Taser, along with pepper spray, are used long before any type of "joint control" or pressure point manuvers are used. Why? Because you can injure someone much easier with an arm bar or choke hold than with a taser. Does a taser hurt? Yes. Does pepper spray hurt? Yes. But you are going to easily recover from both and have no lasting side effects. If an officer puts an arm lock on, and you continue to fight, you could have a broken arm, torn ligaments, etc. So, a taser is used early, because it's effective, and because it's probability of causing long term harm is very small.
Obviously, in the incident in question, the police went through #1 -#3 very quickly, and they were not working. If you watch all the videos on Youtube, you'll see that he was actively resisting and fighting their efforts to remove him from the meeting. So, a taser was used, which did the job. He was subdued and escorted out.
A taser isn't a punishment. It's a tool. And a very effective one. If the student truly didn't want to be tasered, he could have simply complied.
While I agree with and understand the levels of force you have listed, I still question whether the police acted within reason. I am the first to admit I don't know enought yet about this situation to get into an in-depth discussion - I'd like to know the set-up for the forum and the guidelines given to both the audience, Kerry and the police. All I have seen is footage on the news and footage on youtube.com. From that coverage I cannot confidently state whether I believe the police acted appropriately or not. While they may have followed the proper guidelines for escalation I still am not sure if they had reasonalble cause to escalate. I'm curious to hear more information as it comes out about the incident so I can continue to form a more educated opinion on what happened.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:27 PM
I lose cable connectivity for a few days and all hell breaks loose. I will have to go find these videos out on YouTube so I can see what all the fuss is.
Thoughts on this Randy (or anyone)?
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp
Posted by
Steaming bowl o' Calderone |
12:21 PM
There are bad cops out there, just like there are bad doctors, bad lawyers, bad McDonald's employees. And, because police are catagorized as "one equals all", the actions of those bad cops is painted across all police officers.
This guy should be off the force. He obviously doesn't have the personality for police work.
The only people who hate these types of cops worse than the general public are other cops. They make them all look bad.
Posted by
Randman |
1:20 PM